Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
Google’s CEO, Sunda Pichai, spoke about AI Overviews killing the web, small publishers dying and not giving us Search Console data (well, kinda). The Google site reputation abuse policy also applies to Google Discover. Google AI Overview colors have nothing to do with the confidence of the answer. Google about source knowledge panels get graphical. Google also is rolling out a more graphical and richer search results interface. Google Marketing Live was this afternoon, more on that tomorrow… I am going to try publishing the newsletter earlier in the day (see how you like it).
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
Google’s Sundar Pichai On AI Overviews Killing Web, Smaller Publishers & Search Console Data
Nilay Patel, Editor-In-Chief of The Verge interviewed Sunday Pichai, CEO of Google, at Google I/O and the 40 minute interview released yesterday dug into a lot of the concerns we have been covering here. This includes how AI Overviews may kill the web, how smaller/indepdent publishers are dying and if we can get data in Search Console.
Google Rolling Out More Graphical & Richer Search Results
Rajan Patel, the VP of Engineering at Google leading the Search experiences, wrote that Google is rolling out a more graphical results interface that go “beyond visual matches to include things like more links and facts from Knowledge Graph as well as AI Overviews.”
PSA: Site Reputation Abuse Policy Also Applies To Google Discover
Just a PSA – the newish Google site reputation abuse policy not only applies to Google Search but also applies to Google Discover. Google updated the Discover content policies a while back to add a line that reads, “Publishers should be aware of the new site reputation abuse policy that becomes effective as of May 5, 2024.”
Google Adds Visuals To About Source Knowledge Panels
December 2022, Google began showing “About this” site under some search result snippets, when the intent of the query was to learn more about that brand. It was a pretty sparse textual box that has more details about the source. Now, Google is testing showing this information in a more graphical user interface.
Google AI Overviews Colors Do Not Indicate Confidence Of Response
Google’s John Mueller said the colors that Google selects for the AI Overviews has no indication of the confidence of the response. Back when SGE (old name for AI Overviews), Google told me the color had more to do with the journey but they were just fun.
