Search Is Changed Forever

Did You Know? Google is unveiling a new “AI Overview” feature in their results pages that appeared on 91.4% of e-commerce keyword search results in a recent study. (Source)

If you work anywhere near SEO, undoubtedly you’ve heard about the March 2024 Google Update, one of Google’s semi-regular core algorithm updates that cause sweeping panic across the blogosphere.

With this update, Google announced its goal was to reduce spam and clean up the search engine results pages (SERPs):

Three weeks into the update’s stated month-long rollout, and Google seems to be delivering on that promise. I’m active in a lot of marketing and SEO-related Reddit communities, and there’s been no shortage of contempt for this latest algorithm update.

One of the biggest complaints is that smaller sites are getting steamrolled and replaced by Reddit and Quora threads. Right or wrong, undoubtedly that’s been happening. Check out estimated organic search traffic for those sites according to SEMrush.

Reddit

Quora

Both sites have seen surges in their organic search traffic of more than 300% according to SEMrush since June/July of 2023—just 9 months ago—without any sign of stopping.

Reddit I can understand. I append “+ reddit” to a lot of my search queries if I want to see user feedback and discussion on a subject.

But Quora? Has anyone ever found a Quora search result helpful?

Now, those fighting for real estate in Google’s SERPs have another major announcement to deal with.

Google is testing new “AI Overviews” in search results pages

In May 2023, Google announced a new search experience available in Search Labs: Search Generative Experience (SGE).

(If you aren’t familiar with Search Labs, it’s a sandbox environment where Google can test new search features with a limited group of users who opted in to test and provide feedback on new features.)

With SGE, Google says they’re “taking more of the work out of searching, so you’ll be able to understand a topic faster, uncover new viewpoints and insights, and get things done more easily.“

Translation: SGE use generative AI models (similar to ChatGPT) to understand your search query and build a customized-for-you result panel with an answer to your question, plus quick links to related questions you may have based on the topic you’re Googling.

Google offered this example of an SGE result for someone searching for “what's better for a family with kids under 3 and a dog, bryce canyon or arches.“

The SGE result provides a massive panel taking up two-thirds of the above-the-fold real estate, where users focus 86% of their attention, with an AI-generated answer to the search query, plus a couple suggested follow-up queries to dive deeper into the subject:

• “How long to spend at Bryce Canyon with kids?“

• “How many days do you need in Arches National Park or kids?“

Presumably, clicking on those suggested follow-up queries build a new SGE panel with another tailored-to-you AI-generated response and more follow-up queries.

This link shows you a GIF of the entire SGE experience for an initial e-commerce search query of “good bike for a 5 mile commute with hills.“ You can see how it might be transformative for the user.

As Google begins to integrate these SGE results into live search pages, they’re rebranding them as “AI Overviews.”

What impact will AI Overviews have on the SERPs?

Time will tell, but we do have some educated guesses based on SGE performance in Search Labs.

Authoritas recently published a follow-up to an initial massive SGE research study that’s absolutely worth a read if you’re even remotely concerned with Google search performance.

The researcher’s conclusion?

The studies focused mostly on e-commerce-style keywords with the author manually curating a list of 2,900 keywords across 15 industry categories, such as Automotive, Entertainment, Finance, Health & Wellness, etc. Each keyword had one of five different tags applied:

Here’s a link to all keywords in a Google Sheet developed by the researcher.

These were the results:

• 91.4% of search results included an AI Overview.

• Of the 15 industries, Insurance (52%) and Finance (71%) had the lowest AI Overview penetration.

• When expanded, AI Overview panels pushed the top search result down by an average of 1,255 pixels, which is substantial.

• The average AI Overview included 10.75 generative links from an average of 4.3 unique domains.

• Only 38% of those generative domains had any of their pages ranked in the top 10 search results for that keyword.

• Only 17.9% of generative links matched the URL of a page ranked in the top 10 for that keyword.

• Quora finished as one of the 20 highest-performing domains in 11 of 15 categories.

Holy disruption, Batman!

Here are some visuals from that research.

First, how often an SGE result appeared in search across the 15 categories tested:

Second, how often an SGE result appeared in search across those 5 keyword tags:

A reminder of what the study’s author, Laurence O’Toole said in that quote just a few paragraphs above:

“If Google decides to rollout the current incarnation of its Search Generative Results then SEOs will see the traffic and value from top organic rankings dissipate.”

Well, Google has decided to roll it out. AI Overviews are coming to a SERP near you.

Everyone say, “Hi!” to Omar F 👋

Question: What’s the most random fact you know?

Omar F’s Answer: “A day on Venus lasts 243 Earth days while a year on Venus lasts 225 Earth days so a day is longer than a year.”

ChatGPT-Generated Joke of the Day 🤣

Why don't eggs tell jokes?

Because they might crack up.

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