Google AI Overviews and the impact on SEO

The integration of AI technology into Google Search has had a recent evolution with the introduction of Google’s AI Overviews. 

Marketers need to understand what AI search is, the impacts it’s having on the search landscape, and how users are interacting with it, in order to protect and grow organic performance.

What are Google’s AI Overview search results?

On May 14th 2024, Google announced their next step in AI search; AI Overviews. It’s a massive leap forward from SGE, with the goal of completely transforming the user experience of search engines. 

AI Overviews appear at the top of Google’s search result page, providing users with an AI-written snapshot. The results are generated using Google’s Gemini LLM (Large Language Model), scanning and summarising information from a range of web sources into one single result. 

It’s only been released in the US so far, but Google have confirmed that users across the globe will be able to access the feature by the end of 2024. It’s gradually being rolled out across different industries and languages, but it’s still early days and is only showing up in 0.55% of search results. 

Google AI Overviews vs Featured Snippets

AI Overviews appear differently to traditional featured snippets, they take up more space at the top of the search results. And unlike featured snippets, they generally have more than one website link.

Below is an AI Overviews result compared to the traditional Featured Snippet result. 

The benefits of AI Overviews

1. It’s quicker for the user

The fundamental idea behind AI Overviews, is that “Google will do the Googling for you.” By providing the user with an instant answer, it’s more efficient. No scrolling and no visiting several websites. 

2. Personalised results for each users

A big change to the traditional search results, AI Overviews are uniquely tailored to the user’s search query. AI predicts the results that it thinks are the most relevant to each user. 

3. AI overviews link to the source

Unlike ChatGPT, AI Overviews provides users with a link to the source. They’re not trying to completely hold the monopoly of the search results. 

The impact of Google AI Overview’s on search engine marketing

As AI overviews has only very recently been introduced in the US, and is still yet to be spun out globally, it’s difficult to say exactly what impact it will have on search engine marketing. But what do we know so far, and what can we predict?

What types of search queries have AI Overviews?

Search queries can be split into four categories; informational, navigational, commercial and transactional. AI Overviews are mostly being used for informative searches, where the user is looking for a specific answer to their question. It’s very similar to featured snippets. 

It’s not being used to sell products, or promote a specific brand, it’s serving an answer. Knowing this is key to navigating SEO in this next chapter of search. 

How will organic traffic be impacted?

Google won’t be adding a feature to Search Console to show how many clicks or impressions a website will get from AI Overviews, so determining the exact impact on organic traffic will be difficult.

If you find that organic traffic drops, specifically from non-branded and informative search queries, it’s likely that it’s lost to AI Overviews. 

It’s not to say that it’ll only have a negative impact. If your content is pulled through to an AI Overviews result, you may see organic traffic increase. Again, it will require a bit of data-digging to come to a conclusion. 

The future of AI in search

Amidst the fails, like telling users to use glue to get cheese to stick to pizza, or that cats are able to play in the NBA. Google has said that they’re still refining, and constantly improving the technology. 

What else is being added to AI Overviews?

• Video search - an evolution of voice search, users will be able to take a video and get an answer or solution without typing a single character.

• Break it down - users will have three options to adjust the information: original, simpler and break it down, the information-filled response. 

Adapting your SEO strategy to AI search

AI Overviews doesn’t mean that SEO strategies need to u-turn in direction. In fact, it’s the opposite. We’re recommending to our clients that SEO strategies should still follow the same principles.

1. Focus on E-E-A-T 

E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trust) continues to be an important factor for SEO. Consider how you can continue to demonstrate EEAT across your digital channels.

2. Valuable content for the end-user

Create high-quality, human-written content that meets the needs of users, not crawlbots. What unique insights, or experience-based advice can your brand give, that others can’t?

3. Featured snippets are still king

With AI Overviews being used for search queries that are similar to snippet results, you should optimise towards featured snippets, knowledge graph and people also ask results. Your content strategy should be targeting these terms. 

4. Strong technical performance

A technically solid website lays the foundations for your content, so it’s vital that technical SEO performs well. 

At true, we are going to be continuing to monitor how AI Overviews evolves and the impacts it’s having on SEO. If you have any questions, please get in touch at info@truedigital.co.uk.