Google AI overviews expand into Europe

7 Mar

Written By Core

Google's recent testing of their AI Overviews feature for search users based in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and many more European countries has raised concerns for businesses this week, including those located in Ireland. The AI Overview feature, live in over 100 countries since last year, aims at providing answers to users queries directly in Google search results. There is speculation that it may reduce organic traffic to websites. A recent lawsuit by Chegg against Google alleges that AI Overviews keep users in Google’s ecosystem, thus impacting businesses traffic and revenue.

For Irish businesses, especially those dependent on organic search traffic, this development could mean lower visibility and fewer clicks. The situation underscores the urgency for Irish companies to diversify traffic sources and optimise for AI-driven search environments to mitigate potential losses.

Optimizing for AI overviews

As AI-driven search becomes more prominent across most search engines, Irish businesses must adapt their SEO strategies to maintain visibility on this ever-evolving marketing channel. According to a guide by Julia McCoy, winning and maintaining good traditional search rankings significantly boosts the chances of being featured in AI Overviews. Key tactics include producing authoritative, high-quality content, optimising technical SEO elements such as schema markup and page speed, and focusing on entity optimisation. Prioritising informational keywords and user-centric content can also enhance visibility within this Google Search feature.

What does this mean for advertisers?

With AI Overviews reshaping the search landscape that we know, now is the best time for Irish businesses to audit their websites for both technical and content SEO issues. Ensuring that your site is fast, mobile-friendly, and optimised with proper schema markup is crucial. From a content SEO perspective, producing high-quality, authoritative content can improve your chances of being featured in AI Overviews. For more information on what these AI search features could mean for Irish businesses, check out our AI Overviews Come to Ireland article.