Google announced Google AI overviews in mid-May, marking the start of a serious discussion on the role of generative AI in Google’s search. The feature was first rolled out to US users in May but has since expanded to India, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Indonesia, and the UK.
Understanding Google AI Overviews
If you are keen, you might have realized an AI Overview result at the top of the results of some of your search queries. This is what is called Google AI Overviews.
Ideally, Google AI overview is a Google feature that provides AI-generated summaries at the top of search results. The feature is powered by Gemini (Google’s custom AI assistant), which gives users quick access to detailed and relevant information from multiple online sources.
For example, here is an image of my results after searching for SGE on Google.
As you can see from the results, some of the characteristics of AIO include:
- Summarized information: Google AI overview gathers data from multiple sources, providing clear summaries of complex topics. This can give the user a clear understanding of a topic without the need to visit the websites.
- Valuable insights from reputable sources: Since Google AI overview pulls data from various reputable sources, it provides a wide range of perspectives and insights, making the answer more trustworthy.
- Contextual understanding: AI overviews provide detailed answers to complex questions, offering users deeper insights into their queries. It goes beyond fast-checking to provide detailed comparisons, making it easier for users to find what they want.
- Structured responses: AI overviews segment answers under clear sections or headings, helping users easily navigate longer queries.
- Customization and detail: Depending on the searcher’s query, the AI overview can be brief or detailed. In fact, the user can adjust the depth of the AI Overview response based on their needs, ensuring flexibility in the search experience.
What is Search Generative Experience (SGE)?
On October 12, 2023, Google introduced generative AI to its search platform as part of SGE. This experiment by Google Search Labs allows users to use AI to generate images and text directly from the search bar.
A few months later, SGE became part of AI overviews, which was first rolled out to US residents on May 14, 2024, and continues to expand to other countries.
So, SGE is an AI-powered feature that provides generative responses that are better than traditional search results. In addition to displaying a list of links, SGE pulls data from multiple sources to deliver a summarized overview of the answer based on the user’s query. SGE is part of Google’s efforts to enhance the search experience with artificial intelligence, ensuring a better understanding of user’s needs.
So, What is the Relationship between AI Overviews and SGE?
Google AI overviews and SGE are part of Google’s plan to integrate artificial intelligence into its search engine to improve how users access information.
- AI Overviews in SGE: AI overviews are a central part of SGE—Google uses AI models like Gemini to pull information from multiple sources, providing users with concise summaries of complex queries.
- Improved search capabilities: SGE uses AI Overview capabilities to enhance search outcomes. With the help of features such as natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning, SGE offers smarter and more contextual results than traditional search.
- AI helps with personalization: Google AI models allow SGE to personalize responses based on the user’s search history or preferences, offering personalized experiences to each user.
- Multimodal search integration: Another key area of integration between AI overviews and SGE is their ability to process various forms of input, including text, images, and visual queries, using tools like Google Lens.
How to Access AI Overviews and SGE
Fortunately, you don’t require any special skills to access Google’s SGE. The rollout is ongoing to various users worldwide, with most users accessing it simply by searching.
However, it is important to ensure that your browser and Google app are updated to enjoy the full benefits of Google SGE. Additionally, go to Google Search settings and enable any new AI features or enhanced search experiences.
Since AI overviews are part of Google Search, there’s no way to disable all of them in search.
Do I Need to Pay to Use Google AI Overviews?
The question of payment often arises when it comes to Google and search. However, as mentioned earlier, Google AI overviews appear alongside search results at no extra cost, and you won’t need a subscription to optimize your website for Google’s SGE. You just need to publish high-quality, informative content that matches the search intent. However, you may want to explore premium tools like Google Cloud AI to explore advanced paid AI options.
How SGE Compares to Traditional Search
Google and other traditional search engines work by crawling and indexing web pages and ranking them based on keyword relevance to the search query. When a user performs a search, they are presented with a list of URLs, with each link containing a potential answer to their query. The user then needs to visit each website to access the information they are looking for.
Google AI overview changes this completely. With the help of artificial intelligence, SGE analyzes websites and generates an informative summary of the search results. This way, the user doesn’t have to visit multiple websites to get a detailed answer, potentially saving them significant time. Ultimately, this can deny the top-ranking websites of clicks.
So, What are the Benefits of Using AI Overviews and SGE?
Google SGE has many benefits for both searchers and businesses. For example, it reduces the need to hop from one website to another when searching for an answer to a query. This can result in faster results, allowing users to quickly find the information they want. SGE understands user intent and provides customized answers and recommendations, offering users a good search experience.
Businesses can greatly benefit from the integration of AI overviews and SGE. By producing high-quality, informative content, brands increase their chances of being featured in Google AI summaries. This enhances their visibility in search results, positioning their website in front of relevant audiences without users needing to sift through multiple search entries.
Being featured in AI overviews can lead to several advantages:
- Increased visibility: AI overviews pull content from authoritative sources, which means creating valuable and informative content increases the likelihood of your brand appearing in search summaries. This can help boost website traffic and awareness.
- Enhanced user experience: Since AI overviews provide concise, relevant answers to user queries, appearing in these overviews enhances the user’s journey. If your content is included, users are more likely to view your website as a trusted source, leading to longer engagement times.
- Personalized search results: AI overviews and SGE adapt based on user behavior, providing more personalized and relevant results. If you consistently offer value through your content, you can tap into this personalization, improving your chances of appearing in relevant searches and appealing to your target audience.
Challenges of Google AI Overviews and SGE
Despite its creative approach, AI overviews have potential drawbacks. These include:
Impact on Content Visibility
Some marketers are concerned that over-reliance on AI could prevent users from finding their content. Additionally, there’s a concern that AI may result in algorithm biases where it favors some form of content generation and recommendations over others.
Quality Concerns
SGE can sometimes give inaccurate results. This is a huge concern, especially in critical fields like financial advice and medicine.
Privacy Concerns
AI overviews use user data to give personalized results to a search query, which can raise privacy concerns. Businesses and marketers need to understand AI-driven algorithms to fully adapt.
Google AI Overviews Impact on Organic Traffic
One of the concerns marketers have about Google’s AI overview is its impact on organic traffic. Since AI summaries provide users with direct answers to their queries, SGE will likely reduce the number of searchers who click individual websites to look for information. This can lead to an increase in zero-click searches, potentially decreasing organic traffic for information-based websites.
For example, when users search for “SGE,” they might receive a quick AI summary that answers many of their questions, negating the need to visit a specific website for more information.
The fact that a user can get quick and comprehensive overviews of their queries without visiting multiple websites means that websites that heavily rely on organic traffic to boost visibility and user engagement may be impacted.
According to research by Aleyda Solis, three types of SGE snapshots affect websites differently. They include:
Direct Answer Snapshots
These snapshots offer direct answers to the searcher’s queries. Websites that saw high volume traffic from such queries will likely be affected. A good example of such websites include sites that gained traffic from featured snippets. AI overviews will likely answer these questions, thus impacting such websites.
Exploration Snapshots
These reduce searching work for users by providing diverse answers to a searcher query. The multiple perspectives on a question directly from a search page can significantly reduce click-through rates. Exploration snapshots can include tutorials, blog articles, and other resources that offer contextual, relevant, and authoritative answers to a user question.
Deep Dive Snapshots
Finally, these snapshots provide deep coverage of a topic, reducing the need for the user to click further to find more in-depth information, leading to a decrease in organic traffic. Deep dive snapshots can include expert opinions, research papers, blog articles, and many more.
How Google AI Overviews Will Impact SEO
Google AI overviews and SGE will change how we do SEO. As we move forward, keyword optimization, backlink quality, and on-page and off-page factors will not be enough to realize excellent results in SEO. Google AI overviews emphasize the need to produce contextually relevant content that matches user intent.
However, this doesn’t mean that SEO will become irrelevant. It only reaffirms the need to prioritize the user instead of only focusing on keyword stuffing and backlinks. To rank on Google and appear on Google AI summaries, you need to establish your brand as a thought leader. Of course, you can only achieve this if you focus on producing high-quality and informative content that provides value to users and positions you as an expert in your industry.
A crucial thing to note regarding SGE is the rise of zero-click experiences due to users finding the information they need directly in search without clicking on multiple websites. This is a concern for many businesses and marketers.
However, like other Google changes, businesses should learn how to adapt to remain visible and valuable even with the rise of Google AI. But, user engagement might not always lead to website visits in this case. It necessitates moving away from traditional success metrics like click-through rates to focusing more on optimizing your content for direct visibility with the SERPs.
Of course, you still need to focus on features like site speed and mobile-friendliness, but you must also optimize for AI-powered search algorithms. This includes providing immediate, relevant, and accurate answers and personalized recommendations to improve user experience, increase user engagement, and reduce bounce rates.
It’s also crucial that you stay up to date with Google algorithm updates and Google’s AI advancements and adapt your SEO strategies appropriately.
How Google AI Summaries will Influence SEO Practices and What to Do
Content Quality Will Become More Important than Ever
The term “content is king” has been used for a long time. However, the bar has become even higher with the introduction of Google AI. Marketers should focus on creating informative, well-structured, authoritative content to increase their chances of appearing in Google AI overviews.
Google AI can evaluate and understand content to determine whether it is relevant and authoritative. Always conduct in-depth analysis and provide clear and relevant answers to increase your visibility in search results.
Key takeaways:
- Improving the already available content (top-ranking content), commonly known as the skyscraper technique, might not be enough. To increase your visibility, provide origins, authoritative content that positions you as an industry leader.
- Conduct more in-depth research for each content you produce. Consider getting quotes from internal and external experts to make your content more authoritative.
Keyword Stuffing is Outdated
Keyword stuffing worked in the past few years, but it no longer does. Today, especially with the introduction of SGE, you need to find a way to incorporate meaningful keywords naturally in your content. Remember, Google AI prioritizes content that directly answers a query, not just matching keywords.
Steps to take:
- Instead of performing a simple keyword research to find keywords to include in your content, go to TikTok or Quora (social search) to find out what users are interested in. In addition to keywords, you will have specific questions that users want answers to.
- Avoid putting more attention on keyword scores. Instead, create high-quality, informative content and then add keywords naturally.
Zero-Click Experiences will Rise
As stated earlier, with Google AI, users can find answers to their questions without clicking on a website for more information. As such, marketers should adjust their content strategies to align with the new developments.
When creating your content, focus on creating visible and authoritative content to increase your chances of being featured in search results.
Steps to take:
- Optimize featured snippets and other rich results that Google AI prioritizes when producing direct answers.
- Become a thought leader in your space. Create in-depth content that users can’t find in AI summaries,
- Provide downloadable resources to give users a reason to click through your website.
User Experience is more Crucial than Ever
Google AI can analyze how users interact with your website, making user experience a crucial visibility factor. Google AI can access engagement metrics like time on page, bounce rate, and interaction rates to determine whether you offer a good user experience.
Steps to take:
- Create human content that is easy to read and understand, not AI-generated
- Monitor the on-site performance of specific pages of your website.
Preparing for Google AI Overviews
One thing to take from the Google AI overview is the need to create relevant, informative, and authoritative content that can be featured in Google AI summaries. Here are tips to help make your SEO aligned to Google AI overviews and SGE:
- Focus on long-tail keywords: Target search terms that users will likely use when looking for deeper queries. By focusing on longer and more specific phrases, you will likely create content that matches user intent and is worthy of appearing in Google AI summaries.
- Focus on E-E-A-T: When creating your content, focus on Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (E-E-A-T). Conduct in-depth research, cover the topic entirely, and cite credible sources to establish yourself as an expert in your space.
- Create for the user: Create content that directly addresses user pain points. Think about the user intent and focus on the questions your target audience is asking when crafting your content.
- Go in-depth: Provide data and unique insights into your content, ensuring your content goes beyond the surface level. This will make your information worthy of appearing in organic searches and Google AI summaries.
- Don’t ignore featured snippets: Ensure your content for featured snippets is high-quality and concise, and directly address search queries to increase the chances of it appearing in AI summaries.
Moving Forward
Google AI overviews will undoubtedly affect our SEO and rankings in organic search. To stay ahead of the game, it is crucial to consistently produce high-quality, informative content that directly answers user search queries.