Google Search Generative Experience
The world of marketing, as well as all the tech companies of the world, were shaken at the beginning of 2023 by the power of artificial intelligence presented by OpenAI. It didn’t take long for Google to respond in the form of Google’s ChatBot, Bard. However, this is not the end, Microsoft led the arms race by introducing AI to its Bing search engine. Google’s full answer is already coming, which is the introduction of the Search Generative Experience update. How will this shake up those who offer SEO services in Ireland? We are a professional SEO Company in Cork with over 15 years of experience helping companies of all sizes and all over Ireland achieve their SEO goals, we can do the same for you – Contact Us for your SEO Requirements.
- What is the Generative Experience update?
- SERP appearance (search results) and impact on SEO
- Does this mean that conducting SEO activities will become pointless?
- Potential opportunities related to the update
- What about shopping and advertising?
- Google perspective – the second silent revolution?
- Conclusion
What is the Generative Experience update?
Google, in response to the actions of Microsoft and the competing search engine Bing, is gradually introducing its own AI to the search engine. At the moment, this service can only be accessed through the Google Labs platform. Google Labs are early access tools that allow you to test Google services before they become generally available.
Despite this limitation, we can already say quite a lot about the upcoming update and the changes it will provoke. We already know the look of the search engine after the update, and we also know the basic principles of Google Generative Experience.
We can also theorise about how the new update will affect positioning and its practices.
First of all, we want to point out that Google, at least for now, informs the search engine user that AI responses are experimental. This is not a strange attitude, especially considering that Bard or another language model (Google did not specify it) has not been tested in as many ways as the competing ChatGPT.
Another thing is the ability to have long conversations with artificial intelligence. Clarifying information, as seen in the screenshot below. Most likely, with each subsequent answer, more sources will be cited.
It is also worth adding that Google’s AI will remember previous searches and will be able to respond to the user in light of previous conversations. Great attention is also to be paid to the interpretation of user queries.
For example, the query “lamp” may correspond to both an information search (the user wants to find out what a lamp is) and a purchase inquiry. If the user in the previous search, for example, was looking for “the best home decorations”, and now entered “lamp”, Google AI will interpret it as a purchase query. There are probably infinitely many similar examples.
Search Engine Results Page Appearance (search results) and Impact on SEO
The obvious change is that Google’s AI responses will be at the very top of the search results, which can be considered a kind of SEO problem.
It’s safe to theorise that the performance of the pages below will deteriorate with Google’s implementation of Chat. Already, the first 3 search results get as much as 80% of traffic from search engines.
Google has long strived to show all the necessary information at the top of the search list in the form of featured snippets. Now their place (probably) will be taken by the content bar generated by artificial intelligence.
Does this mean that conducting SEO activities will become pointless?
For those who do not believe in their effectiveness, probably yes.
At the same time, we need to add some clarification here that “saves” SEO. Google says that the generative experience feature will tell you where it gets its content from.
And how will it do it?
AI will provide links to websites from which the search engine AI obtained the information. In addition, AI gives you the opportunity to delve further into this content by redirecting you to the website of the authors of the fragment.
Unfortunately, there are still many unknowns in this matter. It’s hard for us to say, for example:
- How will the CTR of top articles change?
- How much traffic will the AI-generated results capture?
- Will the way of evaluating the value of content change?
- Will AI only use content from top search results?
Hard data is unfortunately hard to come by now. We can only make a theory because we don’t even know when the update will be available in the live version. Also, we don’t know if it will happen simultaneously in Europe and America.
Potential opportunities related to the update
While the prospect of AI taking over half of your traffic is chilling to every SEO specialist, as well as sites that have spent thousands on this service, it probably won’t be that bad.
The fact that websites are highlighted in AI search results suggests that artificial intelligence will take numerous articles into the workshop in generating its answers.
The user has the option to ask additional AI questions. While one top article will not contain answers to all of them, articles from lower positions will also have a chance to appear as part of the conversation with artificial intelligence.
This is a great opportunity for all sites that are seriously investing in content marketing and high-quality content. While AI will provide answers, it will not provide services or products. So obviously it will have to link to different websites.
This is an opportunity for all parties that have unusual offers in their assortment, which their larger competition does not necessarily have.
Then what about the information industry, which relies heavily on advertising and traffic, which until now has been driven by the Internet search engine?
News services are unlikely to be threatened due to their strong position. Anyway, in recent years, the role of Google Discovery (the news panel on the left side of the home screen on Android devices) has been slowly growing, changing the importance of searches in the search engine.
But what if we are talking about websites of lawyers, financial advisors or medical websites?
Here, as could be easily predicted, Google covered itself with its YMYL policy – Your money, Your life. This is the assumption of the search engine about being especially careful in indexing, positioning, etc. of content related to health, law, and finances.
In other words, Google will not display this content in the AI-generated version. These types of portals can (for now) sleep well.
What about shopping and advertising?
Here is a link to the original Google article on the subject
“When searching for a product, you’ll get a snapshot of noteworthy factors to consider and products that fit the bill. You’ll also get product descriptions that include relevant, up-to-date reviews, ratings, prices and product images. That’s because this new generative AI shopping experience is built on Google’s Shopping Graph, which has more than 35 billion product listings — making it the world’s most comprehensive dataset of constantly-changing products, sellers, brands, reviews and inventory out there. In fact, every hour, more than 1.8 billion listings are refreshed in our Shopping Graph to give people fresh, reliable results.”
What can we infer from Google’s position?
- Product-related searches will be largely done within the AI dialogue
- AI will remember information from previous conversations and adapt the presented products on this basis
- Artificial intelligence will compare products
- Generative Experience will be updated in real-time with data from Google Merchant accounts of stores
The window will contain everything: reviews, ratings, prices, photos
If we take into account the fact that Google declares that it is not resigning from Google Ads in any way, then we are in an interesting position.
The question we need to ask here is “How much will Google promote products from ads over those that are there through SEO”. It is possible that the importance of Google Ads, especially product advertising, will increase even more. At the same time, Google emphasises that it will continue to make it very clear that a given content is an advertisement.
Google perspective – the second silent revolution?
Along with information about the Google Generative Experience update, information about a completely new Google function has appeared. More specifically about Google’s perspective.
What is this new perspective about?
In addition to tabs in the search engine such as “results”, “shopping”, “video” or “info”, there will also appear a ‘perspectives’ tab.
Inside, there will be User Generated Content, there will be no promotional materials, but content from social media, forums, Youtube or TikTok.
The purpose of this tab is to present users with a more natural perspective on a given topic than engineered content created just for the search engine itself.
Inquiries, for example about the best restaurants in a given city, will certainly find interesting answers in this tab.
The same applies to reviews of various products or comparisons. In the “perspectives” tab, you will find content in long form (e.g. a full review of a camera) and short form (e.g. comparing key features of certain products).
Source: https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-perspectives/
As you can see in this video, the perspectives tab will also include entries from social media or Q&A platforms (e.g. the popular Quora). This is a very interesting option that will especially please online content creators.
However, it is difficult to re-evaluate the impact of this type of change on the performance and number of clicks in the main SERP.
Conclusion
Google will roll out 2 major updates, but we don’t know when exactly (especially in Europe):
- Google Search Generative Experience
- Perspectives
Both changes will significantly change the platform’s search engine experience. We can certainly expect new problems that all SEO specialists will have to face. With no exception.
At the same time, such changes provide many new opportunities that skilled marketing agencies will quickly start to take advantage of. The potential of appearing in deep conversations with AI (even if the page is not at the top of the search) seems particularly interesting.
There is also no doubt that SEO specialists will definitely look for ways to get their content in the perspectives tab. There are no ready-made solutions yet. There is no doubt that they will be found.
Does all this mean that this update is “the end of SEO”?
In our opinion, by no means. This is just another change to which we will adapt and find new ways to attract customers for our clients.
