So how much traffic are you going to lose because of Google SGE?

20-11-2023

Many of you will be thinking what the hell is SGE anyway, I imagine? I say this because when I asked around, less than half the people had heard about SGE in the first place.

So what is SGE?

Google are forever making changes to the algorithm that decides what sites appear in the listings for any given search phrase, many of the recent ones using AI. SGE (Search Generative Experience) is another one of these updates, but it will be one of the biggest, or at least it could be.

In essence, SGE itself will only affect a part of the results screen, the top half to be exact (although associated rule changes will affect the bottom half in different ways). The idea is that this new section will contain in-depth insights from individual experts and thought leaders. It seems Google aims to change how its users find the answers to questions and discover brand content, which is part of their people-first SEO strategy for 2024.

The BIG issue

The biggest issue is that some pundits say that many websites will lose over 40% of their traffic because the PAA (People Also Ask) results, which many sites rely on to capture informational searches, are being dropped. More on this later.

The other changes are that the power of links in deciding what site to rank for a search phrase is being reduced. The gap being filled with an ‘seo signal‘ based on ‘Brand Awareness’. Lastly, Google is now going to be looking even harder for what they call people-centric copy, i.e. not written with the aim of getting ranked (this is not new, but the extra emphasis should not be ignored).

What does this mean in practice?

The power of the link is to be reduced, the reason for this stems from the fact that this area is easily manipulated by the use of Guest posts and paid for links.
So perhaps you could reduce your link-building efforts (note this depends on your current link network and your marketplace – best to have one of our SEO audits to be sure) and spend the budget elsewhere?
Instead of links, Brand Awareness will now be taken into account, this to a degree being measured by the engagement levels between brands and individuals across all the many social media and forums.
This

means that you should reconsider your Social Media strategy and consider creating extra Forum accounts / posts.
Google has stated that content should be written for humans and not for the Search engines, but that is not really new, perhaps the real change is that the content should clearly be designed to HELP, using images, videos and audio files to demonstrate the point.
So

, make sure your site is fast and easy to use and that you supplement text with videos and images wherever possible.

The road to success

I think that the road to success here must be to aim to REALLY try to HELP people with good quality content, perhaps using the They Ask You Answer (TAYA) principle created and mastered by Marcus Sheridan.

Also, it looks like Google will want more evidence of Experience, Expertise, Authority and Trust (E-E-A-T). One way of doing this is to link to information supporting the content’s arguments, just like the citations in University dissertations. Plus, of course, ensure that your Experience and Expertise are demonstrated in the copy.

It also looks to be a good idea to include a biography of the author where appropriate, as it boosts the page’s Trust (and transparency).

What does quality content look like then?

Based on the key factors Google are known to use to judge the quality of your content, you should:–

Try to create Original content by providing your expert insight, carrying out deeper research into the topic, or analysing the data to produce another set of answers (as this post is doing).
Make sure your copy covers the area comprehensively.
Create content that is accurate (and therefore trustworthy) by indicating where your data comes from. Getting your spelling and grammar correct is also important here. Including details of authorship (that BIO entry) will also help here.
Provide real value to the reader, don’t just write copy to attract the Search Engines (Beware of the AI SEO optimisation tools here; my tests show that they are prone to keyword-stuff content).
Ensure that your website is fast, easy to use and, that video, images, and text are easily accessible and that the layout and navigation is good.

Links, Forums and Social Media

Of course, one should not abandon creating links (but NEVER buy them) – Forum posts still look to be a good bet – but perhaps it will now become even more necessary to implement some form of Social Media strategy or to boost the current levels of output.

But now let’s get back to that 40% traffic drop.

I believe this is solely based on the fact that the PAA listing are going. And it is true that if you look at the ranks held using a tool like Semrush that sites could lose a lot of traffic (the latter being calculated by SEMRush, i.e. it is a guess).

One piece of good news is that Featured Snippets look safe, so we will continue to see them in the post SGE world.

PAA clicks and sales funnels

By the way, the reason the loss of PAA driven clicks is worrying some site owners is the fact that these ‘informational’ searches are very good at bringing in sales in. This being demonstrated by the fact they are often recorded as entry points to the sales process, so-called ‘Top of Funnel’ phrases.

However, first, the indicated traffic loss is very much a guess by tools like SEMRush, and second, not all interactions with PAA listings result in a click to a site. (It should also be noted that the creators of Pillar Based Marketing – a system that has been bringing great results in the USA, and which relies on informational searches, like PAA – have not seen a lot of difference when running tests on Google’s Beta SGE interface).

But there may be a way of getting a better idea about the level of traffic that could be lost by cross-referencing the keywords that you know are bringing in the traffic with those known to be PAA listings.

My research shows that sites which look like they are going to lose 40% will in fact lose less than 10%.

I checked the data for three of one of my client’s customers for whom I am contracted to supply SEO services, all serving very different market sectors – Insolvency, Director Disqualification and Event Management.

Event Management Customer – Estimated Loss Per SEMRush = 0%

Director Disqualification Customer – Estimated Loss Per SEMRush = 10% (PAA listings highlighted)

Insolvency Customer – Estimated Loss Per SEMRush = 47% (PAA listings highlighted)

As you can see, there is a good deal of variation here, it also giving an idea of why some are predicting 40% traffic losses.

All may not be what it seems though…

The thing is, using this method of predicting traffic loss has some holes in it. Firstly, not all views of a PAA listing result in a click to a site; as all the information the user needs is often shown. This means that there is no need to click on the link to the site, which in turn means that the click cannot be lost.

So how can we calculate a more accurate figure?

One way is to cross reference the phrases that are ranked as PAA by SEMRush and then see how many clicks the site receives for those phrases, this data being gleaned from Google Search Console. As it is very possible that such clicks will be lost when SGE goes live, we can get a much better idea of possible traffic loss.

My research showed that the loss in traffic would only be 8% in the case of the Insolvency customer, a LOT different to the 47% in the SEMRush data set, because quite simply, the majority of their traffic does not in fact, come from PAA listings, and therefore will be not be affected by the introduction of SGE.

Here the red highlight is a PAA listing, only search phrases so affected shown here.

But there is an even better way

I believe this can be done by a bit of reverse engineering. We can get a very good idea of the terms that bring in traffic to any website by examining the data in Google Search Console (GSC). If we take this data for the last say, six months, and then run these phrases through some Rank Checking software, we can get a very good idea if the traffic came from a PAA listing, which are the ones that will be lost when SGE is put into play.

Using this system, the data shows (only a portion of the data shown for clarity) that there is ZERO correlation between the phrases and PAA listings, which means that NO traffic would be lost.

Conclusion

SGE is bound to affect the traffic any site will receive, but as to how much, well the jury is still out.

My research shows that it is likely to be a lot less than some predict, possibly less than 10%, especially as the data some of them may be using is suspect.

Saying that, I did not test every type of site, so perhaps Ecommerce and some other site variants will lose that 40%? We would need to run some tests here to check (happy to help if wanted).

An example of a site that could lose a lot of traffic is Kotobee, as according to SEMRush, they get 57% of their traffic through PAA listings.

Are the arguments made here foolproof and 100% accurate? No, I don’t think I can claim this. In the end we will only know the true effect of GSE once it has gone live, but perhaps things won’t be as bad as some say?

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