To understand the future of SEO it’s necessary to realise that Google integrates advanced artificial intelligence into the heart of search results. For website owners and marketers, staying relevant means understanding two critical pillars: how Google measures traditional performance and how it handles its new AI-powered features.
By bridging the gap between classic Search Console metrics and the evolving world of AI Overviews, website owners and marketers can ensure their websites remain visible and valuable.
Understanding the Fundamentals
Success in search still starts with three core metrics as reported in a Google Search Console performance report: impressions, clicks, and position:
- Impressions
An impression occurs whenever a user sees (or potentially sees) a link to your site. However, Google emphasises “meaningful impressions”, that is, appearing before users who truly find the site’s content useful. - Clicks
Clicks represent the transition from a searcher to a visitor. - Position
Position acts as a relative ranking on the page. In today’s complex layouts, position 1 might be a traditional link, while position 6 could be a prominent knowledge panel on the side. Monitoring these averages in Search Console helps to gauge a site’s health and visibility over time.
Embracing the AI Era
Google’s newer features, such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, represent a significant evolution. These tools use generative AI to synthesise information from across the web, providing users with a “gist” of complex topics alongside supporting links.
The good news for creators is that there is no “secret sauce” or special code needed to appear in these AI features. Google’s documentation is clear: the technical requirements for AI Overviews are the same as for traditional search.
If the webpage is indexed and follows standard SEO best practices such as being mobile-friendly, having great page experience/content and using clear text, it is eligible to be a supporting link.
Additional methodology details by result type
Here are additional methodology details about how clicks, impressions and position are recorded for specific types of results:
AI Overviews
AI Overviews show an overview with links to web resources that support the information.
- Click: Clicking a link to an external page in the AI Overview counts as a click.
- Impression: Standard impression rules apply. To be counted as an impression, the link must be scrolled or expanded into view.
- Position: An AI Overview occupies a single position in search results and all links in the AI Overview are assigned that same position.
AI Mode
AI Mode expands on AI Overviews to show a more interactive AI-powered response with links to web resources that support the information or direct the user to view relevant webpages. AI Mode groups the user’s question into subtopics and searches for each one simultaneously and users can go deeper.
- Click: Clicking a link to an external page in AI Mode counts as a click.
- Impression: Standard impression rules apply.
- Position: Position in AI Mode follows the same methodology as a Google Search results page. Generally, carousel and image blocks within AI Mode are calculated using the standard position rules for those elements.
If a user asks a follow-up question within AI Mode, they are essentially performing a new query. All impression, position, and click data in the new response are counted as coming from this new user query.
FAQ rich result and “People also ask” result
FAQ rich results and “People also ask” suggestions are expandable question/answer items in search results that contain content from your site.
FAQ is a rich result, and can be explicitly coded with structured data on your site.
“People also ask” sections are algorithmic suggestions by Google that provides information from and a link to the target website.
- Click: Clicking to expand the item is not counted. Clicking any link to your site in the expanded section counts as a click.
- Impression: When the item is expanded, an impression is counted for any links within the expanding section.
- Position: Standard position rules apply.
The Path Forward: People-First Content
The most important takeaway from Google’s guidance is the continued focus on people-first content.
AI features often use “query fan-out” to search multiple subtopics simultaneously, seeking a diverse range of helpful sources. To capture this traffic, it’s necessary to focus on creating reliable, high-quality original material that answers nuanced or niche questions.
By combining a firm grasp of traditional performance metrics with an openness to AI integration website owners and marketers can build a sustainable digital presence that thrives in the next generation of search.
If you want to know more about how understanding the future of SEO could help your business to attract more traffic and potential clients, please get in touch.