AI comes to Google: The future of SEO with SGE

SGE (Search Generative Experience) will be a major change in the search experience and the way results are displayed in the SERPs.

But first of all, what exactly is SGE? It’s a radical update from Google, which will start using AI to generate contextual answers to complex questions.

AI in search engines

The impact of ChatGPT since the end of 2022 and its very rapid integration into the digital status quo, especially among young people, has led tech giants (such as Google) to further accelerate the deployment of their AI-related technologies.

Within the search engine market, Microsoft has moved ahead with the integration of ChatGPT into Bing as early as 2023 and Google has responded quickly with the announcement of SGE, based on Gemini, its LLM that promises to be more powerful than GPT-4.

The common formula is the integration of an AI module on top of the search engine that not only directly answers complex queries accurately, but also enables deeper searches through a conversational interface.

What do we know so far about the impact of SGE on SEO?

SGE will bring about an evolution in the way we search for information on the Internet, as ChatGPT has already done.

SGE is being tested in the USA, and the SEO team at Making Science has already been testing this new experience to draw some preliminary conclusions before its final international roll-out:

Several sources of information

This new AI module draws from many sources to offer more complete information:

Media: Very relevant, especially in information searches. Media attention, through PR teams, is essential to manage the conversation around brands.

Shopping feeds: PDPs everywhere in searches closer to conversion. A good product feed is essential to appear here. It seems that achieving a more complete shopping experience is one of SGE’s main objectives.

Reviews: Google knows that reviews are powerful conversion triggers, and integrates them into SGE for searches close to conversion. The focus should be on optimal Schema markup and online reputation management.

Social media: Social media conversation is especially relevant for topical or trending searches. Inspirational approach.

Google Maps / Business Profile: Many of the searches, even when not explicitly geolocated from the query, return local SEO results.

Multimedia: Text, images, video, FAQs, social media… what seems evident is that covering searches with multiple formats is going to be essential to capture the key terms in SGE

SEO strategies impact

There are a few things that seem to be clear, and that don’t really change the ‘traditional’ approaches to SEO strategies that much:

The classic Google Top 3 will determine what comes out of this block.
There will still be ads (as they are Google’s main revenue stream), but to a lesser extent. At least at launch.
SEO-optimised elements or content will continue to be relevant in order to match users’ searches

And what will the SEO performance be like?

Organic traffic is expected to decrease because it is assumed that the traditional SEO results will show even lower in the SERPs (with the consequent drop in CTR): Google as a “media” in its own right, which means a drop in overall SEO CTR.

However, the user has the opportunity to become more qualified in conversational mode before clicking on a link, which could benefit SEO conversion.

In addition, users could make even more intensive use of Google, especially younger audiences, who now turn to platforms such as TikTok. In any case, it remains to be seen if this hypothesis is true and, if so, if it will compensate in terms of traffic for the drop in positions of traditional organic results.

Types of content that could be most affected by SGE

We predict that the impact of SGE will be even greater for some types of content:

General informational content: Direct answers to factual questions, definitions of concepts, general explanations of a topic, etc. SGE could directly answer many general information queries without the need to take the user to another website.
Comparative content: Such as product comparisons, rankings of best options, pros and cons reviews. SGE could generate this comparative content in an automated way.
Simplified content: Such as summaries, simplified guides, step-by-step explanations of a process. SGE could extract and synthesise the most relevant information.
Repetitive content: Such as similar listings on a topic, frequently asked questions, duplicate content. SGE would reduce the need for multiple pages of redundant information.
Local content: Location-specific answers, such as business hours, local business addresses, geolocated recommendations.

Websites that rely on this type of content for their organic visibility should rethink their SEO strategy with the arrival of SGE if they don’t want to be negatively affected.

Conclusion

Essentially, Google’s SGE marks a revolutionary development in SEO. With AI shaping the digital realm, it’s vital to keep pace with these shifts and comprehend their significance to uphold an advantage in online presence