While AI Overviews may have been considered a test at first, Google just confirmed that it’s extending the much-debated feature to Search.
The tech giant explained how the move will ensure users get more comprehensive overviews without visiting a website. As per experts, this might not be the best news for SEO.
The experiment was first rolled out in May and featured explainers inside Search that answered particular questions. Another leading cause of concern had to do with less referral traffic. Remember, with more details in SERP, users will be clicking even less than before and the fears are justified.
Google hopes to address these issues by adding new displays for links inside AI Overviews. As revealed in this new example, Google wants to work with links within AI Overviews and experiment with links through the desktop.
As per Google, the latest link displays did receive positive feedback during the early phase of testing. It helped to bring in more traffic by Overviews but whether or not that will be retained, and if all queries would be included is questionable.
In another update, the Android maker is expanding AI Overviews to include more destinations around the world. Before, it was limited to the US but now, six more countries will be included.
UK, India, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, and Indonesia would be on the list, alongside more support for other languages. Additionally, Google will experiment with saved AI Overviews. This will ensure it returns to past questions and also provide more simplicity to understand AI explainers.
The main issue right now has to do with the effect these AI Overviews have on referral traffic. Google hopes to address the concerns with more updates in the future, it’s having some impact on the way websites function.
But it’s not all bad news in terms of SEO. Google explained how AI Overviews continue to bring in more traffic to several pages online. People visit more websites to get help with tricky queries.
After clicking on search result pages, users are spending more time on every website visited. To keep it simple, fewer clicks means more quality traffic as per Google. Still, experts are weary of what Google is claiming.
They feel it could serve as traffic roadblocks that negatively affect a website visit. Still, the thought of adding more links to include traffic might curb the negativity. AI is always risky as it might end up gobbling a huge chunk of revenue that normally comes with search ads.
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