Google's search engine brings bad news for websites

We probably all know the principle of how the web works, right? Websites allow Google to display them in search results. This is how websites get visitors and that's how Google can be Google - one of the richest corporations in the world. All this at the expense of organizing all this information, placing ads in the right places and developing tools that enrich the user experience.

What if half of that bargain disappears? That's kind of what we thought on Tuesday, May 14, when Google first presented "AI Overviews" at its developer conference. The name itself is not overly attractive, but in fact it is a big upgrade or rather update the search engine. If it works as intended, it could mean big changes for traffic on websites that currently rely on Google's algorithms.

“AI Overviews” builds on something Google has been doing for a long time, but in this case it takes it up a notch. You have probably already noticed that, for example, if you type the name of a famous person into Google, before the "organic" results you see a panel where the information that Google most often takes from Wikipedia is presented. This way you get basic information without actually having to go to the website.

So soon we can expect a big change called “AI Overviews”. At the Google conference, Liz Reid, director of Google Search, described how information about books, movies, travel and more will be served in the future. In a short video, they showed an example of how someone asked Google a question. Google offered a result in the form of a rather long text and a solution. No additional click was necessary.

Of course, Google did not write this information itself, but someone else did. There are several authors behind this information, but they have been combined into one clear answer. The artificially intelligent panel does contain links to online content, but the question is, why would the user click additionally if he has all the necessary information in one place. We certainly see advantages for the user and Google, but the other side of the bargain is disappearing, i.e. the benefits for websites.

The new feature "AI Overviews" is already available in the US, but it should also be available elsewhere in the world by the end of the year. Anyone involved in online sales in one way or another may be most concerned, as this update completely changes the global online economy. Ever since Google added the short summaries of information we see today, website traffic has dropped. Analytics company SimilarWeb called this the "zero click" effect. Simply put, users do not need to visit the source of information, as it is immediately available.

Google strongly disagrees with this. Liz Reid wrote in the blog: "We notice that the links in AI Overviews register a higher number of clicks compared to the page that is displayed in the classic way, as we are used to now". A Google public relations representative said that the company recognizes that for content to appear in "AI Overviews," creators must be motivated to create it. Google, as they claim, will very closely monitor the effect of the new update on website traffic.