In late May, Google went public with AI Overviews. I’ve been tracking third-party inquiries and studies ever since.
Sometimes AI Overviews produces incorrect answers. An account at X, enough googling, cures some of these complaints. To its credit, Google has fixed many bugs, primarily by limiting the appearance of general views and excluding user-generated content from sources.
Here’s what we know so far in the release of AI Overview.
15% of inquiries
An article last week on Search Engine Land he cited a study from BrightEdge, the search engine optimization company, which found that Overviews now show only 15% of queries. This aligns with my observations for the queries I follow. Others in the sector have similar experiences.
Public AI descriptions are only shown to searchers in the United States who are signed in to their Google Accounts. Visibility is therefore likely to be lower.
Labs vs public
Searchers who have signed up for the Labs version of Search Generative Experience (the predecessor to AI Overviews) can see results only from Labs. To access public results, these searchers must disable Labs or create a Google profile in Chrome to try both.
I tried the query “how to choose a career”. When I’m logged into my Labs profile, I see an overview with the notation “Search Labs” above it.
Search Labs participants see a unique notation above the overview. Click on the image to enlarge it.
When I use my non-Labs profile, I see the same AI overviews with visible sources.
Non-Labs public browsers see the sources below the overview. Click on the image to enlarge it.
Optimization for general AI views
Having tested SGE results before the public release of Overviews, we knew it wasn’t too difficult to get a spot on an AI response. From Google Patent SGE 2023:
AI answers on Google summarize existing search results Google generates referrals (ie, links to answers) after the summaries are created.
The relative ease seems to remain true. A simple test by the search optimizer, Cyrus Shepard immediately generated a link to AI Overviews. First he identified a query that produced an overview for which his page ranked organically with a featured snippet. He then updated this page with a paragraph that closely matches the text of the overview. Immediately a link appeared on his page.
However, Shepard listed two caveats:
Your page lost the featured snippet. The overview link quickly disappeared.
The link disappeared too early to draw meaningful conclusions, such as the impact on highlights. However, the rapid change (in and then out of Overviews) suggests the fluidity of AI responses and caution when implementing new optimization tactics. Google is changing AI Overviews seemingly every day. While short-term gains are possible, there is too little data for long-term action.
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