In case you have not already noticed, AI Overviews are appearing less on Google Search and it’s not an error but a decision the search engine giant has made.
Google has been getting plenty of criticism for its AI-based results since the day it was launched. Many targeted the search engines for displaying misinformation and false responses that could result in serious harm, especially when it had to do with the health sector.
The reduction in AI Overviews is clearly not a shock to many experts who feel it was a long time coming. The company has been called out for not doing enough to battle the large amount of false data being circulated without moderation.
Instead, they refused to back down with the feature, claiming it was being targeted for no reason. According to Google, a lot of thought and effort was put into the trial for AI Overviews and as per the spokesperson, a few errors shouldn’t make a difference.
But the masses were stunned by the company’s actions and words. They felt it was brushing off serious concerns that people were having, adding how it was working on improving and making it better and safer for all to use.
Two SEO platforms noticed how Reddit’s visibility also fell in this regard as per SERanking and hence no longer makes the top ten list of domains that are cited the most. The other top five are from referenced websites like LinkedIn, Runnersworld, Wikipedia, and Runrepeat.
More stats were rolled out on this front including how 84% of these Overviews link to a certain domain that pops up on Google’s top 10 replies for organic search.
Meanwhile, featured snippets come with AI Overviews most of the time and during this period, citations witness up to 61% matching.
On average, these overviews feature 4342 characters while ads were seen popping up 87% of the majority. As far as where or which topics these overviews can be found are concerned, it’s in the Relationship, tech, and Food domains.
Other findings on this front include local terms don’t usually cause AI Overviews to pop up and that’s in line with findings seen in other reports. It’s usually the Home Warranty, Social Media, and Tech domains where they dominate and get triggered the most.
We can see why this information is so important. Google first rolled out this feature as a test and as days went by, it said the feature would be evolved. This was followed up by a massive launch on its Search, clearly making many believe it was leaning more toward the concept of being less of a search engine and more related to the likes of an answer engine.
But not all businesses are happy. Many are asking for Google to look into the matter because if this is going to be the new norm, there might be more hesitation now than ever in terms of accepting Google’s replies.
Read next: Analyst Forecasts 58 Billion Queries from AI Overview by 2024, $17 Billion Ad Revenue by 2027
