![SEO through the Google SGE lens: What’s changing? SEO through the Google SGE lens: What’s changing?](https://searchengineland.com/wp-content/seloads/2023/11/SEO-through-the-SGE-lens-Whats-changing.png)
Successful SEO professionals know a lot about dealing with uncertainty – such is life when algorithms that make or break performance are kept under lock and key.
But Search Generative Experience (SGE) triggers change-related anxiety from even the most seasoned SEOs.
Simply put, it’s both a paradigm shift and a quickly moving target; Google’s incorporation of SGE has been evolving almost daily.
So what do we know, and what should we expect – and how should we prepare? In this article, I’ll take a look at:
Where do we stand on SGE?
From a UX perspective, Google scaled back on the initial look, which was taking over most of the SERP. Now it’s less in your face, which I suspect they had planned the whole time – test maximalist to force people to notice and collect data on how they behave in the new environment.
Sticking with the user perspective, not everyone is served SGE with every query. I just tried 10 queries (a mix of “what is,” “should I buy,” “top 10 options for,” and information on state governors), and none of them returned results featuring SGE.
This will certainly change as the product comes out of beta, but it reaffirms that SGE is still in the roll-out phase, and users, SEO, and Google are all learning on the fly.
For SEOs, SGE is kind of the black box within the black box of Google’s algorithm. We can make some very educated recommendations for navigating the world of SGE, but nothing is clear at this point.