According to Search Engine Land, AI Oveviews appear in 74% of “problem-solving” queries. They have taken over from featured snippets as Google’s latest attempt at keeping users on the SERP with zero-click searches. AI Overviews have become much better than when they first launched but I still think they are net negative on the search experience and are better off hidden away in a collapsible drop-down menu like People Also Ask. ...
Google displaced other search engines by leveraging a simple, minimalistic interface and superior search algorithm. While its competitors were cluttered, ad-ridden web portals, Google had one specific purpose, and it did it well. This was what Google looked like then: Source: Google Search Blog Today, Google’s search engine is partly an AI chatbot and partly a portal to Reddit. Ads are displayed prominently above the fold. The top search results are fluffy, long-form content ranking primarily because of the number of keywords and backlinks on the page. Despite the company’s best efforts to convince us otherwise, Google cannot reliably infer content quality. Therefore, the algorithm has to make do with other less important and more easily faked signals. ...