Google’s artificial intelligence-powered search results are ‘experimental’. But that doesn’t stop search engine optimizers from speculating on how those results might affect website traffic, including e-commerce.
Search Generative Experience (SGE) attempts to answer queries in a conversational way, just like a human would. It’s similar to featured snippets and carousels, but it’s new and little known.
Last month, former Shopify SEO Director Kevin Indig wrote: No duplicate products in the organic shopping carousel on the page. “
With SGE, Google may seek a “new perspective” on social media. It also prioritizes answers, similar to voice search engines and answer engines, suggesting that ‘answer optimization’ is a viable strategy.
Either way, experiments and observations can help us understand the potential effects of SGE.
performance advertising
First, you can see that the Shopping ads are showing above the previous SGE results. This is the same as regular Google search results.
Ads influence organic search traffic. A good ad can dominate search results even when it appears high in organic searches.
For example, if you search for “wireless headphones” on SGE, your ad will appear first, AI responses second, and regular or traditional results third.
Ads are often displayed above SGE results. This is nothing new. Search ads continue to influence organic search results. Click image to enlarge.
Google Merchant Center
When a searcher clicks one of the products displayed in the generated results, a new panel opens on their desktop device. This panel contains a list of online stores that sell the queried product or related products.
This may be good news, as your store listing is almost certainly derived from product data uploaded to Google Merchant Center.
Product feeds submitted to the Google Merchant Center may be the source of seller listings for SGE results. Click image to enlarge.
These uploaded products are available in (i) general search results, (ii) shopping tabs, (iii) image search with Google Lens, (iv) business profiles, and (v) Google for omnichannel sellers. already displayed on the map. So techniques that are already popular among ecommerce SEO practitioners may work for SGE as well.
In other words, SEO managers who have diligently contributed product feeds to Google may already be optimized for SGE.
Reviews and PR
Kevin Indig said in his post on SGE that product reviews appear to be an important source of content. This is not surprising, as SGE results often include a recommended products section.
The SGE results appear to be based on a review of Google and third-party articles. Click image to enlarge.
Even before SGE, reviews were already important to SEO. However, Google has so far not explicitly endorsed the product. The SGE results seem to directly endorse the product.
SGE results seem to endorse products with qualitative statements such as “best wireless headphones”. Click image to enlarge.
SGE appears to use reviews from online publications as well as customer reviews.
The latter publications are important as they may indicate the need to prioritize review and public relations.
If SGE draws information from product review articles, it may make sense for brands to seek media coverage. More than a few e-commerce companies have placed the role of media relations within his SEO.
not a plain link
Products displayed in SGE results may not contain HTML anchor tags and instead use JavaScript to display a panel containing the tags.
Finding HTML anchor tags or links requires interacting with JavaScript first, which can complicate optimization efforts. Click image to enlarge.
SEO tools are JavaScript-friendly, but anchor tags are relatively difficult to identify.
For example, Link wasn’t the top SGE result for “wireless headphones.” Clicking this opens a right-hand panel (on a desktop computer) that contains links to three online stores.
SEO tools may not trigger the panel that detects linked pages.
will continue
According to Google, SGE is experimental. What is certain, however, is that AI-enhanced search results are coming and will likely impact other forms of product discovery, including voice search.
Search optimizers are right to keep an eye on SGE and keep providing useful information to search engines, AI-powered models, and ultimately shoppers.
