Captndave
Super Contributor
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2019
- Messages
- 200
I have been doing this a long time, going back to the early network days, and I want to flag something I think a lot of us are underestimating. The way search works is changing fast, and it lands right on top of how most of us make our money. This is not the usual "Google update" noise. It is bigger than that.
Here is the short version of what is happening.
Search is turning into an answer engine. Google's AI Mode and AI Overviews now answer the question right on the results page, so the user often never clicks through to a site at all. AI Overviews already show up on roughly half of searches. And here is the part that should make you sit up: only about 38 percent of the pages the AI quotes actually rank in the normal top ten. Ranking number one does not mean what it used to.
At I/O this May, Google went further and showed search agents that shop, compare, and even complete bookings for the user, plus AI that builds its own little comparison tools and trackers on the spot. The user is being kept inside
Here is the short version of what is happening.
Search is turning into an answer engine. Google's AI Mode and AI Overviews now answer the question right on the results page, so the user often never clicks through to a site at all. AI Overviews already show up on roughly half of searches. And here is the part that should make you sit up: only about 38 percent of the pages the AI quotes actually rank in the normal top ten. Ranking number one does not mean what it used to.
At I/O this May, Google went further and showed search agents that shop, compare, and even complete bookings for the user, plus AI that builds its own little comparison tools and trackers on the spot. The user is being kept inside
