Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE) is a new experimental feature which uses artificial intelligence to create contextual answers to complex questions. This aims to provide new and better defined answers, and bring new opinions and angles to existing queries.
SGE is still in its tentative early stages, and is being created to enhance the user search experience. When using SGE, users will see search results page similar to the ones they are used to, but organised in a new way to help them get more from a single search. In this blog, we explore what we know so far.
With SGE, users are able to:
“With generative AI applied to Search, we can serve a wider range of information needs and answer new types of questions, including those that benefit from multiple perspectives.
We are surfacing more links with SGE and linking to a wider range of sources on the results page, creating new opportunities for content to be discovered.”
- Sundar Pichai, Google CEO
Source: Google
When appropriate, SGE will show an AI-powered snapshot to help users get a fast overview on a topic, with further information to help them find out more if they so wish.
These snapshots serve as a springboard from which users can explore a wide range of content and perspectives on a given topic. SGE will offer links to sources that support or expand upon the information in the SGE snapshot, so users can check the information for themselves and explore further. This allows users the opportunity to discover a wider range of content, from publishers, businesses, charities, and more, and use that information to progress the task at hand or speed up processes.
Users can tap to ask follow up questions where they can refine what they’re looking for or explore a new direction without having to start again, or users can tap suggested next steps to discover relevant information or questions they may not have known to ask about in order to keep discovering new information. This will generate a new overview with additional links to resources to explore.
Asking follow up questions is especially useful for more complex or evolving information journeys. It uses AI to understand when a person is searching for something that is related to a previous question. It carries over context from previous questions to reformulate the query and better reflect the intent. In conversational mode, users will see their web links below SGE change throughout the course of the conversation so they can easily explore the most relevant content from across the web.
Source: Google
Generative AI will also be helpful for informational queries related to distinct verticals, such as location specific searches. These types of searches often have multiple dimensions to them. In shopping, for example, generative AI can help uncover key considerations and product information, so users can make purchase decisions faster and easier.
For product searches, generative AI will create a snapshot of noteworthy factors to consider and a range of product options. It may also provide reviews, prices, product images, and further relevant data. This up-to-date product information is possible because SGE is built on Google’s Shopping Graph, the world’s most comprehensive dataset of constantly changing products, sellers, brands, reviews, and inventory.
Search ads will continue to play a critical role as SGE progresses. They serve as additional sources of useful information while helping users discover millions of businesses online.
With SGE, Search ads will continue to appear in dedicated ad slots throughout the page. In this new experience, advertisers will continue to have the opportunity to reach potential customers along their search journeys. Google will continue to test and evolve the ads experience as they learn more.
Google say they are committed to transparency and making ads distinguishable from organic search results. When Search ads do appear, they will continue to feature their industry-leading clear and transparent ad labels with the “Sponsored” label in bold black text.
These new generative AI capabilities can help users continue their journeys in more creative ways, going beyond just finding information to making use of it. Google believe this has useful applications for users to carry out steps in their information journey, including those that require creativity.
While SGE is adept at both informational and creative applications, users will notice constraints on creative uses to start, as Google have intentionally placed a greater emphasis on safety and quality. Over time, Google will continue to expand creative capabilities as quality improves.
Google have also introduced the ability to create images with the help of generative AI in SGE. Generative imagery is an interactive and fun way to visualise an idea or search for inspiration. You can ask questions like, “draw a picture of a capybara wearing a chef’s hat and cooking breakfast” and you’ll get up to four generated images to choose from. As part of this experiment, you may also see an option to get AI generated images directly in Google Images. Google’s hypothesis is that generative AI in Search can help spark inspiration and help you get even more done. Google look forward to continued testing and getting user feedback. The image generation capability is only available to users opted into the SGE experiment and who are 18 years or older, in English in the U.S.
Google say everything they do is grounded in extensive user research. They have been evolving the Search user interface (UI) for many years to be more useful, and more accessible.
The AI-powered snapshot has easy-to-access resources and recognisable UI for links that allow users to further explore across both desktop and mobile to bring the power of generative AI right into Google Search. Further, Google say they will help users make the transition to conversational follow-ups through thoughtfully crafted callouts and highlighted states that show the user how to use this new paradigm. For example, in conversational follow ups, a user can see how the AI stitches together the context of the query and its follow-ups to reformulate the AI-powered overview.
SGE is likely to play an increasing part in Google search results. In the past, position zero (the featured snippet) was a snippet of information from the website Google deemed to offer the best information on the topic.
With SGE, Google’s AI parses different sites to develop a single comprehensive answer to a search query. Unlike the featured snippet, this answer has links to the articles the AI engine pulled from to generate the SGE snapshot. Contrary to popular belief, this means SGE won’t steal your traffic. If anything, it’s giving publishers more ranking opportunities. So, instead of anticipating a drop in website traffic, marketers and content creators should look for ways to increase it by leveraging the ranking opportunities presented by Google’s generative AI.
Tracking SGE performance is still largely unknown. Results do not appear to be included in Google Search Console yet and there hasn’t been any hint as to whether there will be reports in the future.
The use of AI-powered search engines or chatbots means we might need to evolve our KPIs as traditional ways of measuring performance and understanding the search market might become less effective. As users move towards ChatGPT like tools, metrics from common tools won’t cover the whole market as they don’t measure search on these tools which are currently completely opaque. This means we won’t be able to measure market size, competition, and visibility as we currently do.
Currently, there isn’t a satisfying answer to these problems, but we can use alternative methods where needed.
Although still in its experimentation phase, SGE is already showing an impact on various industries, particularly healthcare. Enterprise SEO platform BrightEdge analysed one billion queries across nine industries to see how they were affected. The results showed that 76% of queries for healthcare were affected, 49% for ecommerce, and 48% for B2B tech.
These results are somewhat surprising as most people thought healthcare wouldn't be as affected by AI given the potential negative impact wrong information can have on people. Ecommerce is less surprising though as Google have been pushing many changes recently in search results that affect this industry.
Source: Brightedge
Monitor your organic clickthrough rate. As SGE continues to expand, the top ten organic links are likely to be pushed down and a drop in CTR may be an indicator that this is happening.
Monitor your paid search performance. Typically, SGE is likely to mean more long tail search queries. This means better performance for broad match keywords, but also leaves you open to a large number of irrelevant and low-quality search terms which will need to be carefully monitored and excluded to stop budget waste.
As above, but also:
While we cannot know the future of SGE, the following evolutions have been voiced as strong possibilities within the SEO community:
Enhanced personalisation: SGE is expected to become even more personalised. As algorithms improve, search engines will better understand individual preferences, providing users with highly tailored content and search results.
Voice search: Voice search is gaining prominence, and SGE will adapt to this trend. Content marketers will need to optimise content for voice queries, which often have a conversational tone and longer queries.
Visual search: Visual search capabilities are evolving. SGE will likely incorporate visual recognition technology, allowing users to search for information by uploading images or using their device’s camera.
While Google have built a range of protections into SGE, there are known limitations of both LLMs and this experience in its initial, experimental form. The following are some of the loss patterns that were observed during evaluations and adversarial testing, and other limitations Google expect in SGE. In many cases, they have already made improvements with model updates and additional fine-tuning, and they expect to make further progress as SGE develops.
The many changes brought by Google in 2023 will continue into 2024 and businesses need to evolve their SEO and digital marketing strategies to remain competitive. Although the core principles of SEO and marketing haven't changed, implementation and measurement of performance will need to evolve.
At Innovation Visual, our team of dedicated experts can help you navigate this ever-changing environment and adapt your strategy to keep winning. Contact us today to discuss your challenges and how we can help you be successful in an AI-powered search landscape.
Blog sources: Google, Google Labs, SEJ, SEL, SER, ClearVoice, StudioHawk, Barry Schwartz, BrightLocal