Google AI Overviews is one of the most controversial AI features from Google. After testing the feature in selected markets, Google is now planning to deploy AI Overviews in Search to more markets. This will broaden the impact of users getting more in-depth Overviews without having to actually tap through a site.
This may be bad news for SEO as people will not open a website after getting all the relevant information from AI Overviews.
Google launched AI Overviews back in May, which provides users with explainers in the search results.
The bloggers and SEOs are concerned about the reduced referral traffic as Google will be providing more details in the SERP. It will reduce the need for users to tap on links for more details. Google is looking to add a link display within AI Overviews on Desktop to address this concern.
Here is an example image from Google.
As you can see from the above image, Google is now looking to add links within the text of AI Overviews.
With this, Google hopes that more and more users will be tapping on links to open up the webpage. Google says that the new link displays have shown positive results in early testing. It increased the traffic driven by overview displays. Will it hold over time? Only time will tell.
Apart from this, Google is now expanding the AI overview availability to more regions.
Here is what they said.
“After extensive testing and positive feedback, including in the U.S. and in Search Labs globally, we’re bringing the helpfulness of AI Overviews to six new countries: United Kingdom, India, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil – along with local language support in each country.”
So, from now on, users in the United Kingdom, India, Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, and Brazil will also get to see the AI overviews along with local language support.
But again, the main concern with this feature is the impact on referral traffic. Google is looking to address this concern with new updates to the feature.
However, according to Google, there is one SEO benefit from this. The company says that AI overviews have been driving traffic to a broader range of sites.
“With AI Overviews, we’re seeing that people have been visiting a greater diversity of websites for help with more complex questions. And when people click from search result pages with AI Overviews, these clicks are higher quality for websites – meaning users are more likely to spend more time on the sites they visit.”
So, it looks like websites will get fewer clicks but quality traffic.
And the link display in the text will also help.
