Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET
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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Google said AI Mode search results will show more website links.
- The links will be “useful” but no definition for that was given.
- Google also said AI Overviews isn’t reducing overall web traffic.
Google is experimenting with more ways to encourage users to follow links with relevant information.
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According to an X thread from Robby Stein, VP of product for Google Search, Google is tinkering with methods to display more links in AI Mode search queries, and he explained the new link displays that users may encounter.
Stein’s X thread comes three weeks after Liz Reid, VP and head of Google Search, wrote a blog post explaining that Google Search traffic trends have remained unchanged by AI Overviews, a separate AI Google Search tool.
Meanwhile, a July report from the Pew Research Center found people “very rarely” clicked on the links cited in AI summaries. The news also comes at a time when publishers are attributing a steep drop in traffic to the rise of AI summaries, which they fear disincentivize people from clicking through to their websites.
Improving placement of hyperlinks
Stein said that users are more likely to click links that are embedded within AI Mode responses when they want more information. He said link carousels are available in AI Mode on desktop and will be available on mobile soon, without a specific timeframe.
Also: How to get rid of AI Overviews in Google Search: 4 easy ways
According to Stein, Google is preparing model updates to improve the placement of hyperlinks to websites within AI Mode text responses. He said Google trains the model to understand where and when users are most likely to want to dig deeper into a query, and the long-term goal is to embed more links within an AI response.
Expanding Web Guide
Finally, Stein said Google is expanding its Web Guide experiment in Google Labs, for “intelligently surfacing and organizing the most useful web links with AI — even for your hardest queries.”
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It’s unclear exactly how Google deems a website’s information “useful” enough to be displayed within an AI Mode query summary, and Google does not share with publishers how much traffic is coming from AI Mode summary link clicks.
She said third-party studies that illustrate the opposite are flawed, isolated, or based on an incorrect timeframe.
