Start viewing AI overviews as a help and not a hindrance

Mufaddal says: “Stop worrying about AI overviews.

Obviously, it’s the most discussed topic but, from my point of view, AIO is not a threat to SEOs or organic traffic. In fact, it is going to help us maintain the traffic that we’re getting.

It’s not a threat. It’s something that is going to aid us.”

Why do you think the impact of AI overviews is going to be minimal?

“When the AIOs first launched, Google was featuring websites from very different domains than those that were ranking on page 1. Even if you weren’t on page 1 you were able to rank in the AI overviews at that time, in the tests that they were doing in Search Labs. Now, though, most of the results in the AIO in the US come from the top 10 results. According to a recent study, 95-98% of the information featured comes from the first page.

Therefore, you don’t need to do anything very different to be featured in the AIOs. All the traditional ways of doing SEO still work. If you are doing something different from your competitors, then you have an edge. If you have better content, and a better way of answering things, then that can help you appear in those results.

On top of that, Google has started adding more citations and links in the overviews, which encourages users to read further. That could send traffic from the overviews to the individual websites that have contributed to that content.

The way that Google is rolling out overviews across the web is a slow process. AIO was first launched back in 2022, then it was only in testing mode for almost a year. Then, in 2023, it was launched only in the US for 6-8 months. Then they launched it in the next 6 countries.

The way Google is testing it out is very slow and, from what we have seen so far, it doesn’t seem to be a threat. It’s more like a featured snippet that appears at the top, which was already there previously. That’s how people are understanding and getting data from it. If they want to know more, they’re clicking on the links and the organic listings, which is where traffic is coming in for the publishers.”

Are users going to get their answers directly from the AI overview and not bother going to a website?

“It depends on the type of query that we are talking about. If a query is very simple and can be answered within a paragraph, then that’s something that will get answered within the AI overviews. For that, the user might not need to visit the website to get more information.

However, that’s not something new. This was already happening with the featured snippets that were visible for, and answering, these types of queries. That shift is not a very drastic change to the way that Google is going to showcase data or the way that users are going to understand that data. That’s why I’m not concerned about AI overviews sending less traffic.

Yes, certain levels of queries are going to be impacted. Featured snippets are 3-4 lines that feature a direct answer from the publishers whereas the overview takes up a bit more real estate on the first page and gives out more information. Also, it’s not just a snippet that has been fetched from the website, it’s a generative answer that has been produced.

There is going to be an impact on the publisher’s website in terms of traffic, but it’s not the end of everything. You are not going to stop getting clicks from Google. Probably 5-10% of queries are going to be impacted.

That’s where you need to relook at your content strategy. Make sure that you give out information, but also entice them to know more or get more information from your website. The AI overview is something that can also entice users to know more about whatever they’re searching for. You can use it to look at improving your content strategy and getting more out of that.”

Are AI overviews going to be less prominent for queries that display more ads?

“That’s something that people have noticed. For keywords where Google has a greater chance of seeing higher CPCs and sending high-intent traffic to publishers, they try to push ads on those queries. That’s where Google’s revenue is coming from. They will not want their ad traffic to get hit because of the AI overviews.

AI overviews are not visible for all queries. When they initially started testing with Search Labs, it was visible for almost 60-70% of the queries. Right now, it is only visible for 5-10% in the US.

It appears for queries like ‘how to record a podcast’, and it provides clear answers there, but it also prompts you to learn more from the publishers as well.

Ads are one type of query where they are not prominently visible. Another is e-commerce searches. If you’re directly searching for a product, like ‘women’s pink dress’, you don’t see an AI overview. You see the traditional search result with a shopping ad at the top, 3/4 ads after that, then the organic listings, and then 3 ads at the bottom.

These are the types of queries that Google gets a lot of money from, so that’s where they don’t want to shell out everything to an AI overview.”

Is it always the case that, for AI overviews, Google is taking all the links from the first page of the SERP?

“No, it’s not that it’s taking everything from the first page. However, this has improved from how it was at the start. Initially, Google was not taking anything from the first page. I wouldn’t say it was completely random, because Google had their own algorithms in place to fetch that link, but we didn’t know where they were pulling from.

Now, it is at least picking data from some of the websites from the first page, and some from the second, third, and further down. That’s another reason why it’s not a threat. If you’re not able to rank on the first page of Google because of XYZ reasons, but you’re giving out content that is really helpful, Google might feature it in the AI overviews. Suddenly, that becomes your wildcard entry into getting traffic from Google.

That strategy can help you appear there. You might not be ranking on page 1, but you’re there in the AI overviews. Very recently, SEMrush has released a feature where you can track your AI overview rankings as well as your organic rankings. You can see which keywords you are appearing in the AI overviews for.”

Why do you believe that personalised search results could become more prevalent in AIO, and how do you optimize for that?

“By personalised search results, I mean that the more you interact with a website, the more that website will get pushed in your search results. That’s what was happening traditionally.

Now, if you have a habit of reading a particular publisher, like the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, links or data from those publishers might get pushed into your AI overviews. If you’re searching for a specific product and you want to know more about the reviews, and you have a habit of reading or trusting a specific review website, then that can get pushed into your AI overviews as well. That’s where personalised results will help you.

If you use Gemini a lot, and you give Gemini a lot of prompts to automate some of your daily tasks, that’s something that can be taken into consideration. All of these LLMs are connected, and that is being used to showcase personalised results. That’s an opportunity for publishers because you can get featured in the AIO for a specific user, which is another way that you can get more out of it.

In terms of optimization, the fundamentals of what we do for SEO remain the same. What we need to do more is look at the way we structure our content and focus heavily on putting out helpful content for users that demonstrates expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Those are the factors that are laid down by Google on how they gauge your content.

Along with that, using visual elements in your pages is going to help you feature in these AIOs. This is something that is going to be happening in 2025 and beyond.

For example, people have Google Lens as an app on their phone, and they’re searching for something or scanning using that app. That is connected with the Google search results. If that exact same image is present on your website, then that is something that can be visible. If you sell that exact same product, that is something that can be fetched for that user.

All of these things are connected with each other, and they can all help you get traffic in ways that are not traditional. It’s not very common yet, but this is the way people have started using these applications and getting their queries resolved. It’s not a text query anymore. It can be a visual or voice command, or it can be a very long query that includes all of their problems and even the specific solution that they want to get out of it. This is where AIOs and LLMs are going to be great.

However, when it comes to transactional intent queries and navigational queries, the traditional results are there to stay. People will still rely on e-commerce websites to get a hold of those products.”

If an SEO is struggling for time, what should they stop doing right now so they can spend more time doing what you suggest in 2025?

“Stop blaming Google for evolving and making changes to its product because Google is going to do that. It’s their product; they are going to evolve. They are going to do a lot of testing. They are going to improve and try out new things with their products.

Of course, that is going to have an impact on SEO and organic. I’m not denying the fact that sometimes you’re on the right side of things, but you can still get affected. However, a lot of people are complaining and criticising Google just because it makes them seem cool on social media.

If you’re struggling with a genuine problem, stop blaming and start introspecting on your own product and your own website. I’m sure you will find ways to improve. That’s also how you can work on and improve your organic strategy as well.”

Mufaddal Sadriwala is Senior SEO Manager at Assembly MENA, and you can find him over at Mufaddal.digital.