What is Google’s AI Overview and how will it affect my Organic Traffic?

What is AI Overview

Google is constantly working towards improving the search experience on its platform by providing searchers with better results in its Search Results. AI has enabled them to take a big leap forward from the traditional results we’ve been used to in Ireland until very recently.

While Google claims the AI Overview provides the searcher with an improved search experience, it leads to a +/- 70% decline in Clicks to the website when an AI Overview is present in the Search Results for a specific search. Websites will now receive fewer visitors!

Google’s Artificial Intelligence Overview makes use of AI to provide detailed answers to searchers’ questions instead of simply providing a list of relevant websites.

Table of Contents

• Traditional Google Search Result
• Google AI Overview Search Result
• How does the AI Overview Work?
• What are the Top Ranking Factors for AI Overview?
• How do we optimise for AI Overviews?
• What effect is the AI Overview having on Google Organic Traffic to your Website?

Traditional Google Search Result

If I search for a “Professional SEO agency in Cork”, Google will simply provide a list of suitable websites in its Results as below. This will normally be just below the local listings drawn from the various companies’ Google My Business accounts, as this search is geographical.

With these results, the searcher is left to click through to each website and determine which company is best suited to his or her requirements.

An example of a traditional Google Search Result

Google AI Overview Search Result

But with AI Overview, I can now ask Google very specific questions such as:

“Can you recommend a professional SEO Agency in Cork?” and will get a very different result similar to the below example.

Google is now answering the searcher’s question with a very detailed response drawn from numerous pages from one or more websites that are cited in the right-hand column and provide links to specific pages in its answer on the left-hand side.

Now the searcher can make an educated decision based upon Google’s response without even having to click through to a single website.

Another simple question typed into Google Search, “What are the contact details for ePresence Digital Marketing?” and you will get the answer

Now it is possible you can have a potential customer performing their research and contacting you without ever having visited your website, Google has provided them with all the information they needed directly.

This is a new experience for Digital Marketers. We are accustomed to tracking Impressions and Clicks in our website data, but now we have Zero-Click results to consider, too. This is resulting in a drop in Click-Through Rates and Clicks. Websites will, in effect, lose traffic from Google Organic sources. How much traffic each website will lose depends on the nature of the website.

How does the AI Overview Work?

The good news for SEO people like me is that Google still relies quite heavily on the traditional ranking factors for triggering AI Overview results, with a few differences.

• The results are generally drawn from the rankings’ top 10-12 pages.
• If a page was already ranking for Featured Snippets, then there is a good chance it will also appear in Google’s AI overview.
• The majority of AI Overviews are currently triggered by informational intent searches such as questions, so at this time we are not expecting any major changes in Geographical, Commercial or Transactional searches, but this may change as Google will want to monetise the results going forward.
• There’s a preference for content with concise answers and a clean visual presentation, with readability playing a large role.
• AI overview results are more likely to be triggered by longer search queries, with the greatest prevalence being 6 words or more.
• Step-by-step and how-to answers are the most common.
• YouTube is emerging as a Key Player with “How To” videos featuring prominently.
• Google still places a high value on Domain Authority.
• Google prefers fresh, recent content.
• Google concentrates more on context than keywords, and according to Surfer, only 5.4% of AI overviews contain the exact search query.

What are the Top Ranking Factors for AI Overview?

According to Search Engine Journal, the factors that have the biggest influence on rankings in AI Overview answers are:

1. Word Count – the more in-depth the content, the better, but the content does need to be highly relevant and of good quality. Being unique also makes a positive difference.
2. Sentence Count – again related to content depth and readability. Short sentences are better and easier to comprehend.
3. Domain Rating. Google still uses the strength of a domain as a ranking factor.
4. Flesch Score – make sure your content is easy to comprehend using simple words and shorter sentences.
5. URL Rating – the strength of a page’s link profile.
6. Response Time – make sure the page loads quickly.
7. Domains.
8. Total Backlinks. Following an ethical strategy to build backlinks from relevant websites with high domain authority is still important; remember quality over quantity when it comes to backlinks.
9. Total Keywords, again in in-depth and comprehensive content, will appeal to a greater number of keyword searches.
10. Total Traffic, success breeds success, if your page is getting a lot of traffic, and visitors who are spending time on the page and interacting with media & cta’s, etc, then Google will rank this page higher in the SERPS and display it more often in AI Overviews.

Based on the above factors, it’s advisable to aim for depth but keep it simple, concise and easy to read, make sure it is skimable. If you have an excellent piece of content, don’t forget the 80/20 rule. Spend 20% of your time and effort creating this piece of content, but 80% on promoting it, don’t hide it away – share it with the world. The more people who interact and share your content, the better.

How do we optimise for AI Overviews?

1. Understand your audience. The basics and starting point for any marketing activities. Speak to your customers and cover topics that are important to them. There’s no point in pursuing high-ranking articles that don’t speak to your customers; you might get a lot of traffic, but it will be irrelevant and won’t lead to many conversions or business.
2. Create click-worthy content. As of the date of this article, there were believed to be 1.13 billion websites on the internet, with over 200 million actively maintained and updated. There are approximately 50 billion pages indexed by Google. The competition for top spots in Google Rankings is fierce, and only the best make it to the much-coveted top 3 spots.
3. Publish highly relevant content.
4. Target low-hanging fruit keywords. There will be less competition for these. They also tend to be longer-tail keywords that are more likely to trigger AI Overviews.
5. Target all the stages of the funnel. Google searches can be divided into 4 main types – Informational, Geographical, Commercial and Transactional. Currently, Google’s AI Overview are predominantly triggered by Informational searches such as “How To”, which are considered Top of the Funnel in nature. Potential customers are in the early stages of the buyer’s journey, but we are starting to see more and more AI Overview results coming into effect in other searches. We know Google will want to monetise AI Overviews results in the future.
6. Acquire authoritative backlinks. Google still emphasises quality backlinks from authoritative websites.
7. Follow SEO Best Practices using EEAT, have a well-structured website, and pages that load quickly.
8. Focus on simplicity. Keep the content easy to read by using simple words, short sentences and bullet points where possible.
9. Create video content and integrate it with YouTube. References to YouTube videos are increasing in Google’s AI Overview results, and YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine.

What effect is the AI Overview having on Google Organic Traffic to your Website?

Traditionally, SEO has been all about attracting website visitors from free Google Searches by making sure that the website ranks high on the Google Search Engine Results page. SEO experts would track Clicks – how many people clicked through to the website from a listing in the Google Search Results?

But now we have AI Overview results where Google is answering the searcher’s question directly by providing relevant information from one or more websites. The searcher may no longer need to click through to a website as their question has been answered. These are what we call zero-click results, which are leading to fewer visits to a website.

Add to this that computers, and more so mobile devices, have limited screen sizes, and the competition for real estate just got fiercer. There was a time when the number 1 organic ranking was displayed at the very top of the page, and it would receive a high click-through rate of around 40%, but then Google started changing the layout of the Search Results Page, giving preference to Paid Ads and other Search Results pushing the Organic Results down the page. AI Overview results are also given preference over traditional listings, and in many cases, these results consume over 50% of the screen real estate, or 100% in the case of a mobile device, meaning that searches may have to scroll down to see the traditional organic listings.

Although AI Overview results are something new to Ireland, it has been used in the USA for over a year already, and research has shown that the click-through rate for organic searches has declined when AI Overview results have been present however, the opposite is true for searches that have not resulted in an AI Overview listing, here the click through rate has increased.

Exactly how AI overview will affect the traffic to each website will vary depending on the nature of the website. A “How To” Blog website could see a much larger drop in Clicks compared to an e-commerce website simply because it is more informational and its content is currently more appealing to Google AI Overview listings.

Google argues that the number of searches being performed each year is increasing by about 10% annually, reaching 5 trillion in the last year, so any drop in clicks should be a once-off occurrence continuing to grow from the new base level, but this doesn’t take into account any plans Google may have for expanding its AI Overview or other Zero Click results.

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