AI is taking over the world, so we need to get ready, right?
As AI claws its way into the way we search for content on the internet, it’s essential that we try and grasp what the impact will be on our website traffic and rankings.
Google drives over 90% of all searches on the internet, so when it announces changes to how it will gather its results – we all have to take stock.
Google has maintained its dominant position for most of its life. In fact, since its launch in 1998, it simply rocketed to the number one slot with its clean-looking, uncluttered approach and great user interface and experience. (There’s a clue here for all the navigation and web designers out there!).
The onslaught of AI and generative search results has rocked Google’s world over the past year or so. Bing stole a lead on Google, and the impact on Google’s share price was there for all to see. Google needed to strike back, and quickly too.
Google has been rumoured to have had 500-plus engineers working on its new Search Generative Experience (SGE) and finally announced the latest search engine on 10 May 2023.
All the world was watching (well, the SEO geeks and the technical web world) to find out what Google has to say, and they said quite a lot, but as usual with Google, we need to drill down to understand the impact – so here goes.
What is SGE?
Google’s SGE will present search results in a different way. It will use AI to create the answer rather than display the results of websites and their meta descriptions. It will also have AI-created prompts to assist you in your next obvious question, as the snippets do now.
The major difference with SGE is that it will not show where it gained the answer. It will instead show three websites with links that appear to corroborate the AI-created answer.
Because SGE will not show the regular links we’re all used to, the impact on traffic could be quite severe for many websites – many SEO commentators (such as me) are predicting as much as a 40% drop in ‘informational’ based search traffic.
Google has designed its SGE to keep you in their AI world. It’s believed that many users will use AI to conduct searches on the AI platform, giving less opportunity for website links and clicks.
So, how do we punch through this and make sure we get heard?
Well, there is another problem that hopefully gives rise to opportunity too. Anyone and everyone is using ChatGPT to create content for their website. It quickly generates articles and facts about any subject which seems too good to be true.
However, there are many issues with AI-generated content. Firstly, it’s not up to date. It only knows stuff up to 2021, so anything after that will not feature. Ask it to write an article about an event that happened six months ago, and it will waffle on and give false information. Also, it’s not fact-checked, so your content could mislead people unless you know the facts yourself.
But the biggest issue of all is that ChatGPT is not saying anything new. It only repeats what’s already out there, just putting it in a party frock and dressing it up.
So, where’s the opportunity to punch through?
If you run a zoo and have a small herd of elephants, and want to breed more, you would look for new blood, perhaps another zoo that has a new ancestry line. Well, AI is no different. Google’s SGE AI-driven algorithm is going to be looking for new and interesting facts, views and content to add to its ever-increasing knowledge base.
So, creating brand new human-created content that’s full of data and new views is one way to push through the AI-generated content and get noticed. You can still use AI to help create the actual content, but it must be human-led.
I would call this Hybrid AI. So, I believe that content created by humans using AI to assist is the way forward. Every article you create should have a view, and opinion that is yours, not just recycling what’s already out there.
What does Google say about AI-created content from an SEO perspective?
Well, it’s been a little confusing over the past year or so, with some conflicting statements. Back in April 2022, Google was advising people to avoid AI-created content and highlighted that it would not feature well in search engine results.
However, this was quickly amended to advise people to avoid using AI content to try and manipulate or overwhelm Google from an SEO perspective. This view still stands today.
In August 2022, Google announced its “by people for people” helpful content initiative and advised the market that genuine, helpful content would start to feature more heavily in search results.
It also addressed AI again, indicating that the people-for-people approach would unlikely include heavy AI-generated content.
Danny Sullivan, Google’s Public Liaison for Search, has Tweeted quite a bit about AI and SEO. He said:
“We haven’t said AI content is bad. We’ve said, pretty clearly, content written primarily for search engines rather than humans is the issue.
“So if you’re an SEO trying to figure out how AI fits in with being successful or not on Google, you’re too focused on the tool not the content. Is the content you’re producing helpful, reliable and people-first in nature? That’s what we’re looking for.
“If someone is asking themselves how to make content more human-like, then they’re missing the point about creating content for people.”
It’s clear from the above that if you just churn out AI-generated content in the hope of gaming Google and ranking highly, you’ll have a massive fail on your hands.
When Google announced SGE in May 2023, it also announced (or perhaps let escape) news about a new tab, Perspectives, that will be present when SGE finally launches.
This tab will sit alongside familiar tabs such as News, Shopping, Videos and Images.
What are Perspectives, and how can you feature?
Perspectives, when clicked, will show a grid of results harvested from social media and forums such as Reddit and Quora. Images and videos will feature heavily on these pages. These results are not AI created, they’re real people saying real things.
Imagine asking SGE where the best place to eat is, perhaps get a curry in Liverpool, or who is the best company to use for a new block driveway in Derby. AI is going to waffle on about facts and stuff, but can’t really help you. This is where the Perspectives tab will help. It will harvest results from people that have reviewed a service and written about it on social media or on a forum. Video content will feature heavily in these results.
So how can you make sure you get featured in Perspectives? You need to get real people talking about you and what you do, give them incentives to create a visual review and post them on their social media.
The good news is that pretty much everything we have been doing in the past few years to create great SEO content is still relevant and will help you rank. The familiar search results will still be there, just lower down the page. The impact on paid ads is currently unclear in terms of where they will finally be placed, but the early signs are that they will be below the AI-generated results.
Anyone using Google’s Shopping feed will be pleased to know that this is largely unaffected, and will continue to work. However, the results will feature links that meet the criteria and also give preference to those with reviews on the page.
The changes that are coming are the biggest ever in the history of internet search, and the impact will be far-reaching. You’ll need to address these changes to avoid losing out to your competitors.
You need to grasp the nettle and look to implement a range of new SEO measures to ensure you continue to rank and feature within the SGE and other AI-driven search results.
That’s where QBD can help. Contact us today for a free, no-obligation conversation to discuss your SEO and see how we can help you get ahead of the game, so your business can reap the rewards of Google’s new SGE feature.
Paul Dyer
Managing Director and SEO Guru at QBD
About the author:- Paul Dyer has more than 25 years of experience with search engines, he was around when Google launched and has tracked them ever since. His expertise in digital marketing has enabled him to grow several businesses in the UK to multi-million-pound turnover, with full trade exits. He now spends his time helping other companies navigate the digital landscape and implement effective growth strategies.
Note:– No AI was used in the creation of this article!