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Stick a Fork in Them; They’re Done

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Stick a Fork in Them; They're Done

In 2012, Google’s Matt Cutt published his now-infamous post proclaiming that guest blogging for SEO was “done” because it had “just gotten too spammy.”

In 2022, I think you can say the same thing about expert roundups.

I’ll explain why below. But first, let’s make sure we’re on the same page…

What are expert roundups?

Expert roundups are blog posts that feature quotes from industry experts about a specific topic.

For example, below is a roundup of SEO tips. You can see that it features quotes from 30+ experts, including some extremely well-known faces like Glen Allsopp and our very own Tim Soulo:

Expert roundup example

Why do people create expert roundups?

In my opinion, there are three main reasons:

  1. Exposure
  2. Backlinks
  3. Relationships

But rather than just share my opinion on the matter, I polled my Twitter followers.

Here are the results of the poll:

Let’s take a look at the results in more detail.

Backlinks

According to my poll, backlinks are the top reason for creating an expert roundup—with 43.9% of folks citing it as their primary aim.

The idea here is simple: If an “expert” is willing to contribute to your roundup, perhaps they’ll also be willing to link to it. This is good for SEO because backlinks are one of Google’s top-ranking factors.

Building relationships

Building relationships is the second most popular reason for creating an expert roundup, with 36.8% citing it as their primary aim.

This makes sense, as building relationships with influential and well-connected industry experts can open all kinds of doors. It’s how I managed to get a backlink from Glen Allsopp (Detailed) back in the day, and it’s kind of how I landed my job at Ahrefs.

Exposure

Exposure is the least popular reason for creating an expert roundup, with only 19.3% of respondents citing it as their primary aim.

People tend to share content that paints them in a positive light. So the idea with expert roundups is that, once published, many of the featured “experts” will share the post on social media and your blog will get some nice exposure.

It’s basically egobait. You’re literally referring to these people as experts in your content, so why wouldn’t they want to share it?

I also got a reply to my tweet from Jeremy Rivera, who gave a fourth reason for creating expert roundups: crafting expert-supported content:

This makes sense. But personally, I’m not convinced the “expert roundup” format is usually the best way to do this. (More on this later.)

Why do “experts” contribute to expert roundups?

Given that most “experts” are already well connected, they’re probably not contributing to roundups to build relationships. They’re almost certainly doing it for backlinks.

But again, let’s not trust my opinion…

I polled my Twitter followers. Here are the results:

No prizes for guessing the outcome here. I think it’s pretty much what we all expected.

Sidenote.

This poll attracted fewer votes than my first, so take the results with a pinch of salt. However, in my opinion, backlinks are the number one reason to get involved in expert roundups. 

What’s the issue with expert roundups?

Expert roundups have no real downsides for contributors. It rarely takes more than a few minutes to answer the creator’s question and, in return, they get exposure, a backlink, and a nice egoboost.

For example, here’s my contribution to an expert roundup. I was asked to name my top three keyword research tools:

Joshua Hardwick featured in an expert roundup

In this case, replying to an email with six words landed me a mention and backlink on a DR71 site. The post I’m featured in now gets an estimated 284 organic monthly visits:

Traffic to expert roundup

But for the creators and readers of roundups, there are a few issues…

1. It can be hard to get enough actual experts to contribute

In the early days of expert roundups, someone reaching out and asking for your contribution made you feel special because it didn’t happen often. Now, everyone is creating expert roundups, and genuine experts are inundated with requests.

This means they have to pick and choose which ones to contribute to, making things harder for publishers to get the quotes they need.

As a result, some publishers seem willing to accept quotes from, well, pretty much anyone.

Just look at this expert quote in a recent roundup I found about link building tactics:

Bad expert roundup contribution

Really? The best strategy for building backlinks is blog commenting, where 99% of links are nofollowed and almost certainly won’t pass much “authority” either way?

I can’t imagine anyone close to being a link building expert saying this in the last 10 years.

Sidenote.

I changed the wording of the quote above slightly, but the gist is the same. I did this because I don’t want to pick on anyone, and I know you savvy SEOs can easily find the exact quote. 

Now, I hold no grudges against the person who gave this quote. They were clearly asked and thought “why not?” But the reality is that including these kinds of quotes leads to a deterioration in the perceived quality of expert roundups over time—which further dissuades experts from contributing.

It’s a vicious cycle, and it’s why expert roundups have (in my opinion) become so spammy in recent years.

2. The format rarely aligns with search intent

People are typically looking to do one of three things when they type something into Google:

  • Buy something
  • Learn something
  • Get somewhere (i.e., a specific website)

You may think that an expert roundup matches search intent when the searcher is looking to learn, but let me ask you this: How often do you really want a list of hundreds of random and potentially opposing opinions when you’re just trying to find the answer to something?

Probably not very often, which is why expert roundups are rarely an optimal content format if you want to rank high on Google.

3. Experts rarely link to roundups they’re featured in

If you’re publishing an expert roundup with the aim of attracting backlinks from contributors’ websites, I have bad news: Most experts probably aren’t going to link to your roundup.

How do I know? I cross-referenced the external links and referring domains to an expert roundup we published in 2015 to see how many of the featured experts linked to the roundup. I found the result to be 21%—or roughly 1 in 5.

That may not sound too shabby, but you have to remember a few things:

  1. We published this post when expert roundups were arguably at the height of their popularity.
  2. Pretty much everyone in the SEO industry wants to be featured on the Ahrefs blog, so being featured in our roundup is something to shout about.
  3. We already had relationships with many of the people who linked to us.

In other words, in 2022, unless you’re a well-known brand, this number is almost certainly going to be much lower.

My opinion: You may get 1 in 10 contributors to link to you—if you’re lucky.

4. Experts rarely share roundups they’re featured in

You’d think that sharing the roundup on Twitter would be a no-brainer for those featured. But it seems that very few do this either. I checked Twitter, and only a handful of those featured in our expert roundup appear to have shared it.

Even if they do, the reality is that their share is unlikely to send much (if any) traffic our way.

Don’t believe me? Here’s the number of link clicks a recent tweet of mine got:

Dire performance on Twitter

Again, the numbers may not look too bad. But here’s what it took to get those clicks:

  • 8,000+ followers
  • Retweets from the official Ahrefs account and two of my colleagues, which exposed my tweet to a further 135,000+ people.

Of course, true experts tend to have lots of followers too, but they rarely have the amplification of big brands like Ahrefs behind them.

All in all, it’s unlikely that you’ll get more than a handful of clicks from experts sharing your post on social media.

Three better alternatives to expert roundups

Expert roundups may have had their day, but there are still ways to utilize expert contributions to improve content and SEO. You just need to be a little more creative and put in more effort. Let’s look at a few ideas.

1. Interview an expert and write up their insights

If you want to write about a topic but lack the expertise to do so, consider interviewing an expert and writing up their insights.

This is precisely what we did for our post about Google penalties.

Interview format is often better than an expert roundup

Having limited experience with Google penalties ourselves, we interviewed three experts on the topic, including Marie Haynes. We then compiled their knowledge and insights into a guide.

There are a few benefits to this approach:

  1. You can still match search intent – As you’re writing up expert insights, you’re free to use any content format you like. If search intent calls for a list of tips, you can write a list of tips. If it calls for a guide, you can write a guide.
  2. You improve E‑A-T – E‑A-T stands for expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. It’s what Google’s human quality raters use to assess the quality of search results. It’s not a direct ranking factor, but improving and demonstrating E‑A-T can lead to many SEO benefits.
  3. Your expert is arguably more likely to share the content – Being included in an expert roundup among dozens of others may give you a bit of an egoboost, but having a piece centered almost entirely around your knowledge and insights will surely give you a bigger one. This will, thus, increase the chances of experts sharing the content.

If you’re not sure who to interview for your piece, run a search in Ahrefs’ Content Explorer.

The tool is a searchable database of over 9 billion pages, and it has authorship information for some of them. This means you can run a search to find prolific writers on a topic.

For example, if we want to write a piece about Google’s Knowledge Graph, we can search Content Explorer for the pages with “knowledge graph” in their titles.

Search in Content Explorer

If we then go to the “Authors” tab, we’ll see the names of authors who’ve published the most pages matching our search.

Here, we can see that Aaron Bradley has authored 12 pages with “knowledge graph” in each page’s title:

Searching for experts in Content Explorer

If we click on the number of pages, we can see everything he’s written on the topic:

Content Explorer results

This guy clearly knows his stuff, so he is a fantastic person to interview for our article.

2. Poll experts for interesting stats

People often cite statistics and link to the source. If you don’t believe us, just look at the anchors and surrounding texts of backlinks to our search traffic study:

Cited statistics leading to links, via Ahrefs Site Explorer

You can see that pretty much all of the links are from folks citing statistics on our page.

If you’re lucky enough to have access to unique data and insights as we are, publishing content laden with statistics is easy—and you’ll naturally earn backlinks as a result. But if you don’t have in-house data, a good way to create unique statistics is to poll experts.

This is precisely what Paddy Moogan did for Aira’s annual “state of link building” report.

He polled 250 digital marketing professionals and consolidated their responses into graphs like this:

Aira state of link building report

The result? Backlinks from 346 referring domains and counting.

Aira state of link building report backlinks

If you’re wondering who to poll for this kind of content, use Content Explorer to find experts who’ve already written about your topic.

For example, here are a few top authors who’ve written about link building (you may notice a familiar name there!):

Link building experts via Content Explorer

TIP

Maximize the link-earning potential of existing posts by adding insights from your poll. For example, we mentioned a statistic from our search traffic study in our keyword research guide, and it earned a few extra backlinks as a result:

Statistic links via Site Explorer

3. Poll experts for product recommendations

Most affiliate websites make their money by ranking for general comparison keywords, i.e., “best [product category].”

Unfortunately, to create truly useful content for these keywords, you usually have to test and review dozens of products yourself. Not only is this costly, but you’re also basing your recommendations on one person’s opinion—which may not align with the consensus of others.

One solution to this is to poll experts for their recommendations.

This is precisely what Robbie Richards did in his post about the “best link building tools.” He asked 82 link builders to vote for their favorite link building tool, tallied up the results, and recommended their favorite to his audience:

15-ahrefs-poll-recommendation

You can use this approach for non-affiliate keywords too.

For example, we polled the 10,000+ SEO professionals in our private Facebook group to compile recommendations for our list of the best free SEO tools.

Expert poll example

Final thoughts

Expert roundups, in the traditional sense, are dead unless you have clout. And even then, these roundups are less effective than they once were. But by creatively using experts to source information, you can still apply some of the same principles to enhance your content, earn more backlinks, and get organic traffic.

Got questions? Disagree? Let me know on Twitter.




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Firefox URL Tracking Removal – Is This A Trend To Watch?

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Firefox URL Tracking Removal - Is This A Trend To Watch?

Firefox recently announced that they are offering users a choice on whether or not to include tracking information from copied URLs, which comes on the on the heels of iOS 17 blocking user tracking via URLs. The momentum of removing tracking information from URLs appears to be gaining speed. Where is this all going and should marketers be concerned?

Is it possible that blocking URL tracking parameters in the name of privacy will become a trend industrywide?

Firefox Announcement

Firefox recently announced that beginning in the Firefox Browser version 120.0, users will be able to select whether or not they want URLs that they copied to contain tracking parameters.

When users select a link to copy and click to raise the contextual menu for it, Firefox is now giving users a choice as to whether to copy the URL with or without the URL tracking parameters that might be attached to the URL.

Screenshot Of Firefox 120 Contextual Menu

Screenshot of Firefox functionality

According to the Firefox 120 announcement:

“Firefox supports a new “Copy Link Without Site Tracking” feature in the context menu which ensures that copied links no longer contain tracking information.”

Browser Trends For Privacy

All browsers, including Google’s Chrome and Chrome variants, are adding new features that make it harder for websites to track users online through referrer information embedded in a URL when a user clicks from one site and leaves through that click to visit another site.

This trend for privacy has been ongoing for many years but it became more noticeable in 2020 when Chrome made changes to how referrer information was sent when users click links to visit other sites. Firefox and Safari followed with similar referrer behavior.

Whether the current Firefox implementation would be disruptive or if the impact is overblown is kind of besides the point.

What is the point is whether or not what Firefox and Apple did to protect privacy is a trend and if that trend will extend to more blocking of URL parameters that are stronger than what Firefox recently implemented.

I asked Kenny Hyder, CEO of online marketing agency Pixel Main, what his thoughts are about the potential disruptive aspect of what Firefox is doing and whether it’s a trend.

Kenny answered:

“It’s not disruptive from Firefox alone, which only has a 3% market share. If other popular browsers follow suit it could begin to be disruptive to a limited degree, but easily solved from a marketers prospective.

If it became more intrusive and they blocked UTM tags, it would take awhile for them all to catch on if you were to circumvent UTM tags by simply tagging things in a series of sub-directories.. ie. site.com/landing/<tag1>/<tag2> etc.

Also, most savvy marketers are already integrating future proof workarounds for these exact scenarios.

A lot can be done with pixel based integrations rather than cookie based or UTM tracking. When set up properly they can actually provide better and more accurate tracking and attribution. Hence the name of my agency, Pixel Main.”

I think most marketers are aware that privacy is the trend. The good ones have already taken steps to keep it from becoming a problem while still respecting user privacy.”

Some URL Parameters Are Already Affected

For those who are on the periphery of what’s going on with browsers and privacy, it may come as a surprise that some tracking parameters are already affected by actions meant to protect user privacy.

Jonathan Cairo, Lead Solutions Engineer at Elevar shared that there is already a limited amount of tracking related information stripped from URLs.

But he also explained that there are limits to how much information can be stripped from URLs because the resulting negative effects would cause important web browsing functionality to fail.

Jonathan explained:

“So far, we’re seeing a selective trend where some URL parameters, like ‘fbclid’ in Safari’s private browsing, are disappearing, while others, such as TikTok’s ‘ttclid’, remain.

UTM parameters are expected to stay since they focus on user segmentation rather than individual tracking, provided they are used as intended.

The idea of completely removing all URL parameters seems improbable, as it would disrupt key functionalities on numerous websites, including banking services and search capabilities.

Such a drastic move could lead users to switch to alternative browsers.

On the other hand, if only some parameters are eliminated, there’s the possibility of marketers exploiting the remaining ones for tracking purposes.

This raises the question of whether companies like Apple will take it upon themselves to prevent such use.

Regardless, even in a scenario where all parameters are lost, there are still alternative ways to convey click IDs and UTM information to websites.”

Brad Redding of Elevar agreed about the disruptive effect from going too far with removing URL tracking information:

“There is still too much basic internet functionality that relies on query parameters, such as logging in, password resets, etc, which are effectively the same as URL parameters in a full URL path.

So we believe the privacy crackdown is going to continue on known trackers by blocking their tracking scripts, cookies generated from them, and their ability to monitor user’s activity through the browser.

As this grows, the reliance on brands to own their first party data collection and bring consent preferences down to a user-level (vs session based) will be critical so they can backfill gaps in conversion data to their advertising partners outside of the browser or device.”

The Future Of Tracking, Privacy And What Marketers Should Expect

Elevar raises good points about how far browsers can go in terms of how much blocking they can do. Their response that it’s down to brands to own their first party data collection and other strategies to accomplish analytics without compromising user privacy.

Given all the laws governing privacy and Internet tracking that have been enacted around the world it looks like privacy will continue to be a trend.

However, at this point it time, the advice is to keep monitoring how far browsers are going but there is no expectation that things will get out of hand.

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How To Become an SEO Expert in 4 Steps

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General SEO

With 74.1% of SEOs charging clients upwards of $500 per month for their services, there’s a clear financial incentive to get good at SEO. But with no colleges offering degrees in the topic, it’s down to you to carve your own path in the industry.

There are many ways to do this; some take longer than others.

In this post, I’ll share how I’d go from zero to SEO pro if I had to do it all over again. 

1. Take a beginner SEO course

Understanding what search engine optimization really is and how it works is the first state of affairs. While you can do this by reading endless blog posts or watching YouTube videos, I wouldn’t recommend that approach for a few reasons:

  • It’s hard to know where to start
  • It’s hard to join the dots
  • It’s hard to know who to trust

You can solve all of these problems by taking a structured course like our SEO course for beginners. It’s completely free (no signup required), consists of 14 short video lessons (2 hours total length), and covers:

  • What SEO is and why it’s important
  • How to do keyword research
  • How to optimize pages for keywords
  • How to build links (and why you need them)
  • Technical SEO best practices

Here’s the first lesson to get you started:

Lesson 1: SEO Basics: What is SEO and Why is it Important? Watch now

2. Make a website and try to rank it

It doesn’t matter how many books you read about golf, you’re never going to win a tournament without picking up a set of clubs and practicing. It’s the same with SEO. The theory is important, but there’s no substitute for getting your hands dirty and trying to rank a site.

If you don’t have a site already, you can get up and running fairly quickly with any major website platform. Some will set you back a few bucks, but they handle SEO basics out of the box. This saves you time sweating the small stuff.

As for what kind of site you should create, I recommend a simple hobby blog. 

Here’s a simple food blog I set up in <10 minutes: 

A blog that I set up in just a few minutes. It's nothing special, but it does the jobA blog that I set up in just a few minutes. It's nothing special, but it does the job

Once you’re set-up, you’re ready to start practicing and honing your SEO skills. Specifically, doing keyword research to find topics, writing and optimizing content about them, and (possibly) building a few backlinks.

For example, according to Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer, the keyword “neopolitan pizza dough recipe” has a monthly traffic potential of 4.4K as well as a relatively low Keyword Difficulty (KD) score:

Keyword metrics for "neopolitan pizza dough" via Ahrefs' Keywords ExplorerKeyword metrics for "neopolitan pizza dough" via Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer

Even better, there’s a weak website (DR 16) in the top three positions—so this should definitely be quite an easy topic to rank for.

Page from a low-DR website ranking in the top 3. This indicates an easy-to-rank-for keywordPage from a low-DR website ranking in the top 3. This indicates an easy-to-rank-for keyword

Given that most of the top-ranking posts have at least a few backlinks, a page about this topic would also likely need at least a few backlinks to compete. Check out the resources below to learn how to build these.

3. Get an entry-level job

It’s unlikely that your hobby blog is going to pay the bills, so it’s time to use the work you’ve done so far to get a job in SEO. Here are a few benefits of doing this: 

  • Get paid to learn. This isn’t the case when you’re home alone reading blog posts and watching videos or working on your own site.
  • Get deeper hands-on experience. Agencies work with all kinds of businesses, which means you’ll get to build experience with all kinds of sites, from blogs to ecommerce. 
  • Build your reputation. Future clients or employers are more likely to take you seriously if you’ve worked for a reputable SEO agency. 

To find job opportunities, start by signing up for SEO newsletters like SEO Jobs and SEOFOMO. Both of these send weekly emails and feature remote job opportunities: 

SEO jobs in SEOFOMO newsletterSEO jobs in SEOFOMO newsletter

You can also go the traditional route and search job sites for entry-level positions. The kinds of jobs you’re looking for will usually have “Junior” in their titles or at least mention that it’s a junior position in their description.

Junior SEO job listing exampleJunior SEO job listing example

Beyond that, you can search for SEO agencies in your local area and check their careers pages. 

Even if there are no entry-level positions listed here, it’s still worth emailing and asking if there are any upcoming openings. Make sure to mention any SEO success you’ve had with your website and where you’re at in your journey so far.

This might seem pushy, but many agencies actually encourage this—such as Rise at Seven:

Call for alternative roles from Rise at SevenCall for alternative roles from Rise at Seven

Here’s a quick email template to get you started:

Subject: Junior SEO position?

Hey folks,

Do you have any upcoming openings for junior SEOs?

I’ve been learning SEO for [number] months, but I’m looking to take my knowledge to the next level. So far, I’ve taken Ahrefs’ Beginner SEO course and started my own blog about [topic]—which I’ve had some success with. It’s only [number] months old but already ranks for [number] keywords and gets an estimated [number] monthly search visits according to Ahrefs.

[Ahrefs screenshot]

I checked your careers page and didn’t see any junior positions there, but I was hoping you might consider me for any upcoming positions? I’m super enthusiastic, hard-working, and eager to learn.

Let me know.

[Name]

You can pull all the numbers and screenshots you need by creating a free Ahrefs Webmaster Tools account and verifying your website.

4. Specialize and hone your skills

SEO is a broad industry. It’s impossible to be an expert at every aspect of it, so you should niche down and hone your skills in the area that interests you the most. You should have a reasonable idea of what this is from working on your own site and in an agency.

For example, link building was the area that interested me the most, so that’s where I focused on deepening my knowledge. As a result, I became what’s known as a “t-shaped SEO”—someone with broad skills across all things SEO but deep knowledge in one area.

T-shaped SEOT-shaped SEO
What a t-shaped SEO looks like

Marie Haynes is another great example of a t-shaped SEO. She specializes in Google penalty recovery. She doesn’t build links or do on-page SEO. She audits websites with traffic drops and helps their owners recover.

In terms of how to build your knowledge in your chosen area, here are a few ideas:

Here are a few SEOs I’d recommend following and their (rough) specialties:

Final thoughts

K Anders Ericsson famously theorized that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a new skill. Can it take less? Possibly. But the point is this: becoming an SEO expert is not an overnight process.

I’d even argue that it’s a somewhat unattainable goal because no matter how much you know, there’s always more to learn. That’s part of the fun, though. SEO is a fast-moving industry that keeps you on your toes, but it’s a very rewarding one, too. 

Here are a few stats to prove it:

  • 74.1% of SEOs charge clients upwards of $500 per month for their services (source)
  • $49,211 median annual salary (source)
  • ~$74k average salary for self-employed SEOs (source)

Got questions? Ping me on Twitter X



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A Year Of AI Developments From OpenAI

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A Year Of AI Developments From OpenAI

Today, ChatGPT celebrates one year since its launch in research preview.

From its humble beginnings, ChatGPT has continually pushed the boundaries of what we perceive as possible with generative AI for almost any task.

In this article, we take a journey through the past year, highlighting the significant milestones and updates that have shaped ChatGPT into the versatile and powerful tool it is today.

ChatGPT: From Research Preview To Customizable GPTs

This story unfolds over the course of nearly a year, beginning on November 30, when OpenAI announced the launch of its research preview of ChatGPT.

As users began to offer feedback, improvements began to arrive.

Before the holiday, on December 15, 2022, ChatGPT received general performance enhancements and new features for managing conversation history.

Screenshot from ChatGPT, December 2022ChatGPT At One: A Year Of AI Developments From OpenAI

As the calendar turned to January 9, 2023, ChatGPT saw improvements in factuality, and a notable feature was added to halt response generation mid-conversation, addressing user feedback and enhancing control.

Just a few weeks later, on January 30, the model was further upgraded for enhanced factuality and mathematical capabilities, broadening its scope of expertise.

February 2023 was a landmark month. On February 9, ChatGPT Plus was introduced, bringing new features and a faster ‘Turbo’ version to Plus users.

This was followed closely on February 13 with updates to the free plan’s performance and the international availability of ChatGPT Plus, featuring a faster version for Plus users.

March 14, 2023, marked a pivotal moment with the introduction of GPT-4 to ChatGPT Plus subscribers.

ChatGPT At One: A Year Of AI Developments From OpenAIScreenshot from ChatGPT, March 2023ChatGPT At One: A Year Of AI Developments From OpenAI

This new model featured advanced reasoning, complex instruction handling, and increased creativity.

Less than ten days later, on March 23, experimental AI plugins, including browsing and Code Interpreter capabilities, were made available to selected users.

On May 3, users gained the ability to turn off chat history and export data.

Plus users received early access to experimental web browsing and third-party plugins on May 12.

On May 24, the iOS app expanded to more countries with new features like shared links, Bing web browsing, and the option to turn off chat history on iOS.

June and July 2023 were filled with updates enhancing mobile app experiences and introducing new features.

The mobile app was updated with browsing features on June 22, and the browsing feature itself underwent temporary removal for improvements on July 3.

The Code Interpreter feature rolled out in beta to Plus users on July 6.

Plus customers enjoyed increased message limits for GPT-4 from July 19, and custom instructions became available in beta to Plus users the next day.

July 25 saw the Android version of the ChatGPT app launch in selected countries.

As summer progressed, August 3 brought several small updates enhancing the user experience.

Custom instructions were extended to free users in most regions by August 21.

The month concluded with the launch of ChatGPT Enterprise on August 28, offering advanced features and security for enterprise users.

Entering autumn, September 11 witnessed limited language support in the web interface.

Voice and image input capabilities in beta were introduced on September 25, further expanding ChatGPT’s interactive abilities.

An updated version of web browsing rolled out to Plus users on September 27.

The fourth quarter of 2023 began with integrating DALL·E 3 in beta on October 16, allowing for image generation from text prompts.

The browsing feature moved out of beta for Plus and Enterprise users on October 17.

Customizable versions of ChatGPT, called GPTs, were introduced for specific tasks on November 6 at OpenAI’s DevDay.

ChatGPT At One: A Year Of AI Developments From OpenAIScreenshot from ChatGPT, November 2023ChatGPT At One: A Year Of AI Developments From OpenAI

On November 21, the voice feature in ChatGPT was made available to all users, rounding off a year of significant advancements and broadening the horizons of AI interaction.

And here, we have ChatGPT today, with a sidebar full of GPTs.

ChatGPT At One: A Year Of AI Developments From OpenAIScreenshot from ChatGPT, November 2023ChatGPT At One: A Year Of AI Developments From OpenAI

Looking Ahead: What’s Next For ChatGPT

The past year has been a testament to continuous innovation, but it is merely the prologue to a future rich with potential.

The upcoming year promises incremental improvements and leaps in AI capabilities, user experience, and integrative technologies that could redefine our interaction with digital assistants.

With a community of users and developers growing stronger and more diverse, the evolution of ChatGPT is poised to surpass expectations and challenge the boundaries of today’s AI landscape.

As we step into this next chapter, the possibilities are as limitless as generative AI continues to advance.


Featured image: photosince/Shutterstock



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