The simple answer is, probably not.
But what we do know is that SGE is it’s Google’s way to present users with information, faster and better. Let’s look at SGE, and how this impacts the future of SEO and the quality of content.
What is SGE?
You have probably heard about SGE in some way or form, or you have been intrigued enough to give this article a read. It’s Google’s AI powered snapshot that appears at the top of the search results. The reason for this is to give users the information they are searching for without the need of scouring through websites. They won’t even have to leave the search results. While this sounds great, for the top ranking pages, organic traffic could potentially take a hit. With users getting their information right away, the sites that users would normally click on may become unnecessary for some users. I mean, if Google gets me the results I need directly in the SERPs, would I need to go to other websites?
There are a ton of articles talking about SGE, detailing a lot of technical aspects of the results, the algorithmic models as well as the process that goes into generating the most useful content. For SEO’s like us, that is quite important. The results generated contains content from various sources, and the websites that appear within these generated results are highly likely to be gathering the most traffic. But why should businesses care about this? How does Google decide what content to show in the generated AI box?
Google released some documentation about this titled ‘A new way to search with generative AI’, which details SGE and its ability. The results are determined by Large Language Models (LLMs), which aims to predict and generate content based on huge datasets that were used to train it.
As the image details above, the search query is formatted more like a question you would ask a person, rather than a search engine. ‘What’s better for a family with kids under 3 and a dog. Bryce Canyon or Arches National Parks’?. This prompt is conversational, and almost opens up a discussion point. The user in this case wants direct advice for their specific needs and situation. Traditional SEO such as optimising for keywords would be incredibly difficult for this specific query. How often do users even search for such a specific thing? While Google will try its best to present the most relevant results, SGE tackles it almost immediately with the users unique needs in mind. The linked pages while not directly targeting the keyword, it contains enough information for Google to deem it helpful and informative.
It will now open a new way to ask questions, with follows up questions to engage in conversation with the generative AI.
How does SGE impact businesses?
With the implementation of SGE, it is now more important than ever to ensure your content can answer a new set of questions a user may have. Well, it’s easier said than done.
Referring back to the image, we can see that the top 3 relevant websites are linked prominently from the snapshot. While we won’t dive in to this at the moment, it is worth noting that there is potential for every site to appear in the snapshot, so long its relevant. However, the criteria for appearing in this section is still unknown, but we can predict that it contains enough information for SGE to learn from.
SGE will show links to resources that support the information in the
Google
snapshot, so people can check the information themselves and
explore further. This allows people to dig deeper and discover a
diverse range of content, from publishers, creators, retailers,
businesses, and more, and use the information they find to advance
their tasks.
So, to keep this blog short, SGE is the next generation of search. With AI content, AI generation and AI chat now bigger than ever, adapting your content to ensure it is rich with information and isn’t just a keyword target dump is more crucial than ever.