Eric Siu and Neil Patel discuss Google's Search Generative Experience and whether AI summaries will kill SEO traffic. They cover click-through rates, the shift toward pillar content, and SimilarWeb data showing user wait times for AI snapshots.
All right, so we are going to talk about how SGE will change, will dramatically change your SEO traffic. So SGE, just so everyone knows, is Search Generative Experience, and this is from Google. And basically now when you're searching, it'll show you an AI-generated response. So for example, if I search for what is interior design or something like that, it will gimme an AI-generated response, then it'll throw the ads on, and then it'll show you maybe some boxes, local boxes or whatever, depending on the search query. But that's what SGE is. Did you read this article, Neil?
I haven't read all of it. I skimmed it. I saw it before you posted the link to it. But what's funny is it's not just like what is interior design? It's not just definitions. It's like questions like what kind of, you know, to stick with that interior design, what kind of interior design style goes with the traditional house? And then it'll give you suggestions on what you should be looking for. So instead of just basic definitions or 2 2 4, it's giving you the answers that you would get from reading a blog post. Now, the thing with SGE is that I already know they're going to be careful with your money, your life. So things like financial advice, health advice, because the last thing they want to do is give the wrong advice. They want to try to be neutral and not sway people one way or another.
Here, I'm going to give you some key takeaways. So those of you that can see the screen, so this is basically, this is written by Michael King. He's a great SEO. So he talks about the redistribution of the search demand curve. So what's going to happen is the CTR model, the click-through rate model is going to change, right? And so if you can look at maybe, let's look at this graph over here. So you can see pre-SGE CTR. So the click-through rate for a number 1 position used to be a lot higher, right? And so what we're saying now, what he's saying now is that the post-SGE click-through rate for the number 1, 2, 3 position is going to be a lot lower. And so back in the day, maybe 10 years ago or so, if you're number 1, maybe you can get a 30 to 40% click-through rate if you're number 1. It's a lot lower now.
Yes. But, and it's going to vary. And this is when SGE is present. It's not going to be present for every single search query. So for not to be present for every single search query, your traffic isn't going to adjust depending on what you're ranking for. Some things it will, some things it won't.
To Neil's point earlier on going deeper into like interior design, for example, right? So for example, if you search for auto insurance quote, then you might go to who normally has the cheapest car insurance and then does credit affect car insurance? So basically, so he says here, searches become multidimensional and the onus is on the content creators to make their content fulfill multiple stages to remain in the consideration set. So basically, I'm looking at this as a pillar piece of content now. You might have a pillar piece of content that addresses all of these and they might cross-link to each other. And that way SGE can pull the results and then your result can be the one that is showing in the SGE box. Again, it's not going to show for everything because Google still needs to print money, right? They're one of the best money printers in the world. So let's continue on here. What else do we got here?
With the content, to go back to it really quickly, with the content, just make sure it's super thorough and updated. They're going to want to pull from sources that are more up to date. And if you even look at rankings, sites that are more up to date tend to do better than sites that aren't as up to date. Like if you look at Wikipedia, the reason they rank really well is it tends to be up to date. You know, last thing Google wants to do is start showcasing data and results for stuff that's 10 years old when people are trying to figure out what's relevant for today.
This is interesting. We don't have data on how user behavior has changed in the SG environment. Yeah, it's new, right? But if you do, please reach out. Look at you, SimilarWeb. So SimilarWeb has pretty, Really interesting data when it comes to traffic. So feel free to take a look at that. We're not sponsored by it. And then look at this one. We know that users take an average of 14.66 seconds to choose a search result. This tells us that the user will not wait for an automatically triggered AI snapshot with a generation time of more than 14.6 seconds. Therefore, anything beyond that time range does not immediately threaten your organic search traffic because the user will just scroll down to the standard results rather than wait.
So the other thing that we're seeing is people are typing in longer search tail or longer tail searches. That's a big thing that we're seeing. Instead of people just typing in auto insurance quotes, they're like typing in things like, what is the best auto insurance for my Mercedes G-Wagon that has 22,000 miles on it?
Are you in the market for a G-Wagon?
No, I'm not, dude. Our buddy from your event, you know who I'm talking about?
Yeah.
I told him, I'm like, I want an electric one.
And, uh, that's coming.
And then I realized I'm not, I'm not the best driver. I'm like, the car is actually wider.
You are one of the worst drivers I know.
Yes. And I'm like, that car's typically wider because of the tires than the cars I typically drive. And I'm like, yeah, I probably shouldn't drive this because there's a higher chance I'll get in an accident.
Just so everyone knows, maybe this is like 10 years ago or so, but Neil and I were meeting at like an event in downtown LA. And the first time I saw him drive, he turned opposite of a— on a one-way street, he was going in the opposite direction. Everyone's like, stop, stop, stop. And then he's still like, let's— looking around and just driving.
So yeah, I'm a really bad driver. For that reason, I have a full-time driver because, you know, I don't want to ever risk anyone else's life, my own as well. But more importantly, I don't want to cause anyone injury.
Yeah. Anyway, I think this is an interesting piece. Just go ahead and search for SGE, Search Engine Land, Michael King, and you should be able to find it. You can see the search demand curve here and then monthly search volume. And then obviously you can see the long tail. I think what we're calling out here is that the long tail is going to get even longer and the bulk of the searches are going to be around this range over here in blue and purple. So that is it for today. Please don't forget to rate, review, subscribe, and we will see you tomorrow. Bye.
