SGE is one of Google’s biggest projects, spanning over 120 countries. It is currently in the experimental phase. It will totally change how the search results look.

In this guide I will tell you everything you have to know about SGE: 

  • What SGE basically is
  • How it will affect your business
  • When it will be introduced? 
  • And much more! 

What is SGE? 

SGE stands for “Search Generative Experience”. 

In brief, it’s an addition to traditional search results.  Basically, Google shows an AI-generated summary at the top of the results. 

Look at the screenshot to see how it works:

The current state of SGE

Currently, Google’s SGE is in beta. Meaning, it’s enabled for users who joined a beta program. 

There is no specific timeline to make it available to all Google users.

It’ll be done when it’s done. 

What percentage of queries will be affected? 

We’re waiting for the full data, but we already checked a few popular niches. 

According to our data, Google SGE appears for 87% of ecommerce queries. 

There are some niches where Google is more hesitant to give AI-generated snippets (such as investing where only 20% of queries have SGE enabled). 

Possible risks of SGE

There are 3 main risks:

  1. It may negatively affect clicks and revenue of multiple businesses by occupying the top position of search results. 
  2. SGE can appear on the majority of queries your brand ranks for. For instance, based on our research, Google shows SGE for 87% of ecommerce queries. 
  3. It creates a new SEO playing field.  Based on our research as much as 70% of resources don’t come from traditional search results. 

Imagine you’re offering your products in a town. The best place to sell is not open to commerce. 

Then one day the local government changed this and lets people sell at this newly opened best venue. Someone else beats you to it and their revenue skyrockets.  

To secure your business, you could then try to negotiate and ask whether you can sell at this prominent venue as well.

Same with SGE.  Let’s say you rank top 1, top 3, then SGE comes along and you have to try to be present in this new prominent venue. 

Try to understand how to get into SGE, what content you should create, and how to format it.  It’s going to be a new set of rules, a bit different than traditional SEO. 

How to monitor SGE 

At ZipTie we offer you a solution to monitor SGE.  You can use our SGE checker.

It’s very easy to use it.  First, you enter the list of keywords you’re interested in. 

For instance, if you’re Nike.com, you can try these queries: 

  • Nike shoes
  • Basketball shoes 
  • Benefits of Nike shoes 
  • Nike vs Adidas. 

If you don’t have queries already prepared, just download a list of top queries from Google Search Console.

Then enter these keywords into ZipTie and start an analysis. 

ZipTie will show you a list of queries that don’t appear in SGE, as well as show you your main competitors. Lots of useful data to show your performance!

You can try our trial to see how ZipTie works.

How to get into SGE?

ZipTie can be used as a diagnostic tool to show you how you perform in SGE.

If you want to get into SGE, at ZipTie we cooperate with specialists from Onely, the world’s seoest SEO agency to give you a detailed report as well as recommendations to get into SGE. 

When SGE will be introduced 

In the past, SGE could have been viewed as an experiment.  I was under the impression that Google was forced to develop it because of the success of chatGPT. 

 But many things started adding up: 

  • I noticed the increased quality of SGE results (it’s still not perfect, but I can already see a huge improvement). 
  • SGE was introduced to 120 more countries, letting users from various countries participate in this experiment. 
  • Google is heavily investing in its AI departments.

No one can be 100% certain that Google will introduce SGE to the search results. But I prefer to take the risk of being one the first to understand SGE rather than falling behind once SGE goes live. 

How to enable SGE?

Installing SGE may not be fully intuitive, especially if you live in a country outside of the list of supported counties. 

That is the reason why I wrote “how to enable SGE”.

If you struggle with enabling SGE, just follow this step-by-step tutorial.