As soon as we detected the first traffic coming from the Perplexity search engine to our clients’ websites, we began paying closer attention to its development and features. Even though it remained overshadowed by Google and Bing during the first half of 2025, Perplexity has been winning over more and more users with one key advantage: the absence of ads and sponsored content.

How Did Perplexity Appear?

In many countries across Europe, North America, and beyond, when we say “the search engine,” we automatically mean Google Search. Up until 2022, this was perfectly normal, and many website owners struggled with one particular SEO challenge: How do we rank first on Google?

The boom that began with the launch of ChatGPT changed the rules of the game significantly. Users now search for and access information in a completely different way, and the top positions in search results are no longer guaranteed to the same websites—especially in the context of answers generated by AI chatbots.

See more in our 2023 marketing blog article: What Is Search Generative Experience (SGE) and How Will It Affect Your SEO Strategy?

A former OpenAI employee is the founder of Perplexity, which managed to gather around 10 million users during its first two years on the market (2022–2024). Although this number is tiny compared to Google’s billions of users, Perplexity’s concept attracted the attention of major investors (Amazon, Nvidia, and others), secured a record investment for a startup in the industry, and today is valued at 520 million dollars.

An Ad-Free Experience: Is This What Makes Perplexity Special?

We’re all familiar with the model where a platform gains a critical mass of users and becomes an attractive target for advertisers - think Meta, Google, Microsoft, and countless others.

Perplexity, however, promises something different. Its philosophy is built around direct, simplified search and access to information, uninfluenced by advertising algorithms or budgets. It is not the first attempt to challenge the dominance of Google and Bing, but Perplexity identifies several fundamental flaws in the traditional search engine model:

• You often search for a specific product, service, or brand, yet search engines still show you several competitor ads before you reach what you actually wanted. Annoying if you already know exactly what you're looking for.
• Sponsorship makes it possible for low-quality websites or pages to appear prominently - even if they would not naturally rank at the top.
• Instead of receiving direct, high-quality answers, you end up surfing through “noise” on the topic.

The Perplexity interface somewhat resembles ChatGPT, whose models power some of its backend processes. You can have a familiar dialogue with the chatbot and personalize your AI profile—choosing language, tone, and preferred response format.

However, several fundamental differences from Google Search will immediately stand out:

• Extremely simplified and direct presentation of results, generated in real time
• A small number of authoritative sources cited for each topic
• Clear analysis and interpretation of the intent behind your search
• A list of optional follow-up questions you may ask

Conclusions

👉 The ad-free search experience is a major topic, but it’s unlikely we’ll see major players change their model anytime soon. Every advertiser wants to “capture” a customer who has just expressed interest in a product or service.

👉 Quality, authority, and uniqueness of content have always been - and will remain—the best practice for effective SEO, SAIO, GEO, and whatever else we end up calling optimization for search engines and AI chatbots.

👉 The format of search results, however, is something even the big players will need to reconsider.

Google Search aims to show you comprehensive results with a single click - summaries, maps, prices, images, videos, business reviews, and much more - while Perplexity focuses on essential information, presented in just a few lines and with one suggested direction for continuing your search.

If you’re a fan of deep research on a topic, you’re likely used to Google’s approach. But if too much information leads you to asking even more questions instead of finding answers, Perplexity’s philosophy will probably appeal to you much more.