Nowadays, companies are adding artificial intelligence to just about anything. Within the marketing works, people use this technology to predict the results of paid campaigns, create images and articles, and track data.
AI is especially common in Google tools. Recently, the company has introduced SGE (Search Generative Experience), a technology that might change search engines forever. In this article, we’ll explain the system and how it will affect your SEO efforts.
What is SGE?
SGE is Google’s latest exeriment. This tryout version of the search engine utilizes AI to create several answers to your questions and add links to relevant pages. We can categorize SGE into three subcategories:
- AI Snapshot
- Conversational Mode
- Vertical Experience
SGE builds upon featured snippets. Whenever you ask a question in Google, the search engine provides a straight-up answer to your questions and cites the source. Among others, the technology is also meant to improve your shopping experience.
To access this new way of browsing, you’ll need to register within Search Labs (available on Google Chrome desktop and Google App). Keep in mind that, right now, SGE is only available in the US and in English. It’s also unavailable to Google Workspace users.
All you gotta do is click on the Search Labs icon, and the manual will explain what you need to do.
AI Snapshot
AI Snapshot is a type of snippet that appears on web pages. It’s more extensive than your usual snippets, providing several paragraphs of explanation. Furthermore, there are also three generated images to the right, each one representing a cited source.
Unlike traditional snippets, AI Snapshot doesn’t pull answers directly from a web page. Instead, it goes through key points by understanding the text within selected pages and creating a new text. In that sense, AI Snapshot is somewhat similar to ChatGPT and Bard.
Conversational Mode
As the name indicates, the Conversational Mode practically allows you to lead a conversation with your phone or desktop device. You see, most people don’t find the right answer after their first search. Instead, they need to ask follow-up questions to learn more about the topic.
The Conversational Mode remembers what you previously asked, and it builds upon that knowledge. You can continue asking the Google search engine about your particular problem, and it will understand the context. In other words, you don’t have to input full queries; the mode is great for improving search while reducing legwork.
Vertical Experience
Vertical Experience is mainly geared towards commercial users. This particular feature utilizes AI Snapshot and Conversational Mode while also introducing elements of Google Shopping.
Through generative AI, Vertical Experience will create text on top of a web page, resembling the one that AI Snapshot creates. Below that, it will provide suggestions for different products that could help you out. If this set of products isn’t suitable, you can simply change the prompt on the bottom to get new results.
Written Drafts
Lastly, we also need to mention that SGE can create written drafts for you. For example, after performing a search within Vertical Experience and finding suitable providers, you can ask SGE to create images and written drafts. You can then send these proposals to local companies and get a quote.
It’s worth noting that Google images created this way will have embedded watermarking and metadata labeling. That way, recipients can understand they were made by SGA. Once texts or images are done, you can export them to Google Docs.
How will SGE affect marketing?
For the most part, SGE will have a similar impact as the usual snippets. In other words, it will push many results down while prioritizing top-ranking pieces. Furthermore, as you’ll get the answers straight away, you will be less inclined to actually visit any pages.
Reduces the need for visits
First and foremost, SGE provides much more extensive answers than the standard snippets. Sometimes, you’ll get seven or eight lines of highly relevant info. In other cases, you’ll get a compilation of the most important info from several sources.
Given that these types of snippets are longer, there’s a good chance you won’t even need to visit pages. Even if you want to make follow-up questions, you can do them within the search. As a result, the entire search process will be shortened.
Increases importance of ranking
Once again, given the text length, it will be even more important to rank in the top results. Furthermore, if users are to click on something, they’ll likely click on one of the several results within the snippet.
Of course, we still don’t know how the technology works and how you can rank in the snippet. Our educated guess is that the AI extrapolates answers from pages that were ranked at the top prior to SGE going live. This can be a problem for newer pages as it would, de facto, lock them into a standstill where they would never be able to penetrate top spots.
Focus on information quality
To appear on top of search results, you can’t have one good paragraph or sentence. Our presumption is that the entire article needs to be well-polished, without fluff, to be taken into consideration. In other words, to get the most out of the search-generative experience, your content needs to be even more focused than before.
Conclusion
Unless something goes awry, there’s a good chance that SGE will become an integral part of the Google search. Based on everything we’ve seen, there’s a good chance its impact will be similar to that of featured snippets. In other words, the clicks will become more top-heavy, and your ability to rank a snippet can make or break your entire marketing strategy.