Tag Archive for: AI overviews

New Research Shows SEO Is Key For Appearing In AI Overviews

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Based on an analysis of over 25,000 user searches, websites that rank at the top of Google’s traditional search results appeared in AI search answers at least 25% of the time. 

This means that even in the era of increasing zero-click searches and decreasing clicks to search listings, SEO remains a crucial marketing strategy for brands looking to improve their online presence and reach more customers. 

The Study

The findings come from Tomasz Rudzki, co-founder of ZipTie. In an attempt to determine if SEO was losing relevance in the AI age, Rudzki assessed searches from ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s AI overviews. 

What Rudzki saw was clear – sites that rank at the top of Google search results had 1-in-4 odds of being highlighted in AI overviews. The lower the sites were ranked, the lower their chances were of being included in AI responses. 

As Rudzki put it: 

“The higher you rank in Google’s top 10, the more likely you are to appear in AI search results across platforms. This isn’t speculation – it’s based on real queries from real users.”

While this is particularly of interest for Google, Rudzki said this pattern was consistent across all AI search platforms he evaluated, including ChatGPT. 

How AI Search Engines Work

In his report, Rudzki uses information from Google to detail how AI search engines work. 

Pre-selection: In the first step, AI systems select the pages they believe are the most relevant for a query. In most cases, this includes the highest-ranking pages for similar searches. 

Content extraction: Next, AI tools parse the context of the selected pages and pull content directly related to the question it is answering. 

AI synthesis: AI systems finally aggregate the information they have collected from across the web and package them in one easy-to-read response. 

In the process of finding the most relevant and accurate information for a specific question, AI tools heavily favor the sites that are already favored by Google, just as most humans naturally favor the highest ranked sites in organic search results. 

Why AI Sometimes Pulls From Lower-Ranked Sites

When exploring why AI tools sometimes pull information from pages that rank lower, sometimes even falling below the top 10 search results, Rudzki provided a few potential answers. 

The first is search personalization. While a specific site may not typically be included at the top of the search results, there is a chance of it appearing higher in personalized search results. 

The second, and perhaps more notable, reason is a concept called “query fan-out”. 

Google’s AI documentation explains query fan-out like this:

“Both AI Overviews and AI Mode may use a ‘query fan-out‘ technique — issuing multiple related searches across subtopics and data sources — to develop a response.”

In other words, when you ask AI a specific question, it may run several processes to ask questions about specific details of your question or related information. This means that while a selected page may not rank well for your specific question, it may rank well for a particular aspect that the AI system looked into. 

SEO is Here To Stay

There is no arguing that AI tools are drastically changing how we search and access information. While AI overviews are tied to decreasing click-through rates on organic results, brands can still gain ground by positioning themselves as an authority that Google can rely on to provide accurate information. This not only helps mitigate lost traffic from zero-click searches, but can also improve your reputation and connect you with new potential customers.

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Google Executives Say Falling Referral Traffic Are Sign Of Higher-Quality Clicks

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Critics accuse Google’s increasing use of AI in its search engine of taking referral traffic away from websites, but Google’s executives say the issue is a matter of quality versus quantity. 

In a recent press and Q&A event, Google’s executives argued that AI is improving the quality of search results (while largely avoiding the issue of decreasing clicks).

The session included statements from several executives, such as Jenny Cheng (Vice President and General Manager of Google’s Merchant Shopping operations), Sean Downey (President of Americas & Global Partners at Google), and Nicky Rettke (YouTube Vice President of Product Management).

Does AI Reduce Traffic To Websites?

Numerous studies have found that Google’s AI overviews have significantly reduced click-through rates to both organic and paid listings, leading to significant reductions in referral traffic. The trend has brought down CTRs for nearly every type of search, but non-branded informational searchers have been most heavily impacted since the introduction of AI overviews. 

Ahrefs, Advanced Web Ranking, Similarweb, and many others have independently verified that this trend is happening and seems to be getting worse as Google has increased how frequently it shows AI overviews. 

What Google’s Execs Have To Say

When asked about falling click-through rates in search, Google’s executives began by saying it is partially driven by an increase in follow-up searches while using AI-enhanced search. 

“What we’re seeing is people asking more questions. So they’ll ask a first question, they’ll get information, and then go and ask a different question. So they’re refining and getting more information, and then they’re making a decision of what website to go to.”

As this happens, Google seems to believe users refine exactly what they are looking for, ensuring that their clicks are more valuable. 

“When they get to a decision to click out, it’s a more highly qualified click… What we hope to see over time—and we don’t have any data to share on this—is more time spent on site, which is what we see organically in a much more highly qualified visitor for the website.”

Notably, even Google admits it cannot back up these claims with data. 

What About Ads?

While the Google executives did their best not to directly address falling referral traffic for organic content, they did claim that CTRs on ad placements are stable overall. Despite AI overviews pushing paid placements further down the page, Google says clicks remain largely unchanged. 

“When we run ads on AI overviews versus ads on standard search, we see pretty much the same level of monetization capabilities, which would indicate most factors are the same and they’re producing really the same results for advertisers to date.”

Again, however, the company declined to share any data on the issue. 

What About AI Mode?

Don’t expect anything to improve with the new wide launch of Google’s AI mode. Along with doubling down on AI features in search, this new mode, Google has made referral traffic from AI mode untrackable. 

When someone clicks through to your website from within AI mode, it is currently not being recorded in Google Search Console analytics. At best, some tools seem to be capturing when clicks occur, however, they are shown with no attribution. In most cases, however, they seem not to be registering at all. This will only serve to muddy the waters while websites deal with seeing less traffic from Google.

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AI Overviews Are Coming To YouTube In New Test

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Google is bringing its AI overviews to its sister platform, YouTube. 

In an announcement, the company said it was testing showing AI overviews similar to those already seen in Google search results. These overviews will choose the most relevant clips from videos it believes are relevant to a search.

How Will This Impact YouTube Click-Through Rates

Despite seemingly trying to avoid the issue during a recent earnings call, Google can’t hide that its AI overviews are reducing click-through rates in search results and sending less traffic to other websites. 

With this in mind, it is reasonable to be concerned that YouTube is similarly pulling users away from fully watching videos from creators in a way that may reduce viewership and revenue to content creators.

What To Expect From YouTube AI Overviews

For the current test, only a small group of U.S. YouTube premium features will be eligible to see AI overviews for English-language search results. 

When searching, these users will be shown a collection of relevant videos and highlighted clips that it believes are most relevant. The clips will be shown in a carousel within the search results, letting users quickly browse the selection. 

For now, YouTube is using AI overviews on two specific types of searches:

  • Product research (such as users looking for info about the best noise-cancelling headphones)
  • Travel and local discovery (for example, when users search for information about museums to visit in a specific city)

Throughout the test, YouTube says it will be collecting user feedback which it will use to determine whether to expand this feature to more users. 

For more, you can read the announcement for AI overviews on YouTube here.

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