Google Just Expanded AI Overviews: This Is What Still Gets Clicked

0:00Google's AI overviews are pushing searchers into AI mode, drops show more button. This is some SEO news that was going viral last week and we got to talk about it. It is introducing so much fear, uncertainty, doubt in the community. And so I'm going to come in and do something a little bit different and try to explain why you shouldn't

0:21freak out. Even if you're a publisher, even if you are a publisher, why maybe you should consider actually not freaking out. So I'm going to read this post from Search Engine Roundtable which explains the update very well and then give my take and share some things that the community is saying. This is from Barry Schwartz. The article says, "Google Search has confirmed it is now pushing searchers into AI mode from the AI overview by default without having to click the show more button. The new AI overview experience that Google is testing shows a much fuller AI answer like you would get in AI mode and loads the follow-up

0:59ask anything box by default. So it's not that you're going directly into AI mode, you still get the 10 blue links, they're just pushed down and for queries where Google thinks people would want a fuller AI answer, that's what shows by default. AI mode is not the default but you have an AI mode-like experience for some queries again with the blue links way down lower on the page. This is from Robbie Stein, who's a VP of product at Google Search and he said to Barry Schwartz, "AI overviews only dynamically expand for topics where our systems determine it would be most useful. If you've already started scrolling, the

1:40expansion stops to keep your place. We're always testing and tuning these experiences so we will continue to refine based on user feedback." The article continues to understand the difference between how AI overviews used to work, Google would load a snippet of the AI overview and you would have to click show more to see the full AI overview response. But for some queries, it now just loads the full AI overview with the ask anything box already opened, pushing down the organic search results way below the AI answer. This is not good for publishers, not good at all, but I think we all expected this to happen. I should note that if a user has

2:19already begun scrolling and this is what Robbie Stein said, if a user has already begun scrolling to view content below the AI overview, Google cancels the expansion to prevent the user from losing their reading position. So, first let's get into the obvious. I'm going to say why SEO is not dead even if you're a publisher, but just the obvious, SEO is not dead if you are selling your own products and services. This is from Mike Cappo on Reddit, the discussion for this Google update on the SEO subreddit. And this user said, "Bad news for blogging is my conclusion, but seems okay for tools where you will still need to go to

2:54the website or app to use the tool. So, this is what is confirmed to still work exceptionally well. Scenario-based targeting, so people have a scenario that they are looking to fulfill. That could be something like an AI voice generator or something, or a daily planner app, or they need their pipes repaired. It's the middle of the night, they need their pipes repaired, they're turning to Google, they're doing a prompt. It could be a type of clothes that they want to buy. They don't know the outfit, so they're putting in ideas into Google in a scenario. Or maybe somebody just wants a heavy fidget spinner. I have two fidget spinners here

3:31that I use for really long podcast episodes. One is heavy, one is light, so maybe someone is searching heavy fidget spinner or heavy fidget spinner for long calls. And these aren't just very long keywords, they don't have to be long-tail. They can be two words. One word is typically going to be informational intent, so they They be two to two words or more. The overarching principle for these things that people are searching or prompting is they know what they want, and I'm always saying this, they know what they want, but they don't know the brand that

4:02is going to give them what they want. And it's your brand, but they don't have your brand top of mind. And so they're putting in exactly what they are looking to achieve. You find that language doing keyword research, and then you target that language making conversion based SEO landing pages. Here's what else is working despite these long AI overviews that are only triggering for some

4:23queries, by the way, not all of them. But even if you do get a long AI overview, alternative pages are influencing them, comparison pages are influencing them. Basically, everything that I teach in my SEO course compact keywords, which is about doing SEO for businesses who want to make money. It is using SEO to make money, targeting the

4:43types of keywords I just talked about. You're also putting up alternative pages, comparison pages. I have templates for all of these pages in the course. Something else that works, deep documentation. Basically, saying all the different ways that your business functions. One, this is good for searchers, and two, this helps AI understand what your business is appropriate for. Believe it or not, a lot of businesses think that search engines or AI just know automatically what their business is for. But unless they know to do these things, especially explicitly targeting scenario-based keywords, the AI is essentially just guessing. Something else, if you are doing link building that is real

5:23marketing, you are more likely to have the types of brand mentions that AI want to reference. Like a link on a website that has terrible SEO. A lot of people think just getting any backlink is good. It's good for having a natural backlink profile, but really you want to have backlinks on pages that are indexed and that people go to. And then, people who understand SEO also do the best online reputation management. And online reputation management is enormous for AI, and it's also enormous for searchers. My way of SEO since I started has always been holistic. I like to do SEO that will build up a brand because

6:02when you are simultaneously building up a brand, you can get the types of results that compound. You can get the best backlinks, you can go after higher volume keywords, you get more AI visibility, you get more top of mind awareness, just everything improves. Everything becomes so much easier. So, if you think about search engine optimization like that while simultaneously going after keywords at the bottom of the funnel, I don't care what layout Google has in search, you are going to do great. I don't care if it is traditional search, AI-enhanced search, or just entirely a large language model, you are going to do great. Now, blogging. A couple of months

6:44ago, I made an episode, episode 1074 of this podcast, Blogging Isn't Dead, How Niche Blogs Still Make Money with SEO, and I was sharing stories of people making money doing blog SEO. And I'm just going to re-share the top post from this because it was based on this thread on the blogging subreddit from this guy Michael Vinny, who said, Yeah, and this was 3 months ago. Michael Vinny said, I started making money from blogging when I stopped listening to people who kept saying, Blogging is dead, SEO is dead, don't start a blog, blogs are trash, it's impossible to make money blogging, and all the other negative stuff that

7:22gets repeated over and over. The funny thing is, a lot of people saying these things have never built a successful blog themselves. I even have a friend who couldn't sit down and write a single article, but would go around online yapping about how blogging is dead just because he failed at it. Yes, I blog. Yes, I make money from it. And it takes a lot. I don't really feel the need to validate that to anyone. For anybody

7:49feeling discouraged, just keep going. Blogging isn't easy, but discipline and consistency are still the biggest weapons you have. Most people quit way too early, then blame blogging instead of their lack of patience. And there's the Google Preferred Sources button, which yesterday's episode was on, episode 1,156 of this show. Preferred Sources is not just for news publishers. Google's own docs prove it. And so, if you are a publisher, the Preferred Sources button makes it a lot easier for you to get more visibility in AI Overviews, AI mode, Google Discover, Top Stories, traditional SEO. You put these buttons all over your site. You also share them on social media. I got so many people to

8:33click on my Preferred Sources button just by sharing them on LinkedIn and Instagram and X and Threads and Facebook. So, as you're getting top-of-funnel traffic, which, you know, I'm still not a huge fan of top-of-funnel, but I don't believe that people should be freaking out as much as they are. And so, as you're getting top-of-funnel traffic, you are also turning people into essentially subscribers on Google Search. It's like subscribing on YouTube using these Preferred Sources buttons. I think it's really cool. So, I wanted to make this episode because when I see a lot of crazy reactions in the SEO community, I like to come in and be this kind of

9:13level-headed person. Think about what's really happening and what the actual consequences will be. So, if you're out there doing SEO, don't give up and keep at it one day at a time. I'm going to recommend one more episode, actually, that I really like. Episode 1,049 of this show, the fastest way to get SEO

9:33results, slow is smooth, smooth is fast. You will like that one and that is everything for this episode of the show. This episode 1,157 of the podcast, 1,157 days in a row doing this show. Just be like me, one day at a time. I don't miss days, I just try to get the quality out every single day and I'm going up and up and up and up and up. Last August was

9:58actually my most listened month ever. So, thank you everybody. If you watch this on YouTube, thank you so much for watching. If you listened on Spotify or Apple Podcast, thank you so much for listening. Check out compactkeywords.com to get my method of bottom of funnel search engine optimization and I will talk to you again tomorrow. Bye now.