Google to Prioritize AI-Generated Overviews and Ads Over Organic Search Results
At Google's Marketing Live event, speakers showcased how the company plans to leverage user search queries and AI-generated content to present interactive shopping ads. These changes will push organic search results further down, with Google emphasizing its focus on creating new business opportunities.
Google: We’re Not Building a Better Search Engine
Philipp Schindler, SVP & Chief Business Officer at Google, made a candid statement rarely heard from Google executives: the primary aim of search results is to display advertising. This sentiment was echoed by other speakers, highlighting Google’s strategy to use AI Overviews and Search to enhance reach and ROI for advertisers.
Search and Shopping Ads in AI Overviews
Vidhya Srinivasan, VP/GM of Advertising at Google, explained how the new search experience will drive traffic to websites but quickly pivoted to demonstrate how interactive ads will dominate search results, pushing organic listings out of immediate view.
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1. AI Overviews – No Organic Listings
2. Scroll Down for Shopping Ads
Srinivasan illustrated this with an example: searching for travel hacks to prevent wrinkled clothes. The search results prominently featured AI Overviews and new Search and Shopping ads with product images, overshadowing organic listings.
Targeted Ads Based on AI Overviews
Google Search is the Bait
Despite the advanced technology creating highly useful search results, the real objective, according to top executives, is not to "organize the world's information" but to boost "reach, engagement, and ROI" for advertisers. This shift in focus has been criticized as dystopian by figures like Sam Altman.
SEOs Were Socially Engineered
Google has managed to align much of the web ecosystem with concepts like Core Web Vitals and E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) to satisfy user expectations. However, it appears these efforts were primarily intended to support advertising goals rather than purely improving user experience.
While Google's search engineers strive to perfect search, the company’s mission seems increasingly geared towards maximizing advertising ROI, utilizing the high-quality content generated by SEOs and publishers as a means to that end.
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