This Chrome browser extension removes AI-generated overviews from Google search results. It offers a clean, streamlined interface that focuses solely on traditional results. This was built in direct response to Google's recent rollout of AI Overviews.
Friday, May 17, 2024Google's AI Overviews are an attempt to take unstructured data gathered from web content and give a structured answer to a search query, just like answer boxes. Its impact on SEO results will vary widely across industries and categories. For informational content and top-of-funnel keywords, the clickthrough rate will likely decline by over 50%. However, there could be very little traffic loss on topics with deep content or products/service pages that can't easily be summarized.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai discusses the integration of AI into Google products and its potential impact on the web. Google's new AI-powered search feature, AI Overviews, provides users with more context-rich search results. There are concerns from content creators about traffic loss, but Google is trying to balance user satisfaction with the needs of content creators.
Google will soon start testing search and shopping ads within AI Overviews for users in the US. The company says it will display ads in AI Overviews when they're relevant to both the query and the information in the AI Overview. Advertisers already running certain campaigns through Google will automatically become eligible to appear in AI Overviews. It is unclear when exactly the change will roll out.
Google introduced AI Overviews to enhance search results, providing users with more accurate and relevant information, especially for complex queries. While some issues arose, such as erroneous results and misinterpreted content, Google has implemented over a dozen technical improvements to address these challenges, including better detection of nonsensical queries and limiting user-generated content in AI Overviews.
Google has scaled back AI Overviews. The AI-generated answers are now appearing in around 11 percent of queries, down from around 27 percent when the feature was launched last month. The company is still in the process of refining the feature. AI Overviews are appearing most in health-focused searches, despite the company highlighting the tool's use for shopping, restaurant recommendations, and travel in its marketing.
Google is now providing AI-written summaries for some news articles in its search results in the US and UK. Research indicates these AI Overviews are impacting publisher visibility, pushing original articles down the search rankings. This shift could necessitate significant changes in SEO strategies for maintaining traffic.
Google's AI Overviews, powered by the Gemini language model, faced heavy criticism for inaccuracies and dangerous suggestions after its U.S. launch. Despite the backlash, Google expanded the feature to six more countries, raising concerns among publishers about reduced traffic and misrepresented content. AI strategists and SEO experts emphasize the need for transparency and better citation practices to maintain trust and traffic.