With a new report into AIOs we are starting to understand what we need to do to be an AIO source and get value from it.
We may have got used to having to compete with Reddit, Quora and other UGC (user generated) dominated sites for certain topics and intents but if you are optimising for AIOs (AI Overviews) either because they have rolled out already in your market and target language, or because you are getting ready for when they do. New research shows that you are unlikely to be competing with these sites to be a source however.
Research by Dave the SEO & Co. in collaboration with Authoritas found that even for intents and sectors where Reddit and Quora dominate traditional results they don’t get picked as sources for AIOs.
Do AIOs pull the same sources as traditional results?
Graph 1
Given that based on 10,000 keywords used in the report, around 4,800 had a Reddit result on the first page, not a single keyword with an AIO, 4,400 of 10,000 keywords, had Reddit as a source URL and none used Quora either (the 3rd most common domain to have a result in the top 10).
This shows very clearly that Google is avoiding this kind of User Generated Content to base AIOs on, although Youtube Videos, Google’s own product, are featured in many AIOs, but not used as a source for the information in the AIO text itself it seems.
We know that Google had some bad publicity early on, including a faked AIO that showed some very bad advice from Reddit. Google can’t afford to have bad advice coming up in AIOs so for the foreseeable future expect the choice of sources that are used to generate the AIO to be limited to sites with reasonably high trust and authority, especially topical authority (i.e. sites that have a lot of authority around a specific topic they have written on extensively and got relevant links for).
Of course with traditional results if a user clicks through to Reddit, Quora and similar such sites, they can hopefully tell it is UGC, not expert content, and it isn’t Google’s responsibility, to the same extent, if the information is incorrect. As SEOs we have been trying hard to understand how AIOs work but for most users this isn’t the case, and this is important to remember.
Instead then those sites performing best in AIOs, see below, are more trustworthy sites such as bankrate.com and t-mobile.com, generally sites that for the same keywords did well in traditional results but didn’t dominate by any means.
Impact on AIOs of YMYL
Graph 2
In fact for Business Services related terms, established financial publishers like investopedia.com nerdwallet.com and forbes.com dominate (graph 3). Anything to do with finance of course is considered a YMYL (your-money-your-life) term where the impact of bad advice has a high impact. Having a smaller pool of sources all of which are very reliable for these kind of terms indicates that considering YMYL terms is as important, if not more important, for AIOs than traditional results.
Graph 3
For Business Services therefore the most dominant domains for AIOs are similar to those for other organic results. For Clothes / Apparel terms, with much less risk involved if a user gets bad advice, there is a much bigger difference between who dominates AIOs vs other results (graph 4).
Graph 4
How to optimise for AIOs?
The ‘State of AIOs’ report this is taken from has a whole host of interesting learnings and insights but related to the above is the fact that those in position 1 only show in AIOs 50% of the time, when they show, and the chance falls for each position lower in the SERPs, there’s a 63.3% chance that if you own the Featured Snippet (as the source) you will also be a source for AIOs. This tells us even more about what Google are looking for in AIO sources they feel confident relying on.
We have had a decent number of years now to understand what to optimise for Featured Snippets and so optimising for similar factors in similar ways it seems will help with being pulled as a source for AIOs. This includes trust and authority factors again but also making information clear and clearly signposted.
For featured snippets using sub-headings with clear titles or questions and clear, relatively succinct answers signpost Google to clear information; adding in data to support these facts can also be useful. Using list formats it seems may help for AIOs in a similar way to Featured Snippet.
It also seems though that, as with Featured Snippets, it is possible with AIOs to optimise for brand terms (at least for informational brand terms AIOs often show and giving clear information can be good for customer service). In fact we can even optimise for non-brand terms in a way that our brand shows as a ‘solution’ to a question or problem, as in the example below.
Here Club Med and rival Le Boat both manage to get themselves listed (and linked to) as among the best holidays for water sports (Mark Warner get a mention for the Mediterranean too).
In Summary
7 months on from AIOs roll out beginning we are now getting data and insights as to what Google is looking for as sources, and the opportunities this creates for us and our companies or clients. As the above example shows it can be a great chance to market your brand within the SERPs, with such a recommendation from Google potentially being great for brand awareness and trust as far as users are concerned.
Get the ‘State of AIOs at the end of 2024’ Report
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Further insights include:
- How often AIOs show overall and by industry and intent
- How many Unique Links are shown in AIOs on Average
- The impact on first fold visibility of traditional results and featured snippets
- The similarity between sources for AIOs and pages used for Featured Snippets & Traditional Results
- The Impact of AIOs on Paid Ads
- And More