The short answer? We can’t say exactly what AI Overview and other generative search technology will mean for how you do business. However, we can tell you what we know about the new technology, including that it’s changing constantly.
First, an AI Overview is the AI generated panel at the top of the results page designed to answer searchers’ questions with information from multiple sources. The feature, which rolled out to US searchers in May 2024, increases the amount of information included on the search engine results page and understandably worried publishers and businesses that rely on organic website traffic. After criticism over Google’s apparent unwillingness to cite sources used to power the feature, Google changed how AI Overview displays in August. Now, sources display fairly prominently, especially on desktop.
While the percentage of searches that include an AI Overview (also referred to as an AIO) in the results has fluctuated since rolling out, as of July 2024 about 7% of all Google searches return an AI Overview. The likelihood of an AI Overview showing can be impacted by the industry, how long and complex a search query is, and how often that query is searched. Because of this, AI Overviews will have a bigger impact on some websites than others, at least right now.
Interestingly, the click through rate for the first source in an AI Overview is about 9%—similar to position three on a traditional search engine results page. For comparison, featured snippets have an average click through rate of 43% and first position results on a traditional “blue link” results page enjoy a click through rate of 40%. Is the decrease in clicks to sources within the AI Overview because users found what they needed within the overview (referred to as a “0 click search”) or did they skip over the generated result entirely? It will take time to understand how the new feature changes searchers’ behavior.
AI Overview displays differently on a range of screen sizes, with sources more prominent on desktops. On mobile devices, sources can be expanded by tapping the website favicons piled in the top right corner of the panel. For websites with a lot of mobile traffic, AI Overview will likely have a larger impact on organic website traffic.
Lastly, an AI Overview’s sources aren’t always from the first page of search results. So, for businesses in highly competitive industries, AI Overviews could be an opportunity to get in front of searchers without the investment often required to rank really well for top search terms. AI Overview also pulls in content formats beyond long form copy, like videos and testimonials, which could benefit companies with user-generated content, which doesn’t always perform well in traditional organic search.
What should I do now?
If there’s anything we know after a few decades of combined digital marketing experience, it’s that we’re not going to panic. While some organizations don’t like the idea of powering Google’s AI with their original content, in order to block Google’s AI from crawling a website, you have to block Google entirely, and we don’t recommend that.
Instead, we’re learning more about “GEO,” which stands for generative engine optimization and describes the practice of optimizing content for AI Overviews and other AI search engines like ChatGPT Search. The objective of GEO is the same as SEO: growing relevant traffic to websites to increase awareness and conversions. Many of the tactics used in GEO are just like SEO too, including creating high quality, informative content that’s easy to access and understand.
Right now, GEO is primarily for AI Overviews, since Google is still the most popular search engine. However, as conversational AI becomes more powerful and accurate, it could affect how many people use search engines, including Google, to find information. In fact, ChatGPT Search is growing 150% month-over-month.
In our opinion, GEO is part of the natural progression of SEO, which has evolved over time into a sophisticated combination of strategy, technology and creativity. We’ve already seen our SEO clients cited as sources in AI Overviews and receiving referral traffic from ChatGPT.
AI’s role in searching the web is just one factor in an ever-changing digital landscape. As search engines change, it may be a good opportunity to reflect on how people reach your website and whether or not you should diversify your traffic sources.
