Elyse Betters Picaro / ZDNET
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ZDNET's key takeaways
Google says AI Mode search results will show more website links.
Google will show more "useful" links, but no definition given.
Google also says AI Overviews isn't reducing overall web traffic.
Google is experimenting with more ways to encourage users to follow links with relevant information.
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According to an X thread from Robby Stein, VP of Product for Google Search, Google is tinkering with methods to display more links in AI Mode search queries, and he explains the new link displays that users may encounter.
Improving placement of hyperlinks
Stein says that users are more likely to click links that are embedded within AI Mode responses when they want more information. He says link carousels are available in AI Mode on desktop and will be available on mobile soon, without a specific timeframe.
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According to Stein, Google is preparing model updates to improve the placement of hyperlinks to websites within AI Mode text responses. He says Google trains the model to understand where and when users are most likely to want to dig deeper into a query, and the long-term goal is to embed more links within an AI response.
Expanding Web Guide
Finally, Stein says Google is expanding its Web Guide experiment in Google Labs, aiming to "intelligently surfacing and organizing the most useful web links with AI -- even for your hardest queries."
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It's unclear exactly how Google deems a website's information "useful" enough to be displayed within an AI Mode query summary, and Google does not share with publishers how much traffic is coming from AI Mode summary link clicks.
Stein's X thread comes three weeks after Liz Reid, VP and head of Google Search, wrote a blog post explaining that Google Search traffic trends have remained unchanged by AI Overviews, a separate AI Google Search tool. Whether or not that is true, AI Overviews currently displays considerably more links to sources than AI Mode.
She says third-party studies that illustrate the opposite are flawed, isolated, or based on an incorrect timeframe.