Enterprise SEO platform BrightEdge is actively monitoring millions of keyword search results, detecting real-time trends in Google’s AI Overview and organic search tied to the ongoing November 2024 Core algorithm update. The data suggests six preliminary observations on the direction of Google’s algorithm and what publishers and SEOs need to know now.
AI Overviews is a search feature, so any changes to Google’s core ranking algorithm will be reflected in AIO, especially because there are several ways AIO and the organic search results overlap.
1. Overlap Between Organic And AIO Citations
One of the more interesting trends that continues this month is an overlap between the websites cited in AIO and the organic search results. This shift, first noticed in September, was highly noticeable, especially within the top ten organic search results. High ranking organic content has a high chance of becoming a citation in AIO. This trend suggests that Google is increasingly aligning AIO citations with the organic search algorithm.
How Google is aligning organic SERPs with AIO can only be speculated because Google has not commented on this trend. It may be that AIO is grounding itself in organic search results that themselves are increasingly more precisely aligned to search query topicality.
Google’s information gain patent describes a way to rank websites that closely links Google’s organic search ranking with an AI-based search interface. These trends that BrightEdge noticed align with that kind of symmetry between AI Search and organically ranked answers.
2. Shopping Queries Ranked Differently
The trend for overlap between organic and AIO SERPs doesn’t manifest in shopping related queries.
But this trend doesn’t hold for shopping queries. Organic shopping SERPs and AIO results are increasingly uncoupled and going in different different directions. BrightEdge interpreted the data to mean that additional supporting results in AIO are why organic and AIO for shopping queries increasingly don’t match.
Google’s algorithm update won’t be finished until about two weeks from now. However BrightEdge’s Generative Parser technology is showing how the search results are trending that hint at what’s going on under the surface of the search results.
3. Downward Trends In Overlap
BrightEdge shared that ranking overlap between organic and AIO initially experienced a slight increase in volatility (+2.3%) leading into November 8th but that it subsequently started trending downward (-3.7%) on the following two days and the downward trend continued as the update was announced.
4. Increased Volatility In Overlap
After the release of the update the volatility between organic search results and AIO began to seriously spike. BrightEdge interprets the changes as suggesting that there is a pattern of redistribution. In my opinion this may reflect changes to both AIO and organic rankings which at some point should stabilize. The scale of the changes at the lowest ranking levels (positions 21-30) indicate a high level of volatility.
How SERPs Are Currently Trending Since Update Announcement:
- Top 10 positions: +10.6% increase in volatility
- Positions 11-20: -5.9% decline in volatility
- Positions 21-30: +23.3% increase in volatility
5. Industry Specific Changes
It must be stressed that what BrightEdge’s Generative Parser is reporting represents real-time changes across millions of search results which are indicative of the scale of changes within the search results. BrightEdge next looks at specific industries and at this time is seeing significant shifts in e-commerce queries and notable changes in Education related queries.
Here are changes by industry:
- E-commerce showing -22.1% shift in top citations
- Education observing moderate -7.3% adjustment
- Healthcare maintaining stability at -1.5% shift
- B2B Tech recording -0.4% change
6. Patterns In How AIO Cites Content
The volatility patterns give an early tentative indication of what kinds of queries Google is giving priority in this update. Again, these are real-time results that are subject to change as new parts of the update are rolled out.
BrightEdge’s Insights From Volatility Rates:
- “Educational content maintaining stronger stability
- Product-focused content showing higher volatility
- Research-oriented sites demonstrating resilience
- Industry expertise appearing to gain prominence”
Takeaway From Real-Time Volatility
BrightEdge gave Search Engine Journal their interpretation of what the real-time data might suggest for future AIO citations:
- “Prioritize genuine user value in content creation over keyword optimization
- Don’t ignore the importance of your content that may not be on page 1 for your target keywords
- Carefully monitor your AIO citations as the data suggests there could be some fluctuations”
Reason For Optimism?
There’s a lot of negative sentiment to this update that is easily understandable because 2024 has been a bad year for many publishers. For example, a common complaint on X (formerly Twitter) is that Google shows too much Reddit content.
Google’s AI Overviews has not been welcomed by publishers at any level or in any industry because it’s brutal to see your content reworded by Google’s AI then added into a summary that includes reworded content from competitors, with just a tiny hard to see link for the citation.
Frank Pine, executive editor of Media News Group and Tribune Publishing (a network of 68 newspapers) was quoted earlier this year by the New York Times as remarking that Google’s AI Overviews is “cannibalizing” content and harming publishers.
The Times quoted him:
“It potentially chokes off the original creators of the content,” Mr. Pine said. The feature, AI Overviews, felt like another step toward generative A.I. replacing ‘the publications that they have cannibalized…’”
At this point in time it doesn’t do anyone good to sit around and grumble. Keep an eye on the search results to monitor changes as this update rolls out and follow the data.
Read more about the November 2024 Google Core Algorithm Update and learn more about AI Overviews here.
Featured Image by Shutterstock/Inkley Studio