When the Aqueous Digital Team give Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) presentations, one question that’s almost always asked by someone in the audience is ‘what about AI?’ – and for good reason.
What’s the problem with AI and search engines?
While there’s no denying that artificial intelligence has revolutionised the way in which businesses operate on a global scale, there’s just one problem – and the clue is in the name.
It’s artificial.
Let’s take the AI tool ChatGPT as an example. Commonly used for content creation, providing answers to questions, and writing code, ChatGPT has many useful functions.
However, without the ability to provide unique insights, every answer it generates is based on a subset, of a subset, of a subset of information that’s already out there. Let us explain.
Of all the data out there (which is estimated to be 175 Zettabytes by 2025 according to the IDC’s Global DataSphere), only a proportion of that is the internet, and an even smaller amount of that data can be crawled and is visible to ChatGPT.
This means it misses out on a huge range of data, such as sources that are hidden behind paywalls or even information on the dark web. Crucially, it also further filters the data available to you by picking and choosing which parts of the visible internet it wants to show you.
A good example of this is climate change. Ask ChatGPT why climate change isn’t happening, or which scientists don’t believe it’s happening – it can struggle to give you a good answer because it’s excluded many of these sources.
ChatGPT also only gives us a snapshot of the internet at a specific time. As its database was last updated in April 2023, and it doesn’t have access to the internet, it can’t draw on real-time information. On top of these limitations, it can only offer information based on what it was trained on.
In short, it not only delivers a highly censored answer based on limited information, but it doesn’t tell us anything new either!
So, how does this apply to AI-powered search engines? Well, the same concept applies to Google’s AI Overviews. This feature was introduced by the search engine to provide clear and concise answers to certain search queries.
However, the data it uses is usually taken from the websites of other businesses. Effectively, Google is hijacking search by placing their AI-generated answer at the very top of the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages), pushing down the online visibility of the sources they’ve likely used to generate their answer.
Doesn’t seem very fair, does it?
Crucially, what does this mean for businesses?
Now that AI has started to appear at the top of the search results, you might notice that your website’s SERP rankings for certain informational-type keywords are decreasing, but that’s not the only impact that AI Overviews are having on businesses.
A knock-on effect of a decrease in website visibility, you could also see your CTRs (Click-Through-Rates), conversions, and number of enquiries drop, too. The combination of AI and search engines can therefore have a very tangible, negative impact on businesses.
Google claiming credit for knowledge that isn’t theirs is nothing new. After crawling and using the content from newspaper groups across the world, since 2022 the search engine has been forced to pay them significant compensation for using their information.
While Google is starting to include hyperlinks to the sources it’s used within the AI Overview, this recognition fails to sufficiently soften the impact of potential customers no longer accessing these websites.
Subsequently, businesses are missing out on a whole host of online users seeing their ads, services, and products.
So, what should you do to protect the SEO efforts of your business?
Start by taking a step back.
The whole idea of boosting your SEO with online content creation is to produce something that your customers would want to see – irrespective of AI and search engines. At the end of the day, your customers are the ones giving you money, not search engines.
Instead of putting all your marketing eggs into one SEO basket and relying solely on Google or any other search engine for income, it’s important to diversify your marketing channels. Google is constantly adapting to the ever-evolving landscape of search, so it shouldn’t be relied on too heavily to support the success of your business.
In fact, following feedback that Google’s AI Overviews were generating incorrect, misleading, and even dangerous answers, data from Search Engine Land suggests these AI-generated answers now only appear for 7-9% of queries, on average.
Considering Google processes roughly 8.5 billion searches every day, AI Overviews will still be appearing for a significant number of queries, but a much lower percentage than when the feature was initially rolled out.
Undoubtedly, Google will be making AI improvements as we speak to combat user experience issues and misinformation, but if the decline of this feature highlights anything, it’s that nothing, but nothing, beats great content – especially AI.
For now, you should focus on your customers’ needs, not that of an automated service, as customers, not computers, will ultimately decide whether your business thrives and survives.
