Monday, November 4, 2024

Google’s AI Overviews now link to Wikipedia and LinkedIn more than Reddit, study finds

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Its AI-generated summaries now link to Wikipedia and LinkedIn more than Reddit, a new study by SE Ranking showed.

The SEO marketing platform analyzed 100,000 keywords in June and found Reddit was no longer in the top 10 linked domains in Google’s AI Overviews.

Google reportedly struck a deal with Reddit earlier this year to train its AI models on its content.

Google appears to be taking a more cautious approach with AI Overviews by prioritizing other websites it links to instead of forums like Reddit. It comes after a series of blunders generated by AI Overviews went viral following its public launch last month.

One incident included when it told a user to put glue on pizza to keep the cheese intact — a suggestion that seems to have been based on a Reddit comment more than a decade ago.

SE Ranking’s study also shows that LinkedIn, Wikipedia, and YouTube are in third, fourth, and sixth positions of the top 10 linked domains, respectively.

The SEO tool provider carried out a similar study in February before Google rolled out the AI feature to the public, which found that the overviews included many snippets from forums Reddit and Quora.

Google showed significantly fewer AI Overviews, previously called SGE (Search Generative Experience), in the June study than it did in February.

Less than 9% of keywords had AI Overviews in June, compared with 64% with an SGE answer or a Generate button out of the 1,000 keywords analyzed. SGE linked to Reddit most for keywords related to entertainment and hobbies in February.

Google seems to be continuing to rollout AI Overviews. Liz Reid, the Search VP, addressed the pizza glue fiasco at a recent all-hands meeting, according to audio obtained by CNBC, saying the company would not “hold back features” if there were “occasional problems.”

Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider, made outside normal working hours.

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