ultra-specialized sites are highlighted

According to a large study, Search Generative Experience can benefit niche sites that are more highlighted by this version of the search engine.

Google SGE, which stands for Search Generative Experience, uses machine learning techniques such as natural language processing, deep learning and neural networks to generate search results and recommendations. Its goal is to quickly provide answers to complex queries and improve the user experience.

This version of the American artificial intelligence search engine is currently deployed in beta in the US and in 120 countries. It is not offered in Europe, where it is blocked, in particular for legal reasons related to the DMA, DSA or GDPR.

While SGE raises concerns about a drop in organic traffic, research from Empirik sheds new light on the implications for SEO. To reach these conclusions, the study looked at 6,000 keywords across 15 business sectors such as e-commerce, media, healthcare, travel, industry and even education. She compared search results obtained on Google with and without SGE in the United States, and more specifically in New York. The interest was to understand the impact of SGE on SEO in the US, and potentially in Europe as well. According to their authors, this is “the most important study conducted on this topic to date.”

Small sites demonstrating their expertise, recognized by SGE

Among the key findings, the study shows that Google SGE often highlights hyper-specialized sites. These “new sites” that appear at the very top of search results with SGE inserted are, according to the study, ultra-specialized and niche sites.

For example, in the alcohol and spirits sector, studied in detail by the Empirik team, 85% of the time it is expert and smaller sites that appear, rather than sector “giants” such as liquor.com and acouplecooks.com.

According to the study authors, one of the reasons for this success is the ability of these sites to be accurate and enrich their content or even differentiate EEAT based on the criteria of Experience, Expertise, Authority and Experience. Reliability” in English.

“Typically, these are very specialized sites on a specific topic, offering content with high added value,” says Pierre Ribeaucourt, director of SEO at Empirik. “Information must be presented in a clear and unambiguous manner so that it can be easily digested and used by the LLM. Additionally, these sites often have a clearly defined TTF (topic trust flow). However, it is difficult to determine whether this is the case. This is simple correlation or causation. “Specialty or niche sites can also use snippets displayed in different query styles on SGE to make a name for themselves.”

SGE displays results that are often different from traditional search.

According to the authors, 97% of keywords create different relationships between SGE insertion results and the top 10 of classic organic search.

According to the study, this trend is more pronounced for transactional and commercial queries. According to them, most of the links displayed in SGE are not included in the classic top 10.

In more detail, B2B and B2C e-commerce sites are particularly affected by this difference in results between AI-assisted insertion and traditional search. About three-quarters of the results displayed in SGE are not among the top 10 search results without SGE.

Europe is still waiting for SGE

Although the results are interesting, they should be taken with a grain of salt, especially for the European zone. As the authors themselves state, American and French Google search results are very different. DMA will certainly reduce the visibility of Google services. Additionally, Google’s SGE version is expected to undergo further changes. Plus, let’s not forget that SGE is only available on desktop computers, and mobile devices account for 60% of global web traffic, according to Like Web. It could also be argued that SGE is not yet ready to come to Europe.

“It is difficult to predict with certainty whether SGE will succeed and in what form,” says Lionel Cherpin, consulting director and CEO of Empirik. “As discussed, the introduction of DMA and DSA could create additional challenges for Google in this region. Additionally, the complexity of SGE in terms of getting out of beta, the associated costs and user experience issues may also delay its deployment. In this context, SGE can take its time to establish itself in Europe.”