Count On Coffey

By Jeremy Dietz, Director of AI Strategy and Content

Traditional search engines (Google, Bing, etc.) and large language models (LLMs, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity) work in different ways. This quick guide explains some of the basic differences and what they mean for healthcare marketers.

Indexing vs. training

Traditional search engines return results based on crawling and indexing
web pages.

LLMs generate answers based on patterns learned during training. Some LLMs can also search the web in real time to find current information.

What this means for your marketing strategy: LLMs have come a long way, from working like elaborate autocomplete tools to providing more nuanced responses that blend training data with live search results. To be visible in LLM responses, focus on creating authoritative, expert content that search engines can index and LLMs can cite as credible sources.

Answers vs. links

Traditional search engines provide links to websites. If your site appears at the top of search results, you should expect clicks and traffic.

LLMs provide answers that may or may not include sources and/or links. As a result, being part of an LLM answer may not provide much traffic to your website.

What this means for your marketing strategy: LLMs are accelerating a trend already seen in traditional search. The result may be less overall traffic but potentially higher-intent visitors who are closer to making a decision.

Deterministic vs. probabilistic

Traditional search engines return largely deterministic results. That means if you do the same search several times, you're likely to see the same results.

LLMs return probabilistic results. That means if you ask the same question multiple times, you will probably get different results each time.

What this means for your marketing strategy: Because results vary, you can't rely on a single ranking position. Instead, focus on building consistent expertise across your content. Being cited once doesn't guarantee future visibility, but being recognized as an authority in your field improves your chances.

Categories: Digital