Search engine optimization (SEO) is losing relevance amid the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on search. But Tripadvisor CEO Matt Goldberg doesn’t see SEO as completely obsolete.
As the travel industry navigates a new, AI-oriented reality, Goldberg said SEO is still relevant, at least in terms of best practices.
Goldberg discussed his views on AI search and more in a wide-ranging interview at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference earlier this week.
“The same skills that allow you to be crawled and cited are the same skills for SEO that they are for AI,” Goldberg said. “That’s what Google has indicated they’re seeing. That’s what we’re seeing with our capability. Clearly, brands that are trusted—and we are still the most trusted brand of all the travel verticals—[have] content that is from real travelers.
All that said, Tripadvisor, like the rest of the industry and the world, is experiencing the earth-shifting power of AI as it becomes more and more capable, changing the way travelers find information, inspiration and booking trips.
Adjusting to the new search world
Tripadvisor’s brand is helping maintain its position as a category leader for internet travel search, even as generative search optimization becomes relevant and zero-click search on Google comes into play, Goldberg said.
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“We have content that is high quality, and we’re focused on positioning ourselves well,” Goldberg said. “Now, while SEO has its challenges, and you talk about zero-click search, we’re positioning ourselves to adjust to that.”
Goldberg said Tripadvisor’s strategy involves getting more travelers to come directly to its brands, Tripadvisor, Viator and TheFork, leveraging content, data and SEO capabilities to appear high in AI-first search.
Leaning into partnerships
Partnerships, Goldberg said, are driving this AI-first search strategy.
“We’re doing a lot of partnership to learn about AI-first search, multimodal search, agentic AI,” he said. “Our view is that we’re going to position ourselves, leveraging all of these assets to really shape how AI changes the travel future, and we’re excited about it.”
Tripadvisor began offering AI summaries and first integrated OpenAI for trip planning in 2023. The company was listed as an OpenAI partner upon the launch of its Operator earlier this year. In January, OpenAI announced it was partnering with Perplexity to improve trip planning.
During its third quarter earnings call in 2023, Tripadvisor revealed that members who used the AI-powered trip planning tool to create itineraries came back at a higher rate, and those who built an itinerary also brought in three times more revenue than an average member.
Every single one of our partnerships is around a learning agenda and being very adaptive and eclectic about what the value exchange is.
Matt Goldberg, Tripadvisor
“Every single one of our partnerships is around a learning agenda and being very adaptive and eclectic about what the value exchange is,” Goldberg said at the Goldman event this week.
“It could be that we’re going to license, could be that we’re going to see traffic that we’re going to convert. It could be that we’re going to build entirely new experiences in our partnerships that we’re going to share revenue for.”
Goldberg is notably excited, adding that he sees “proof” in collaboration opportunities. “We get [calls] from all of the major LLM companies saying, 'Let’s figure out how to do something together.' We’ve signed five deals in the last six months.”
Optimizing for generative search
Beyond its partnership efforts and existing authority in the space, Tripadvisor is looking at what works in a generative search environment.
Goldberg said user-generated content has been very helpful, and he anticipates it will continue to be.
“We’re focused on that content asset and ensuring that not only is that a stable and durable content asset that continues to renew itself, but it’s something we’re going to focus on for the future,” he said. “We’re going to make it easier for travelers to rate and review and leave their points of view on our platform.”
The key to doing so is having real reviews left by travelers—not AI-generated reviews.
Goldberg said his team is pleased with the performance.
“What we’re seeing is that AI-first traffic from that search ecosystem, sometimes called generative search optimization, is growing exponentially,” he said. “It’s a small base, but it’s growing exponentially, and the traffic is higher-intent. We’re converting it more effectively.”