An Indian publisher sees the impact of Google’s ‘Search Generated Experience’ on website traffic.
At its annual Google I/O conference on May 10, company executives announced AI-based changes to the search engine. The company shared that its generative AI chatbot Bard, which was released in limited numbers in March, will soon debut at scale in 180 countries. Together with Bard, the company plans to launch a host of AI-based products soon.
The company said it is reimagining the search engine with generative AI. “This powerful new technology unlocks new types of questions we never thought search could answer and changes the way we organize information,” the company said.
One of our new AI-based products, Search Generative Experience (SGE), is set to change the way we interface with search engines. SGE is set to change the way we interact with search engines.
Although this AI-based technology will be released broadly, it is still in testing and available to some users. Therefore, it is difficult to fully determine exactly how a search engine’s interface differs from search engines.
According to the report, the new interface briefly displays the currently displayed result link before redirecting the user to the AI generation window. AI windows host generative AI responses to queries. Alongside the text are links to the sources AI uses to provide information. Results links follow this window.
SGE uses a language model called “PaLM 2”. Google has not disclosed the training source for this language model. The company says it’s been trained on extensive data publicly available on the internet.
AI-based technology is currently limited in availability, but it still causes concern for digital publishers. A major concern for digital news publishers in India is the fact that SGE could act as a potential deterrent to traffic flowing into their platforms from Google. Fewer people may visit your website because generative AI might be good enough to answer your search queries.
Mukesh Kumar Singh, head of revenue digital at Indian Express Group, believes this will definitely impact publisher traffic as the majority of traffic comes from Google search.
Industry leaders believe SGE and Bard will impact their businesses in the future. Tapan Sharma, his EVP and head of digital business at Republic World, believes generative AI in Google search will be a challenge for publishers. However, this challenge will not be realized immediately, it will be realized in 3-5 years.
“Generative AI relies on user input. Based on this, it curates information from sources and creates answers. It’s not that we can provide proper prompts to do so, users ask for information from the platform, and if users fail to get the correct answers, users will be more trustworthy, providing deeper explanations about the story of events. We check sources that we can,” he explains.
Singh said digital publishers are looking at other ways to ensure their traffic isn’t impacted by such developments. “We are looking for ways to move traffic to web apps. Apps are our main bet for keeping traffic. If we shift our focus to apps, Google and other major technology You won’t see any interference with your traffic from businesses,” he added.
Hemant Jain, president and head of digital business at Lokmat Media, doesn’t see much of a short-term impact on traffic for local news publishers in India. He believes the biggest barrier to adopting generative AI for big tech companies is compatibility with local languages. Google also announced that he would release Bard in 30 languages, without specifying anything else. “If you look at the overall scheme of content consumption in India, there are about 200 million English users and the remaining 500 million Internet users consume content in their local dialects. We can watch how the technology is adopted, “consumed in local dialects,” he comments.
Is using content without attribution a problem for AI text generation?
Reportedly, the challenge facing publishers is making sure their content is being used by AI. CNBC reports that international publishers have witnessed instances of reusing quotes from competitors on Bard without citing sources. So without a directly linked source, it’s hard to tell if it’s their content.
Hiding content attribution and unfair revenue-sharing terms with Google have been ongoing problems in India even before the introduction of new AI features. In October 2022, members of the News Broadcasters and Digital Association (NBDA) filed a complaint with the Indian Competition Commission. Services built by Google, such as Google News and Google Discover, took advantage of NBDA members’ reliance on search engines for referral traffic, according to the report. The complaint also alleges that Google uses its content without proper compensation.
As for how the addition of generative AI could impact this, Sharma said: “If the news displayed is AI-generated but does not attribute content provided by publishers, the Indian government should work together to provide firewalls to protect against publishers. Profit.India is a mass market and they are getting a lot of financial benefits from doing business in India.They will act smart the way they do here.”
An Opportunity for Young News Publishers?
Sportskeeda CEO Ajay Pratap Singh is of the opinion that traditional or more established publishers (NYT, WSJ, etc.) generally rank higher in Google SEO because they have domain authority. Well, the top spot will be determined by the SGE results.
Publishers will have to adapt to AI systems to grab attention, he added. He said people usually search for details about news developments on search engines. Digital media like Sportskeeda rely on Google Search for traffic. With SEO becoming more open, this could be a boon for new-age publishers.
“Publishers need to be careful with AI. Users “people who want more information and more interesting angles will turn to platforms that offer the same. We don’t worry too much about generative AI capabilities because we cover different angles instead of just reporting,” he says.
