Insights ยท Explainer
What Google's AI Search Guidance Means for Small Businesses
Google's message: optimizing for AI search is still SEO.
What did Google say?
Google's guide on optimizing for generative AI features says that this work 'is optimizing for the search experience, and thus still SEO'. It adds that site owners do not need to create new machine-readable files, AI text files or special markup to appear in generative AI search.
To be eligible, a page must be indexed and able to show a snippet. Beyond that, Google stresses unique, non-commodity content: information a reader could not get from a dozen identical pages.
What should a small business do?
Put effort into the fundamentals rather than tricks.
- Make sure key pages are indexed in Search Console
- Give each service its own detailed page
- Add first-hand detail: your process, prices, photos and examples
- Keep your Google Business Profile complete
- Avoid nosnippet tags on pages you want cited
Does this apply to ChatGPT and other assistants?
Not directly. Google's guidance covers Google. Other assistants use their own crawlers and sources, so it still pays to allow AI search bots in robots.txt and to earn mentions on trusted third-party sites.
Sources
- Google Search Central: Optimizing your website for generative AI features on Google Search
- Search Engine Journal: Google's new AI search guide calls AEO and GEO 'still SEO'
- OpenAI: Overview of OpenAI crawlers
Sources checked on . Third-party findings are reported as published and may be correlational.
Written by
Dr. Abaid Ahmad
Founder of Summit Digital Marketing. Fellow and Chartered Marketer (CIM, UK), Chartered Manager, PhD and MBA, with more than ten years of digital marketing using AI.
Next step
Find out what AI says about your business
Request a free AI visibility audit. You get a written summary and prioritised fixes within one business day of hearing from you.