Early Complaints & Responses On The Google Search Generative Experience

Google began to slowly roll out the Google Search Generative Experience on Thursday and I posted many screenshots of what I found. Since then, Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, responded to some public complaints and criticism of this new search experience. John Mueller of Google also responded to some questions and complaints.

I figured it would be useful to compile those complaints and responses in this story.

Attribution complaints:

I see you noted how in expanded view, the association is even clearer. SGE is an experiment, so this type of feedback is appreciated and helpful as we continue to improve it. Also shared a bit more on linking here https://t.co/x4LLTp0nVH — again, thank you for the feedback.

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 27, 2023

Generative responses are corroborated by sources from the web & when a portion of a snapshot briefly includes content from a specific source, we will prominently highlight that source in the snapshot. In this example, the first link matches that & it also shows in expanded view. pic.twitter.com/xPRit5FssA

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 26, 2023

It’s the first link to the right of the snapshot. I’ve put a box around it. Also notice the other box at the end. When you see this, you can click through all the corroborating sources without going to expanded mode. pic.twitter.com/AoGoe9uMGJ

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 26, 2023

It’s the first link even when you don’t expand. That said, appreciate the feedback. SGE is an experimental experience in Search Labs, and it will evolve over time as we learn what is most helpful.

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 26, 2023

Appreciate the feedback, and would encourage you or anyone with access to also make use of the feedback tool that’s part of SGE. It’s an experiment, so the feedback will help us shape it and improve.

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 26, 2023

Appreciate the feedback; will pass it on.

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 26, 2023

Privacy complaint:

We use queries and other feedback to improve the predictive quality of SGE. But similar to autocomplete, we take steps to prevent any personally-identifiable information that may be contained in a query from being used for model training purposes.

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 26, 2023

Timing and location of the roll out:

Country-based roll-outs can be frustrating, sorry! It’s (hopefully) not going to go away, time to be patient :-).

— John Mueller (official) · #StaplerLife (@JohnMu) May 26, 2023

Search Console request:

It’s still early days 🙂

— John Mueller (official) · #StaplerLife (@JohnMu) May 26, 2023

Forum discussion at Twitter.