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The Search Tightrope in Plain View: What Liz Reid Just Told Us About Google’s AI Future

October 11, 2025 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

TL;DR
• What changed: Google is moving AI from behind-the-scenes ranking to front-and-center answers, through AI Overviews and AI Mode, while saying links still guide people out to the open web [1].
• Why it matters: Google says people search more and are happier when AI Overviews appear, and that commercial intent still drives clicks. Publishers and analysts counter that clicks often fall in AI summary contexts [2].
• User behavior tilt: Youth attention concentrates on video and creator content, which Search now surfaces more [3].
• Legal backdrop: Generative AI now features in U.S. search remedy debates, reframing competition while scrutiny persists [4].
• Pushback and controls: European publishers have filed complaints over alleged traffic loss. Power users share workarounds to suppress AI summaries, and Google experiments with ad grouping and collapsible modules [5].

Bottom line
Search is shifting from find and click to ask and decide. Google’s operating strategy is to reduce friction to a first useful insight, then hand people off to trusted sources, products, and creators. The teams that win design for both paths and prove it with query growth, qualified clickthrough, and conversion that holds steady as the UI evolves [1][2].

What Happened

In the WSJ Bold Names interview, Google’s head of Search Liz Reid depicted AI as the most significant transformation since mobile. While transformer models such as BERT have powered understanding for years, what’s new is the visible shift: AI Overviews and AI Mode that present summary responses with embedded links. Reid contends that users issue more queries, are more satisfied, and still click when they intend to transact. Ads can appear above or below AI modules depending on context [1].

Google Search AI, AI Overviews, AI Mode, Liz Reid, BERT, Pew teens, antitrust remedies, publisher traffic, Search strategy, Factics

Why It Matters (Factics)

Fact: Google reports more and longer queries in AI Mode and overviews, calling AI Overviews among the most successful Search features of the decade [1].
Tactic: For each high-priority topic, create two types of pages: (a) concise, citable answer pages tailored for AI summarization; (b) deeper explainers with supporting data, multimedia, and links.
KPI: Achieve a +10 to +20 percent increase in AI-referred sessions and +6 to +10 percent organic CTR from AI inline links.

Fact: Independent studies show that when summaries appear, users are less likely to click links. In one analysis, links were clicked roughly half as often when placed under AI summaries [3].
Tactic: Construct phrase-level answers of about 40–60 words with explicit attribution (“According to…”) and clean headings to maximize the chance AI panels pick your content.
KPI: +10 percent month-over-month growth in AI-panel inclusions, while maintaining session revenue.

Fact: Google product documentation indicates AI features will show links above, within, and below summaries to encourage deeper exploration of sources [1].
Tactic: Use clear section headers, FAQ blocks, and Article/FAQ schema to allow AI modules to pick and link your text.
KPI: Increase impression share in “AI appearance” surfaces in Search Console and uplift in assisted conversions.

Fact: Teens and younger users disproportionately favor video and creator content; search surfaces are shifting to reflect that [3].
Tactic: Publish short explainer videos on YouTube for your top questions; embed the transcripts on your site so AI modules can source them.
KPI: +20 percent video-led organic entries and +10 percent session depth from those entries.

Fact: Legal and regulatory commentary acknowledges that generative AI is reshaping the competitive landscape in search, though some analysts say Google’s dominance remains resilient [4].
Tactic: Track AI-referred traffic as a distinct segment; diversify content distribution through prompts, assistant ecosystems, and non-Search channels.
KPI: Keep any single channel below 35 percent of total inbound traffic; aim for ±3 percent week-over-week variation in AI-referred clicks.

Fact: Some European publishers have lodged complaints claiming AI Overviews reduce their referral traffic; users also share ways to suppress AI panels [5].
Tactic: Emphasize original reporting, unique tools or data, and content forms (video, interactive) that move beyond what a paragraph can convey.
KPI: −10 percent bounce on deep explainers, +15 percent returning visitors to cornerstone hubs, and retention of brand attribution inside AI modules.

Lessons in Action

Design for the first answer and the next click. Instrument time to outbound click and track conversion from AI-referred sessions.
Build citable answer slices. Use clear attribution and modular short statements so AI modules can quote and link.
Lead with video where attention lies. Host transcripts on your pages so AI panels can attribute and link.
Instrument risk. Spin dashboards for AI traffic, branded vs. non-brand queries, and single-source dependency.
Monitor evolving user controls and UI options. Some users disable AI modules, so understand how that affects click behavior.

Reflect and Adapt

As AI surfaces answers, our role shifts to being notably better at the parts AI cannot wholly replace—depth, insight, nuance, interactivity. The best paths will pair an instant summary with an invitation to go deeper. Our measurement follows the flow: from AI-impression to click to deeper engagement to conversion.

Common Questions

Q: Does AI Overview kill clicks?
A: It depends on vertical and query type. Google claims higher volumes and satisfaction [1], but independent data show lower click rates when summaries appear [3]. Track for your own segments.

Q: How can I get my content cited inside AI answers?
A: Use short, well-attributed answer passages with clean headings, FAQ blocks, and schema markup. AI panels often source those directly [1].

Q: Is Google losing to chat assistants?
A: Google is pursuing both patterns—evolving Search while developing Gemini chat. Regulation explicitly considers generative AI’s effect on competition [4].

References

Google. (2025, May 20). AI in Search: Going beyond information to intelligence. Retrieved from https://blog.google/products/search/google-search-ai-mode-update/
Google. (2025, August 6). AI in Search: Driving more queries and higher quality clicks. Retrieved from https://blog.google/products/search/ai-search-driving-more-queries-higher-quality-clicks/
Pew Research Center. (2023, December 11). Teens, social media and technology 2023. Retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2023/12/11/teens-social-media-and-technology-2023/
U.S. Department of Justice. (2025, September 2). Department of Justice wins significant remedies against Google. Retrieved from https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/department-justice-wins-significant-remedies-against-google
The Guardian. (2025, October 16). Italian publishers demand investigation into Google’s AI Overviews. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/16/google-ai-overviews-italian-news-publishers-demand-investigation

Surviving the Google Penguin Update

May 22, 2012 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Penguin Rescue_020 — Penguin (Photo credit: iliveisl)

Google’s April 24th update – codenamed Penguin – seems to have had some seriously adverse impact on many sites. Google has said time and time again, that SEO can be very constructive and positive. They have pointed out that effective SEO can make a website more accessible and crawlable. Basic SEO includes techniques such as easy keyword research conducted to help ensure that you are embedding the best and most attractive words for your industry, product or services.

Since good search engine optimization can equal good marketing, being creative and using a variety of ways to make your website’s content compelling is also key. This can also be beneficial on your social media networks, great content will be shared, and that is always a plus. Those who use suggested white hat, or organic, techniques as opposed to black hat, or more nefarious methods, do not usually experience some of the devastating problems that are common with big algorithm changes such as the one with Penguin and the previous Panda change.

Penguin Eats Webspam

Sites that pursue black hat techniques, or Webspam, may use shortcuts that can help to raise their page rankings quicker than the organic white hat methods. Anything from link farming to keyword stuffing can help to temporarily boost rankings, but then Google always seems to find a way to punish those who do. It is simply not worth it any longer to spend time looking for loopholes when organic methods continue to stand up to even the strongest test in Google’s content updates.

Penguin specifically focused on penalizing sites that utilized:

When Penguin was rolled out it was referred to as the ‘webspam algorithm update’ for this reason. It intentionally targeted those sites using black hat tricks to bump themselves above those using good wholesome white hat organic marketing methods.

Be sure to also check out the search engine spam penalties page for more information that could be helpful in helping you to remove issues from your site that Google’s new update is now frowning upon.

Google says that they want people to focus on white hat SEO methods such as creating compelling websites and creative content, or even no search engine optimization at all, before considering using any black hat methods. Although some of the webspam techniques they have been eliminating in recent algo changes are more than ten years old, Google has warned repeatedly about practicing bad SEO methods and admit that they are continually improving on ways to make sure their next releases find the other black hat needles in the haystack that is the internet and swiftly penalize them too.

Author:

@BasilPuglisi is the Executive Director and Publisher for Digital Brand Marketing Education (dbmei.com). Basil C. Puglisi is also the President of Puglisi Consulting Group, Inc. A Digital Brand Marketing Consultancy that manages professional and personal branding for Fortune 500 CEOs, Hedge Fund Managers and Small Business Owners.

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Google Webmaster Tools Offers Custom Search Engine Creation

October 25, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Google logo ™

Webmaster tools. The focus of the update is to provide marketers with the option to run their own trials of custom search engines.

The custom search engines created by Google’s Webmaster Tools can be used on business domains and their subdomains making search queries for any content on the business’s site easier to locate. Users can search over one or more sites, tweak the look and feel of the business’s site, and even earn money with it using Adsense for Search.

Creating your Custom Search Engine

You do not have to be a coding expert to create your own custom search engine. To create your own search engine with Google’s Webmaster Tools simply click on the Custom Search link under the Google Labs section. Webmaster tools will then create a default custom search engine that will search only your chosen site. Set up your configuration options or grab the code snippet, as is, to add to your new CSE site.

Users can then continue on to a full custom search engine dashboard to apply settings that are more advanced. Once your CSE is up and running, you can click the Custom Search link inside of Google Labs to manage the settings without leaving Google Webmaster tools.

Benefits to Your Business

For those business that use content marketing, the utilization of Google-powered search engines on their home page can be as important as any other efforts that go into expanding their sites reach. Users who frequent your site will be able to easily find topics or archives articles and information that is relevant to current topics, or even if they just want to find and share older stories with their own networks.

Content marketing is a highly useful instrument in the toolbox of internet marketers. Brafton News reports that up to 82% of businesses are currently using content marketing as part of their internet marketing campaigns.

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Google is Still Winning – But For How Long?

April 15, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Although Google may still be the top search engine in the U.S., and by a still impressively immense margin, the last six months have shown that Bing, powered by Microsoft, is leading an impressive race in the competition for top search engine status. If this trend continues to increase at its current rate, Bing may very well be a real competitor for leading search engine status by 2012.

Bing Growth

According to recent statistical data, Google received over 64% of searches conducted from within the United States in March of 2011. Searches powered by Bing, which also include Yahoo and Bing.com, were utilized at a rate of 30%.

Even though Google still leads Bing by more than 2 to 1, the 30% mark for Bing is a rather notable one considering that just six months ago, Bing held a rate of U.S. search engine queries at only 23%. Down 10% since August 2010, the same month when Yahoo searches began to be powered by Bing, should these statistics be compounded in their current directions, it could be possible that Bing would beat out Google as the leading search engine sometime in January 2012. Although it doesn’t seem very likely, at current projections, it could be the result of current search engine trends.

Google Growth

While Google’s growth has obviously flattened out in recent months, Bing has continued to rise. However, Google continues to fill up their handy box of tricks with new features such as +1, Google Instant, and their social search, as well as their ability to block unwanted websites.

Search Ad Profitability

With the above statistics in mind it is easy to understand that at this point Bing is still chasing Google in search ad profits. While Google’s search engine advertising profits still massively outweigh Bings, Bing still seems to be on a winning rise in some of the most imperative categories.

Outside of the U.S.

Google remains a dominant tool for search engine queries with a rate that steady for the U.K. at 91%. This rate is even higher in other European countries like Germany, France and Australia.

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Google’s New E-Commerce Features

April 11, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Web retailers may have just received extra encouragement for product promotion from Google with the launch of their new E-commerce, product-specific search capabilities. At least two new features will stand out to regular users.

Instant Results

First, there is the type-as-you-go feature that Google users have grown accustomed to in their web search tool. This feature will now attempt to fill in some of the most commonly searched products, even localized when possible, and get instant results for browsing and purchasing items from your query.

How Does this Work?

To see this feature in action head to babyage.com a Baby Store site and begin to type the phrase “portable cribs” into the search bar, as you do you can see that even at the letter P it is offering quick search results with clickable photo links directly to the product page. The more letters added the more specific the search results are displayed.

Product Availability

Since commerce for major purposes over the past few years has taken on a combination of online and offline shopping, the second new feature of the ecommerce upgrade encourages localized shopping by maintaining inventory management systems of many of the larger retailers. This allows users to find out exactly where an item they are interested in can be located in their area. Wal-Mart has been using a similar system for their online shoppers for quite some time.

This type of product availability mapping can be a great tool for those who do not have hours on end around the holiday seasons to hunt down the year’s hottest products. Utilized widely it may even have some impact on economical aspects such as saving on travel expenses. For those used to shopping online for their minor needs this may not seem like a big deal, however, considering that some items even the sharpest online shopper would likely never purchase online, this could make that bargain shopping hunt far easier.

Items like furniture, appliances and heavy equipment such as lawn mowers or outside storage containers may certainly be items that are well worth the trip to the actual store to save on shipping cost. The new system can also help you to find the store closest to you so that those ungainly trips to return home with those items much more convenient.

The Business End of E-Commerce Updates

Business owners are allowed to fully customize the appearance of their results any way they choose. With some additional merchandising and marketing options users can easily configure their own promotions to be displayed with a visitor enters a related search as well as designate their banner zones on site.

To help users better understand the new changes, Google has supplied a video with a great explanation on YouTube.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nje9fUcIkKc&feature=player_embedded]

There seems to more happening these days beyond google checkout, take a look at the big picture and google commerce in conjunction with google apps and google checkout any small business can now rival the technology of the biggest corporations.

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