Hands-on with Google’s new Search Generative Experience

Here's your early look at a variety of searches on the new Google Search Generative Experience.

Chat with SearchBot

Google opened access to its new Search Generative Experience and today – and our own Barry Schwartz is one of the first to gain access.

Although he had to head offline for the holiday of Shavuot, he was able to share several tweets with images from his early testing. I’ve compiled most of those in this article so you can get an early look at the experiment that is Google SGE.

In short, Schwartz was impressed with the clickability of the results and he thinks it will drive clicks to publishers.

The Google welcome email

It’s time to try Search Labs! This is the “you’re in” email Google sent Schwartz.

1 Try Search Labs Google Email

Getting started

Yes, we’re ready to get started experimenting with Search Labs.

But first you’ll need to agree after reading this crazy long SGE Privacy Notice:

3 Sge Privacy Notice

Search [when does Shavous start?]

4 When Does Shavous Start Scaled

Google didn’t show the time, but Schwartz likes how you can expand the answers.

5 When Does Shavous Start Scaled

Also, look at all those snackable organic/free links you can click on.

Schwartz called the follow-up answers “pretty good”:

6 Shavuot Follow Up Scaled
7 Shavuot Learn All Night. Scaled

Local searches

Onto local search. For [haircut near me] Schwartz got a 5 pack:

8 5 Pack Haircut Scaled

And a 3 pack (also: wow it’s expensive to get a haircut in New York):

9 3 Pack Haircut Scaled

Looking for pizza in New York (via @BrendanOConnel):

Pizza Nyny

And as growth advisor Kevin Indig tweeted, it seems like SGE recommends local spots by rating, rather than what’s recommended in articles/listicles:

Sushi Chicago

Search [where can I learn about SEO]

Where can you learn SEO? Well… here’s what you get from Google:

10 Learn About Seo Scaled

Search: [who writes at Search Engine Land?]

11 Search Engine Land Authors Scaled

Some “how to” queries

How do we tie shoes or change tires, Google?

12 How To Tie Shoes Scaled
15 How To Tie Shoes Scaled
13 How To Change Tire Scaled
14 How To Change Tire Car Scaled

Some Your Money, Your Life queries

Some have AI-generated answers, and some do not, as Google said would be the case:

16 Headache Medicine Scaled
19 Headache Cancer Scaled
17 Google Stock Scaled
18 Investments Scaled

For some health/medical queries (e.g., about upper abdominal pain, when to go to the ER and relieving pain), Google provided generative AI answers:

24 Upper Abdominal Pain Scaled
25 Go To Er Scaled
26 Relieve Pain Scaled

Shopping searches

Looking for sneakers:

27 Where Buy Sneakers Scaled
28 Sneakers Above 300 Scaled
29 Buy Air Jordans Online Scaled

Who are the best SEOs (What about Barry)?

Some Barry Schwartz vanity searches:

20 Best Seos Scaled
22 Best Seos Scaled
21 Is Barry The Best Seo Scaled
23 Barry 50000 Articles Scaled

Mobile interface

Here are a couple of tweets with GIFs showing off the SGE on mobile.

More early reactions to Google SGE

“It’s basically an interactive Featured Snippet, but it doesn’t feel as threatening to Organic Search traffic as the original demos made it feel,” according to Michael King, founder of SEO agency iPullRank, in a LinkedIn post. “Ultimately, I came away feeling like SGE is a novelty because the promise of being able to handle long multi-step queries is not as good as advertised — yet.” More from King:

“It currently requires a user action to trigger the AI Snapshot. The SERP is presented and you can just skip past this feature if you want. Once clicked, it takes ~5 seconds to generate a result.

Odds are, many users will likely scroll past it and maybe not wait the full 5 seconds.

The pages cited in the AI Snapshot can also appear in the organic results.. Each result can be cited more than once. I’ve seen as many as 7 results cited so far. This could be the beginning of a new halo effect. If a result is in both, the user may be more likely to click on it.

Also, interestingly, the suggested questions in the conversation are not the same as the questions in the PAAs for the initial query. Considering that this just launched, I’m curious how those questions are derived.”

Joe Hall, an SEO consultant and member of the SMX Programming Committee, has also shared a video walk-through of the Search Generative Experience, as well as the Code Tips and Add to Sheets Labs features:

Lily Ray, senior director, SEO, head of organic research, Amsive Digital, shared some quick thoughts on LinkedIn:

– the answers are appearing for most queries except for extremely sensitive/controversial/political queries.

– They’re even showing for health, financial and legal queries, but with many disclaimers

– sometimes it’s odd that the answers cite research and studies without links to those studies 🤔

– there are still tons of organic links for some queries! Look at the video below. A whopping 14 organic links to product review sites in the carousel

– color backgrounds are based on subject matter

– local businesses link to Google Business Profile pages


About the author

Danny Goodwin
Staff
Danny Goodwin has been Managing Editor of Search Engine Land & Search Marketing Expo - SMX since 2022. He joined Search Engine Land in 2022 as Senior Editor. In addition to reporting on the latest search marketing news, he manages Search Engine Land’s SME (Subject Matter Expert) program. He also helps program U.S. SMX events.

Goodwin has been editing and writing about the latest developments and trends in search and digital marketing since 2007. He previously was Executive Editor of Search Engine Journal (from 2017 to 2022), managing editor of Momentology (from 2014-2016) and editor of Search Engine Watch (from 2007 to 2014). He has spoken at many major search conferences and virtual events, and has been sourced for his expertise by a wide range of publications and podcasts.

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