link attribution of SGE: A story of two snippets //

Google’s AI generated summaries on their Search Generative Experience interface (SGE), steal clicks from website publishers that created the answers?

Since a few months, everyone working in SEO or digital marketing asks this question.

Google’s recent update, which displays links to SGE sources more prominently on its search results page, seems to be the perfect time to revisit this question.

Let’s take a break from AI for a minute

Please do me a favour before we begin. Let’s ignore how SGE snippets are generated for the next two sections.

Why? I have noticed that many discussions on SGE turn into arguments about generative AI or large-language models.

We should have this discussion. We’re missing the whole point if we limit our thoughts about SGE to a particular algorithm.

Focusing on the particular version of an algorithm used by Google to generate search result previews distracts us from more interesting questions.

Ask yourself:

• What search results are displayed?
• How does the search page present this information?
• What are the implications of the structure and content on the search page for those who publish the content displayed (website owners) and users seeking answers to their queries?
• How does the impact of these changes compare to other implementations of search results pages?
• What is the best implementation of search (whatever it may be)?

We cannot ask these questions if we get stuck in the complexity of Google’s model of generative AI.

Let’s pretend for a moment that it doesn’t really matter how Google produces the answers shown in SGE.

The discussion will not depend on whether the answers were generated by generative AI or a different algorithm. They could have been submitted by website owners. Or they could have been handwritten by some Googler trapped in a basement office.

Do you have the ability to do this for me? Great!

Let’s now talk about SGE.

SGE’s link attribution has been updated

Google introduced on Tuesday. It was a new look for SGE, which made links more visible.

The default SGE interface did not display sources in a clear way. Users had to click a button in order to see the links within that text.

There is only one mode as of August 1, which displays a chevron that can be clicked at the end each paragraph.

Clicking on the chevron will bring up a dropdown menu with links to websites where SGE got its summary.

This new interface looks very much like the old SGE interface’s expanded mode.

This will likely be a big improvement for the majority of users. I’m in the minority because I clicked that tiny button for expansion so often.

Why should we care?

Anyone creating or publishing content online should consider even small changes to the way Google displays credit.

Google’s earlier iteration SGE was widely criticized. Avram Piltch, from Tom’s Hardware, wrote the following in a few days before.

• The ‘Search Generative Experience (SGE)’ uses an AI plagiarism tool that takes snippets and facts from various sites, combines them (often word for word) and presents the work as their own.

Google’s new UI has been praised by many as a major improvement.

• Android police says SGE is “learning to give credit where it is due”.
• The 9to5Google team hopes that this design will “direct more traffic to the source.”

I heard some good things, too, from Lily Ray. She was one of the loudest critics of SGE’s initial lack attribution. Ray, Senior Director of SEO and Head Organic Research at Amsive Digital told me:

• I’ve been vocal about this issue since the beginning, urging Google to incorporate links into SGE responses. Bing Chat did the same. Today I was happy (and relieved!) to see that Google is taking our concerns seriously, and testing different layouts to incorporate links into SGE answers.

SGE is a plagiarism engine?

But wait. What does Tom’s Hardware really mean when they say “plagiarism”, as in the above quote?

Piltch’s description is truly fascinating.

Then, read it again and apply each statement to Google’s existing featured snippets.

• “…engine which grabs text and facts from various sites and cobbles them (often word for word) together and passes the work off as its own creation.”

The only difference between SGE’s summaries (and featured snippets) is the number and color of links.

You could say the example above is “taking facts and text snippets” directly “word-forword” from Untold Italy.

Why is it that one interface is referred to as searching and the other as stealing when they are both search?

SGE’s rich search results include quotes from websites, which I believe are the same as those displayed in the featured snippets and other rich SERPs.

Danielle Stout Rohe agrees. She told me:

• When SGE was first released, I thought it looked like an expanded version of a featured snippet. “The only difference between the two SGE views is that the default SGE view doesn’t show which text is tied to what website, while the other SGE view clearly does.”

SGE is a natural evolution of previous SERP features.

• Google stated in 2007 that it “wanted snippets which accurately represented the web result” when discussing meta descriptions.
• In 2012, released rich-snippets guidelines in order to “provide better summaries” for users.
• In 2014, introduced “structured data snippets”, which added additional data.
• Danny Sullivan has announced a relaunch for featured snippets in 2018.

We display featured snippets when we think this format helps people discover what they are looking for, both when reading the description or clicking on the link to view the page. This is especially useful for mobile users or those who search by voice.

The majority of the language is pretty much identical to all those developments from 2007 up until the test in 2023 with SGE.

But I was not there when SEO first started. I’m lucky to know someone who was.

Rand Fishkin , a colleague and occasional collaborator of mine (CEO at SparkToro formerly Moz) told me that:

• Even in the days before 2010, most SEOs that I spoke to felt the “10 blue links” era would soon fade (especially with the integration of Google Maps and other services like weather, sports scores and Google Maps). Between 2006-2009). I’ve never been good at predicting the future but the rise of instant answers and zero-click search would not have surprised anyone who followed the SERPs during those years.”

We can speculate on how much SGE’s popularity was influenced by OpenAI ChatGPT. But I don’t believe these features are just Google’s attempt at capturing industry hype.

SGE’s summary is just the latest in a line of “instant answers”.

Why did we fear featured snippets?

What are we afraid of when we accuse search engines like Google “stealing” information?

Looking backward is one way to solve this problem. What was our initial reaction to the launch of featured snippets, with their long quotes?

The featured snippets caused me a lot of anxiety. Paul Shapiro explained to me that:

• When Google introduced featured snippets I was worried about the rise of “zero-click” searches. I feared that Google would retain all traffic within its ecosystem or on the SERP.

Shapiro’s concern is well-founded. We hope users will discover the content we publish online. SEO’s main goal is to make websites more visible for relevant searches.

The goal of ranking higher in SERPs is to expose a website to more users and increase the likelihood that they will click through.

Google agrees. In an August update, they described the new link UI. They wrote:

The SGE was designed as a starting point to explore useful information on the internet, with links to results of searches included alongside each AI Overview.

It is perfectly fair to ask whether we want search engines “stealing” clicks from us or reducing CTRs. This question isn’t unique to SGE. We should be concerned about the loss of clicks due to SERP previews, but also for other content previews introduced in previous years.

Google announced the rich snippets feature in blog post back in 2009. They described it as a tool to increase clicks on websites:

It’s a small change in the way search results are displayed, but our experiments have shown users value the new information. If they find useful and relevant data on the page, then they will be more likely to click.

Are you worried about the loss of clicks on SGE’s summaries? It’s important to remember that search engines have always provided samples of content on websites in different forms.

One could argue that search engines are stealing readers’ attention by presenting featured excerpts rich card meta description or ranking algorithms.

The pages that are ranked higher in search results receive more clicks.

Why don’t you wonder if a search engine is “fair” in deciding which sites deserve to be featured?

Does ‘zero click’ snippets reduce traffic?

You can easily look at the search snippets and assume that users will not click through to your website when they have all their answers right there on the SERP.

SGE is not the only way to view “blue links”; some users still use them.

Rohe, for example:

• Other times, I scroll the results. Old habits die hard? Or, I think that it’s more about the fact we still want choices if we can get them (at least, I do).

Our websites have not collapsed in spite of other Google iterations that embed content directly into the SERP. As Shapiro observed:

• The impact was not as bad as I had anticipated. The featured snippets still direct traffic back to the original website. “While I recognize that Google may continue to cannibalize traffic in the future, I do not believe that SGE is a future SEO we should be concerned about, at least, not in its current format.”

Google, as a company, has a reason to keep its users on the Google search results page.

Google’s revenues would be affected if users abandoned their search engines because they couldn’t find relevant websites.

They have to provide enough traffic to publishers to make Google worthwhile indexing their site.

According to my observations, the top featured snippet that is visually distinct tends to increase CTR.

According to Backlinko, websites ranking first get 74.5% fewer clicks than those ranking second.

Wouldn’t it be better to feature even more sites in the coveted “spot Zero”, as SGE currently does, if you want to drive visitors to your website?

What makes a search engine good?

What makes Google’s SERP “good” is the question that drives our discontent with the changes.

Search is something we all do, even if we don’t know it.

When we talk about SERP updates, we struggle with what constitutes a “natural UX” when searching the internet.

Google’s main concern is not to steal traffic off websites.

Google is a big corporation that’s easy for people to dislike, but the question for those who work on Google Search is “how can we make sure users get what they want?”

SGE is similar to features of certain academic and professional databases, such as a href=”https://www.ebsco.com/products/ebscohost-research-platform” rel=”noreferrer noopener” target=”_blank”>EBSCOhost/a> or a href=”https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/en/westlaw” rel=”noreferrer noopener SGE is similar to certain features found in academic databases such as EBSCOhost and Westlaw.

A more detailed preview of the content can be very helpful, especially when meta descriptions or titles on multiple sites may sound similar.

In its current form, SGE often appears above rich SERP features.

Ray also noticed that she had the same concerns.

• SGE results are often redundant with information that we already have in other SERP features like featured snippets and Google Maps. SGE appears often above or intertwined between these existing features. This can be overwhelming, especially since it takes several seconds to load.

It is important to compare the SERP features and their quality.

Many SEOs don’t get there because they are stuck in a vision where AI will ruin everyone’s experience of search.

Was it really that bad before?

SEO was not perfect, neither was search.

Sincerely, I was very excited about SGE. I thought that it would revolutionize SEO. We need it. Our industry needs more randomness and variety.

SEO needs to be fundamentally reformed. As things currently stand, many search results are no longer usable by average internet users.

The Washington Post argued recently that Google was losing its relevance as a main search engine on the web, in part because some website owners had manipulated their ranking too much.

Even from our perspective, we find that many marketers don’t really enjoy producing SEO content.

I’ve heard some marketers describe their search content as an inconvenience, a burden, or a chore.

Others have speculated that some SEOs may be ashamed of their work.

SEO has a bad reputation, and we’re still living with it. Fishkin told me that:

• “SEO was a bad name in the marketing, business and technology worlds for the first decade that I practiced. I always wanted to show that SEO is a powerful, respectable marketing tool and a community of wonderful people who are practicing a valuable art. Google treated the SEO community as a cancer that needed to be eradicated for years. It took time, a lot relationship building, content creation, and value addition before this turned around.”

We’ve turned our search engine into a key marketing channel, so it’s difficult to believe that our efforts are not valued.

We feel uncomfortable when Google makes significant changes that disrupt the SERP.

All of the hard-earned traffic that we and our clients have earned should not be taken away from us overnight.

My question is: How valid is SGE in particular as the source of this fear?

There are many reasons to dislike Google, as a company or for their product decisions. I will not defend the existence large tech monopolies.

Google is still a giant corporation, regardless of whether we debate about SGE. These kinds of changes should be left to the lawyers and regulators. SEOs are not responsible for them.

We are marketing professionals who live in a time when Google is still the most popular search engine.

We can either foam at the mouth and argue that Google is stealing our traffic by using a slightly more fancy snippet or we can ask a few more interesting questions.

Google may or may not release these features, but some of the questions we ask could shape the future of web.

The first Search Engine land published the post A Tale of Two Snippets: What Link Attribution in SGE Tells Us About Search.