AI has changed the way search engines work and organic rankings, with Google Gemini AI leading the way by introducing AI-generated answer snippets. While this aims to improve the user experience by giving concise answers at the top of the search results, it also disrupts how websites rank organically. We’ll look at how the Google Gemini AI snippets affect organic rankings and best practices to adapt to this changing landscape.
Google AI and Its Impact on Organic Rankings
For some searches, Google now provides an AI overview of your answer using advanced language processing, making it easier to get the information quickly. However, this content can also lower click-through rates (CTR) for organic listings, which is a drawback for publishers.
As highlighted by Nerd Wallet via Search Engine Land, monthly unique users for Nerd Wallet were down 7% year over year in Q3, with further deceleration expected in Q4. This also included visibility challenges that “impacted traffic to non-monetizing learning-oriented content, affecting overall user engagement.”
A direct quote from the earnings report adds: “I’d say the silver lining here is that Q3 was pretty brutal as far as some of the headwinds we faced in organic search, especially in highly commercial areas, and being able to hit like a 12% NGOI margin in Q3 in spite of that headwind is really a testament to some of the progress we’ve made in building a brand and a direct relationship with our users and our increasing competitiveness in other channels.”
Other sites have not been impacted as heavily, suggesting that these changes will boil down to a case-by-case basis. As a point of reference, all sites should review their content strategy and determine how much of their traffic comes from useful content. If you’re seeing a drop in traffic from older articles covering important keywords, it might be time to update and optimize other product or service pages to help offset these changes.
How Google Selects Credible Sources
One of the key components of AI answers is sources. Google’s Gemini AI searches the internet for high-authority sites with accurate and well-researched content to power its snippets. In practice, to select an article or page as a source for Gemini’s AI snippets, it must meet Google’s quality guidelines. These guidelines favor content that aligns with E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) principle.
Additionally, Gemini’s AI leverages natural language understanding to extract concise information. This requires websites to adopt clear, structured formats, such as bullet points, FAQ sections, and summary boxes, which facilitate easy information extraction by AI.
Another key aspect of this process is how these AI Overviews are formatted. With Google providing links and direct citations, it’s now possible for an AI overview to appear multiple times on a single search results page. Aiming for the top 10 results might not be enough anymore, sites will also need to prioritize appearing in AI Overview citations.
Impacted Metrics: Organic Traffic and Click-Through Rates
The introduction of Google’s AI-generated overviews is reshaping search behavior, with organic traffic and click-through rates (CTR) impacted. According to insights from Seer Interactive, AI overviews provide direct answers at the top of search results, reducing the need for users to click through to websites. This shift has led to a noticeable drop in CTR for affected queries, particularly those with sufficient concise answers.
Seer Interactive’s analysis highlights a 6% decline in CTR across the board, with some industries experiencing even sharper drops. Queries for general knowledge or fact-based information seem most impacted, as users no longer need to visit additional pages to find answers.
Seer Interactive also noticed a trend in query length, revealing: “The average query length leading to an AI Overview was 4.29 words compared to 3.48 words of a query not presenting an AIO.”
Adapting Your SEO Strategy for AI-Powered Snippets
As AI continues to change the search landscape, websites must evolve their SEO strategies to stay competitive. Here are a few ways to adapt to AI-powered snippets:
- Focus on content structure: Content must be organized to allow AI systems to easily extract concise information. This can be achieved through well-defined headings, bullet points, and summarized sections.
- Conduct a thorough content review: If existing content sees traffic dips, dig into your data and look for trends. Answer the question of what content is working and which pages have started struggling. If you can identify patterns, you can test changes and updates and look for solutions.
- Prioritize high-quality, authoritative content: Since Google prioritizes credible sources, content that reflects expertise, accuracy, and authority has a better chance of being featured. By building trustworthiness through quality content, websites improve their likelihood of being selected as a source.
- Monitor and adjust: Given the rapid AI changes, regular monitoring of traffic metrics is essential. SEO professionals should track the impact of AI snippets on their CTR and adjust strategies accordingly.
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