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How Generative Search Could Declutter the Internet

Could generative search lead to less SEO content?

Steph

6/3/20245 min read

The internet, though a treasure trove of information, products and entertainment, has become increasingly cluttered, full of clickbait content and excessively long pages. You know exactly what I’m talking about – when you click through to a recipe but have to first read what can only be described as an essay about the history of how this recipe came about. Just give me the ingredients and instructions.

What if we could cut through the noise and get straight to the result we were looking for? Behold: generative search! The AI-powered search technology which could help to declutter the web and deliver a cleaner search experience.

In this post, we'll explore how generative search works, the challenges it carries with it, potential benefits and how it could help to tidy up the internet.

Content Key

What is generative search?

Generative search uses artificial intelligence to analyse search queries and provide an accurate AI response within the results page, without always requiring the web user to click through to links.

Large Language Models (LLMs) are trained on vast amounts of text data, including information publicly available via the internet, enabling them to better understand language, context, and nuances in meaning, rather than simply being able to match keywords.

The idea is that the AI will interpret your intent and then pull together information from various sources, offering an accurate, summarised response, removing the need for you to do the hard work.

Concerns

While generative search holds promise, it's not without its challenges. Concerns include:

Privacy: As discussed, LLMs are trained on large amounts of information scraped from the public web. This raises questions regarding whether businesses and individuals have consented to their data being used in this way, particularly where personal information or copyrighted material is involved. There are concerns about potential exposure of sensitive information and the implications for intellectual property rights.
Bias and misinformation: Language models can inherit biases from their training data, leading to skewed results. They can also sometimes generate inaccurate or misleading information.

Potential Benefits

Generative search offers a plethora of benefits for users, transforming the way we interact with information online.

Concise answers: Generative search delivers direct answers, saving you time and effort from sifting through pages of links.
Less clickbait: Generative search prioritises genuine information, making it easier to avoid misleading headlines and clickbait.
Understanding: Complex topics can be summarised or explained in a way that's easier to grasp, fostering deeper understanding.

Generative search has the potential to help SEOs declutter the web, by offering succinct answers to long-tail keywords and conversational searches.

Traditional SEO methods

Currently, SEOs employ numerous techniques to target long-tail keywords, including the likes of indexable facet filters and some very niche, very long content.

Indexable facet filters

Also known as faceted navigation or filtered navigation, indexable facet filters are a way to organise content on a website and are especially effective for e-commerce websites. Filters are implemented which allow users to narrow down their search based on specific attributes, such as size, color, price, or brand. Each combination of filters creates a unique URL that can be indexed by search engines.

This means, for example, that a page could rank in a search engine results page (SERP) for a long-tail keyword or search such as: black 52 inch full hd bluetooth enabled LED smart tv with voice control.

Using indexable facet filters, however, comes with its challenges, especially if not correctly implemented. There can be potential complications such as duplicate content, excessive pages, redirect errors, wasted crawl budget, and more.

Content creation and optimisation

In efforts to maximise organic traffic, SEOs create content specifically targeting certain keywords. Whilst content should be useful, unique and engaging, some content can be excessive in length. In some cases, additional methods, such as backlink procurement, are also implemented with the aim of helping said content to rank better.

Decluttering the internet

Generative search, though in its infancy, is promising and will likely change the way we interact with search engines. We can expect it to drive humans towards more conversational search queries.

As we can see from the likes of AI Overviews (Google’s answer to generative search, which is currently live in the US), many informational queries return an AI Overview (AIO). From my own, limited testing in the UK, where AIO is available as an experiment, I’ve already been able to identify that generative search can effectively pull together information from numerous web pages, making things a lot easier for me as an internet user.

Of course, there may be some out there who will be tempted to create fresh content to target these new keywords, however, if you’re reading this, I’m urging – do not create useless content. Google’s AI Overviews will likely dominate for conversational queries, where only the first row of sources is initially visible. Furthermore, if you somehow manage to rank in 1st position (below the AIO) for such a long-tail keyword, you’re probably going to see even fewer clicks than you would have done in the pre-generative search era.

Instead of creating excess content, I’m going to recommend what Google always recommends – create content that’s useful for your audience, content that has a purpose. Gone are the days when every page on your website needs to be indexable. In fact, we could theoretically get rid of indexable facet filters altogether. I’m by no means suggesting that we get rid of filters; they’re a useful tool for web visitors to get exactly to the content they’re looking for. My point is, if generative search is doing a lot of the heavy lifting anyway, then category pages won’t even need to be indexable or to show within a SERP.

Where content creation is concerned, let’s take the example eurocamp near to beziers. Normally, an SEO might use two methods to target this keyword – faceted navigation, and a category landing page with a list of parcs close to the area. With the introduction of generative search however, an indexable category page would likely rank below a generative result such as Google’s AIO.

In the case of this particular AI Overview, Google has done the heavy lifting for us and has listed the eurocamp sites near to Béziers, their distance from the location, as well as links to the relevant pages:

As demonstrated, generative search engines can surface concise responses, removing the requirement to click through multiple category pages. This could lead to cleaner websites with higher-quality content, a reduced server load and faster loading times from fewer pages to crawl, and an overall better user experience.

Final words

This was a just a brief look at how generative search could help towards decluttering the web. It’s important to remember that generative search is still relatively new, and we can’t be sure as to what it means for the future of search. One thing that is certain is; as this technology evolves, SEOs will need to adapt their strategies, focusing on creating valuable content that meets users' needs directly.