As of 5/14, Google has announced that their Search Generative Experience or now known as Google AI Overviews (AIO) has begun rolling out. You may have already experienced this with your own Googling as SGE/AIO has been in beta for quite a while now. Below is a screenshot of what you can expect on desktop.
As you can see, there are no references to the websites in which these answers are being pulled. Users are able to see the website/video/content that the answer is coming from by clicking on the arrow at the end of the query. Rest assured that we are following all the other experts who are constantly testing the algorithm on the best ways to ensure your content doesn't fall out of favor.
Issues surrounding SEO
Here are some key elements that we find most relevant with this release:
- Direct answers are now right there without having users click away
- Organic results are now getting pusher even further down the search engine result page
- You are not only competing with your competitors, you're now also competing with Google's AI summaries of content
Challenges
- Greatly reduced clickthrough rates aka reduced organic search traffic
- Changes in searcher behavior. How many users, scroll past the AIO results? That's something we will be keeping a close eye on.
Opportunities & Strategies
- Content adaption – Not every query on Google will have these summaries. Our research will be more in-depth aboutwhat andhow AIO is appearing for any given topic.
- We've found that more informational searches are including the AIOs
- We've always had Google's E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) framework in the back of our minds but this will be more important than ever. In Google's latest algorithm shift, First Party Experience rules in content.
- Google's AIO and Schema work hand and hand. We'll be coming up with Schema strategies that can help with the website and blog.
We're not sounding any major alarms…yet, but the next two or so months will be super telling on how we approach your long-term SEO strategy. If you're interested in talking to flyte about this or your SEO in general, please contact us!
John comes to the flyte new media team with a motivation to help clients grow their business and online presence. He brings a lot of enthusiasm and a positive attitude to flyte’s marketing department. He is Google Analytics and Google Ads certified which is where his true work passion lies, SEO, Local SEO, and paid search. He can be kind of a data nerd but that’s never a bad thing.
An avid sports fan, a day doesn’t go by where John doesn’t catch that game, that score, or that highlight play. He continuously joins way too many fantasy sports leagues but don’t worry, his win percentage is still very high. John can also be found adventuring with his wife, their daughter, and Goldendoodle, Harper Lee.