Google is testing the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to help people find reliable information faster in its search engine.
If this experiment goes well, people will have a different experience when searching online – whether doing general research or looking for products and services to engage with.
It’s unclear how this will impact online businesses like yours.
There’s some concern that Google SGE could lower the organic and paid traffic that websites attract, by reducing their visibility in search results (we’ll talk more about this).
Australians can expect to see Google SGE as an option later this year.
Google SGE is currently being trialled in more than 120 countries, including Japan, India, Mexico, South Africa, Kenya and the United States. It’s currently available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Korean and Indonesian.
Let’s find out more, so you know what to expect when it’s our turn.
What is Google SGE?
Search Generative Experience (SGE) is a Google experiment that adds Generative AI to its search engine, to create an easy-to-understand summary about the topic you’re researching – within a fraction of a second!
There’s also a conversational element to it, with Google suggesting follow-up queries to help the user dive deeper into the topic.
It works in two ways:
FIRST
AI-generated summary at the top of the search engine results page (SERP)
Artificial intelligence generates a condensed response to your query, based on information from multiple relevant websites. This summary is located at the top of the search engine results page (SERP). Google’s intention is to provide clear and helpful information at a quick glance, in case you don’t want to delve deeper into the topic by clicking on a website listed on the SERP.
When searching for e-commerce products or services, generative AI will put together a snapshot of the latest relevant information, such as ratings, prices, descriptions and images. This helps users to confidently make faster shopping decisions. The tool also prompts you to ask follow-up questions in a chat box, if you want more information.
SECOND
Google added its Generative AI feature to websites opened via Google Search or Discover. Instead of browsing the entire webpage, you can choose to access a summary of the main points (written by AI) to save time, using the opt-in feature during the experimental phase.
How does Google SGE work technically?
Generative AI is a form of artificial intelligence that crawls existing data (like websites) to learn the patterns. It then creates responses with similar features when prompted. These responses can be delivered in multiple formats, such as text, video, images, audio, code, music and designs.
Google SGE uses an advanced language model (PaLM 2) with superior ability to understand nuanced text across many languages, and generate a response based on this.
How to use Google Search Generative Experience as an internet user
In countries where Google SGE is available, it can be accessed on computers or Android and iOS devices.
At the moment, the opt-in experiment is only available for users 18 years and older.
How to turn on SGE Google:
Computer:
- Install chrome browser
- Set up a personal Google account (if you don’t have one already)
- Open Chrome and sign into your Google account (not incognito mode)
- Open a new tab, click the Labs icon
- Select the button that turns the experiment on
- Follow on-screen instructions
Android:
- Install latest version of the Google app (via Google Play)
- Set up a personal Google account (if you don’t have one already)
- Open the Google app and sign in (incognito mode off)
- Select the Labs icon in the top left
- Select the button that turns the experiment on
- Follow on-screen instructions
iPhone and iPad:
- Install latest version of the Google app (via the App store)
- Set up a personal Google account (if you don’t have one already)
- Open the Google app and sign in (incognito mode off)
- Select the Labs icon in the top left
- Select the button that turns the experiment on
- Follow on-screen instructions
Note: the SGE experiment may not show up straight away after turned on.
What to expect from Google SGE when you search for a query?
Google will present the information at the top of the page, in one of three general variants (depending on the nature of the query).
- Opt-in
- Collapsed
- No SGE
Opt-in:
This is the most common display for 69 per cent of searches, according to research. A prompt at the top of the page asks users if they’d like to generate an AI-powered overview for their search.
Collapsed:
This version shows a snippet of the AI generated response, with the option to expand by clicking the “show more” button. Collapsed displays feature 16 per cent of the time.
No SGE:
In 15 per cent of cases, no SGE response is generated. In these cases, the search results page operates in the traditional manner we’ve become accustomed to.
Here’s a list of typical features you can expect to see in either the collapsed or opt-in mode:
- Answer box: includes images, text and other relevant information. There may also be a disclaimer that you shouldn’t rely on the information as completely accurate.
- Source panel: located next to the answer box, you’ll find a panel of up to 10 sources that AI based its response on.
- A list of additional questions beneath the response: users can click these questions to launch a fresh SGE result page with further information. There’s also a question box to ask your own follow-up.
- Product listings with descriptions, images and other relevant information.
- Bulleted or numbered lists for suggested products or important points of information. Some lists also contain a sentence with extra information.
Note: When Google SGE becomes available in Australia, we’ll post a more detailed guide on how to use Google better with this new AI technology.
Is Google SGE safe to trust for accurate information?
Although Generative AI uses advanced technology, it can get facts wrong or deliver unhelpful results. For example, when asked if there are any African countries starting with “K”, Google AI fails to acknowledge “Kenya”.
This begs the question: is Google SGE safe when searching for “your money or your life” (YMYL) topics?
Accuracy is crucial when people look for complex information related to their medical, financial, legal or other needs. In such cases, Google only pulls information from trusted sites, and adds a warning to YMYL topics, so that people are careful.
And the AI-generated snippet won’t appear for particular queries that Google doesn’t want AI to answer, such as whether or not you should make an investment.
How will Google SGE impact my website traffic as a business owner?
It isn’t yet clear how Google SGE will impact the visibility of websites listed in the search results.
Paid advertising searches (Google ads):
So far, the changes to paid searches are minimal with Google SGE.
At the moment, sponsored ads sit above and below the AI-generated response. The ads that sit above the answer box shouldn’t be impacted at all, however there may be fewer clicks on the less visible ads that sit below the answer box.
Google is still experimenting with placement, so anything could change.
It’s likely the company is doing everything it can to avoid discouraging its search advertising clients, who are one of Google’s main revenue streams.
Organic searches (unpaid listings that are relevant to search queries):
You’ll still see an index of websites listed on the page, so expect no changes there.
But these will sit under the AI generated response.
Remember, the whole point of Google SGE is to give consumers easy access to relevant information at a quick glance.
In many cases, this would remove the need for consumers to find out more information by clicking on the indexed websites.
What we know so far…
There’s some apprehension that websites could see less online traffic, conversions and sales.
This is of particular concern for businesses like the Atlantic, which gets 40 per cent of its web traffic from Google.
However it’s too early to know for sure what the impact will be (if any), as this is a new experiment with limited testing.
One study by Search Engine Land suggests that businesses can expect 18 to 64 per cent less organic traffic for basic queries that don’t require leaving the search results page for more information. These results were based on their study of 23 websites in the technology industry.
But it’s not all bad news.
On the flip side, businesses could benefit from Google SGE, which has the power to influence leads for in-depth queries.
In most cases, people will be searching for topics that require a deeper understanding than artificial intelligence can provide, so they will need to click into indexed websites.
Think of the answer box as laying the groundwork for the consumer, by giving them a clear overview of information that leaves them curious to find out more, without feeling overwhelmed.
Remember: Google SGE doesn’t remove the indexing of websites in organic search results.
Websites will still be listed, based on how the search algorithm ranks them.
The only difference is these websites are located beneath the AI-generated answer box, which sits next to a source panel containing links to websites that influenced the response.
How to get your website noticed with Google SGE:
When it comes to organic searches, businesses should aim to get their websites featured in the source panel that’s attached to the AI-generated answer box.
Your best chance of featuring in the source panel is to optimise your content for SEO purposes.
How? Create engaging and accessible content that’s relevant to the specific needs of your audience. Google’s technical algorithms prioritise clear and reliable content that holds people’s attention.
Google SGE is still unavailable in Australia, so we haven’t been able to experiment with different strategies.
We’ll keep you updated as we learn more about it. However, in the meantime, we recommend you focus on making user-friendly content that also appeals to the technical search algorithms.
This involves finding out what your audience wants to learn about, and then generating well-researched, compelling content that targets relevant SEO keywords and phrases.
We can show you how to use Google better to attract more traffic:
If you’d like any support with your digital marketing, please reach out to our team.
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