SERP Changes - AI Overviews and SGE
Published by Chris Glynn – 23/08/2024
What AI Overview is & Why it Matters
AI Overview is a new feature in 2024 on Google, that we knew was coming. It’s been rolled out over the past few months and now it’s here and strong. When you type in a keyword (usually long tails or questions), an AI pop up that takes up 1/3 of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) appears. What affect does this have on your website and rankings?
Firstly the good news is we still have the traditional search results below the AIO. But, back when Google first rolled out its Search Generative Experience (SGE) in May 2024, which eventually turned into AI Overviews, they frequently highlighted sources that weren’t in the top 10 organic results. This led to some sketchy and less reliable sources popping up in those AI Overviews. At this point, they withdrew a lot the feature from a lot of search results. While you’ll see noted on the AI Overview for your given search query that “AI Overview is Experimental”, its’ presence is now stroger than ever attempting to answer thousands of queries on the web. We know it has been pulling in websites outside of the top 10, but there are some good signs from our research. What is the effect of this on the SEO landscape? What techniques need to change? Let’s delve in.
How Big is this Change?
In January during early testing, the sources showing up in SGE were totally different from the top 10 Google organic search results a staggering 93.8% of the time, according to an analysis by Authoritas. The report stated, “93.8% of generative links (in this dataset at least) came from sources outside the top-ranking organic domains. Only 4.5% of generative URLs matched a page 1 organic URL directly, and just 1.6% had a different URL from the same organic ranking domain.” Not the case anymore – this suggests that Google is now starting to weave in more traditional search ranking signals into its custom Gemini model. This is great news for site owners and SEOs because it means that sticking to best practices for optimization is still the way to go.
We know from research, that it is both popular phrases and long tail keywords in question/informational form that are seeing this AI popup appear. While this can affect cumulative traffic if targeting long tails is your given keyword approach (most common for sites with low-medium authority and wanting to maximise their traffic/reach), it is also good news. We are starting to see stronger and more relevant website links. For example, we carried out some research for one of our clients, Houston Kiltmakers, by searching for the phrase “what to wear to a Ceilidh”, they have been in position 1 for a while for this phrase, now an AI Overview appears first. However, they now are position 1 with a link in the AI Overview too, this means more exposure, and with queries like this, it’s reassuring that Google is in fact rewarding content-first organic search strategies it seems.
Not all Good Though…
However, all is not rosy across every search phrase, we’ve seen AI Overview pull in irrelevant results from websites that haven’t been updated in years, and the truth of the matter is, we need to remember this feature is still experimental and we are confident that by optimising using white-hat techniques, we can continue to grow websites via our bespoke approaches with the same core similarities such as building domain ratings and releasing fresh content, but now there is an extra area of the SERP to target.
Any Questions?
Do you have any questions about SGE, AI Overviews and how this will impact your SEO strategy? Drop us an email here.
Closing Note.
Finally, a quick note on targeting via keywords. We know that continuing to push authority will help appearance in AIO, but now long tail keywords are starting to look even more attractive. These are usually longer phrases, with lesser search volume that websites with low-medium authority can rank for more easily (as bigger sites with huge DR’s are targeting higher search volume phrases), and here’s a sneak peak, for our clients we will be looking to utilise AIO appearrance as part of their bespoke strategies when we look at fresh content.