Google AI Overviews Hard Launches In The UK
For some companies, it fundamentally changes everything.
By Dillan Gandhi
A true horror story is about to unfold across the UK: companies and marketing directors are about to find out that the website they have spent thousands of pounds on getting first-page rankings for on Google is suddenly about to be booted out of the Top 10. Thankfully, none of these people are Searchlight London clients because we’ve prepared for this since 2019 when Google first made these plans public.
After a soft launch in the UK in August, Google’s AI Overview has now properly arrived in the UK (and many other countries, too) with full force. For about 20% of searches for logged-in users, the top 5 to 10 organic rankings will now be AI-curated listings that Google’s AI-enhanced algorithm has picked out as worthy of highlighting.
Above is an example of what the new Top of Google results look like for some searches. And let’s be very clear: we have no concrete info yet on what precisely triggers a Google AI Overviews results page and what triggers a non-AI results page, as Google has a different approach in the UK versus America. But my early observations are that professional services, wellness brands, and trade services that do heavy content SEO will be impacted first.
For searches that trigger the AI results, what this means is that some websites that were ranking No. 1 on Google Search, commanding anywhere from 30% to 50% of clicks for long-tail keywords and queries, may now be the 11th link organically and now only have 1% clickshare. Yes, it can be that dramatic of a drop-off. We’ve seen it during audits of US websites, where Google AI Overviews launched nearly a year ago in Beta form. It also doesn’t help there are twice as many websites featured on the first page of Google, making it harder for your content to stand out.
On the positive side, the early data from the soft rollout indicates that links featured in Google AI Overviews carry much higher click-throughs and conversions. And if you have a website with great content, users are more likely to discover your hard work – as long as it is optimised for Google AI Overviews with Schema, markups, some Search Console tweaks and a bunch of Gemini AI-focused on-page SEO.
As an SEO agency, we’re obviously appreciative that Google is giving us more opportunities to make money, but some agencies will have difficult conversations in the coming months about why the SEO strategy they advised has to be discarded.
Rock Content has (in my opinion) the best write-up on Google AI Overviews here. I or one of the team will write more when we know more.
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Searchlight London’s SEO 500 programme optimises for Google AI Overviews and costs only £500 per month. Learn more here.
