Google AI Overviews : When the king of the web flickers

2023. One year, when Google held its breath. A first in its history. 

ChatGPT arises the end of 2022 and disrupts everything. In a few weeks, he becomes the new reflex of millions of users. Why ? Because for the first time, you don navigates between ten results. It asks a question, and it gets a response that is direct, clear, fluid.

No more need to filter between advertisements, blogs approximate or forums buried. The information is presented as a conversation. Without effort. Without detour.

Google’s hitherto unchallenged in the field of research, sees its model threatened. Frontally.

Code red at Google

Early 2023, Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, triggers an internal alert : code red. This is not just a novelty to monitor. This is a breakdown of the paradigm.

Internally, it is panic. ChatGPT does not offer a better version of Google. It offers something else. A new interface with the knowledge.

In the Face of this emergency, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, are called to the table. Their return, discreet but strategic, mark the importance of the moment.

Bard, a first response precipitated

The response from Google is not expected. Bard was announced in February 2023. A chatbot conversational based on LaMDA, supposed to compete with ChatGPT.

But Bard is not ready. Since its first presentation, an error in a response creates an uproar. The share of Google fall. The launch is seen as a precipitate, draft, defensive.

The public does not follow. Bard does not convince. Google will eventually admit that they are in a hurry in the launch of the Bard, and that it was a failure. 

Microsoft goes on the offensive with Open AI

The troubles of Google don’t stop there.

OpenAI, for its part, sealed a strategic partnership with Microsoft,. A ten-year contract. Objective ? Integrate AI in the entire Microsoft ecosystem, including Bing, the search engine for a long time marginalized.

In a few months, Bing becomes a laboratory for AI generative. Microsoft injected the capacity of ChatGPT in its research tools, but also in Office, Teams, Outlook.

The partnership is a success,. The use of the Bing explodes across the world. A premiere also… 

For Google, it is a dual alarm signal. The era of the blue link is seriously affected. And this time, the contestant is not a startup. It is Microsoft.

Google counter-attack with Gemini

In December 2023, Google launches Gemini, a new generation of model IA. More advanced, more integrated, more versatile.

Gemini replaces Bard. The home is more favorable. Especially, Google integrates it on a large scale : Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides… The AI becomes a native tool in the ecosystem Google Workspace.

This is the beginning of the offensive, more strategic. Google no longer wants to catch up. She wants to take back control.

Google SGE : Search Generative Experience

Before Google AIO, there has been a draft. A test. A laboratory scale. His name ? Search Generative Experience, or EMS.

Announced in may 2023, EMS marks the first real attempt of Google to reinvent its SERPS (results page) in the era of AI.

Rather than propose ten links to explore, EMS putting artificial intelligence to generate complete responses, and synthetic directly in the SERP. Summaries, key points, visual, lists, interactive : the user experience is redesigned to be smoother and more direct.

• Reduce the number of clicks required to get information.
• Avoid the back-and-forth between the sites.
• Proposing a single, clear, immediate, from the top of the page.

Here is the example they have presented at the demo.

A user searches for the best park for children.

With EMS, it sees an instant overview of the options, with the criteria useful : security, business, opinion, weather… More need to open 5 items or to compare manually.

The EMS not only directing them to the web. It synthesizes the web. And this is the start of the worries for content creators.  

Experience Google SGE

EMS has never been generalized to all users. She remained in the test, accessible only via Google Labs, and in some countries. Including the United States. 

Why ? Because the promise was strong, but the technology is still not fully stable. 

Users who have access to have had as a council of eating stones for good health. 

The hallucinations, the factual errors, the difficulty of sourcing in a transparent manner contributed to the fact that the technology is still in the drawer.But the Search Generative Experience Google has well and prepare the ground. Content creators, SEO webmasters, all knew what to expect.

As usual, the SEOs flocked to measure the actual impact of this initiative, looking at its impact on their business, and establishing empirically the effects on their source of income.

What they found was not reassuring. Even if they were only a ‘experimentation’…

Impact of Google SGE on the visibility

Among the consequences of the deployment, we note the reduction of more than 1200 pixels on the average of the organic results. This considerably reduces the visibility.

In addition, 62 % of the links highlighted in the box EMS come from areas outside of the top 10 organic results.

It can be argued here that Google gives more chance to the small sites that are less authoritarian. But the ranking is supposed to be meritocratic, non ?

EMS and backlinks : a love-hate relationship

If the Search Generative Experience (EMS) has opened the way to a search for a more fluid, it has also raised concerns — including the side of content creators. backlinks. 

Reminder : what is a backlink ?

A backlink is an incoming link : a site refers to a site B by inserting a link to it. For Google, it is a vote of confidence.

More than one page has backlinks, the more it is perceived as credible, relevant, worthy to be ranked. This is the principle founder of the famous PageRank, the algorithm history of Google.

EMS and source attribution

As soon as the first versions of the CCC, a number of experts have noticed a disturbing phenomenon : Google does not always links to the sources that she used. 

In other words, the contents of a site could be resumed, the mark could be mentioned, but no direct link not allowed the user to consult the original source.

Lily Ray, expert SEO, very quickly spotted.

She types in a single query : best sport shoes.

The EMS displays the models from Nike… but no mention of the brand.

Not a link. Not a quote. Nothing.

And yet, Nike’s, this is not anyone.

If it can be ignored, imagine the plight of smaller sites, independent brands, content creators.

They are not simply more of the weight.

EMS and absence of backlink : a strategy assumed by Google

What could pass for an error of youth has proven to be a strategic choice.

You will see that Google AIO follows this logic : priority to the response, not the link…

There is no need to say that content creators were not very happy with this first proposal, on the part of Google…

Conclusion

Good, let’s be clear : the SEO papa, cis completed. The slap ChatGPT been there, done that, Google has responded with its AI, and it literally changes the paradigm.

Take a look at the schema, cis violent but cis the reality : to the left, theold world and its race to the click that leads nowhere. To the right, the only possible outcome.

Todaytoday, we’re fighting to be a blue link that says, amongother things, we are fighting to be the source, that theAI will choose to cite. The questionis more ‘how I ranke ?’, but ‘is it that I am quite relevant not to disappear ?’. Cis sadapt or die, as simple as that.