Google’s SGE Launch Date Remains a Mystery
Google has been testing its Google Search Generative Experience (SGE) with a small group of U.S. searchers, but the company has not yet announced when it will fully launch the feature. There are rumors that SGE may be launched during the Google I/O keynote address on May 14, but Google has not confirmed this.
Launching SGE at Google I/O would make sense, as it is the company’s largest and most notable event of the year. However, Google has not provided any information about when or if SGE will go live. In the past, there was a deadline for SGE’s launch set for December 2023, but Google removed it and did not launch the feature.
One concern for Google is how SGE will impact clicks on search ads, which are its main source of revenue. To address this, Google may only show AI overviews for search results that do not contain any ads. The majority of daily search queries do not display ads, and AI answers are particularly useful for longer tail queries that may not have ads anyway. By limiting AI overviews and excluding certain categories such as political or sensitive topics, Google can mitigate potential issues.
Currently, SGE is an experimental feature that users can toggle on and off to opt out. However, as Google begins testing SGE in the wild, some users have expressed their desire to opt out but are unable to do so.
The launch of SGE has raised concerns among advertisers and content publishers. Advertisers worry about the impact on clicks and conversions in search results, while content publishers are concerned about how traffic from organic search might change with the introduction of SGE. There is also a fear that Google may take content from publishers without providing any impressions on their sites.
Google has stated that it prioritizes approaches that drive valuable traffic to publishers and has increased the number of links to sites with SGE in search results. However, it is unclear whether searchers are clicking on these links.
As of now, there is no concrete information about when SGE will be launched, where it will be available, or how it will be implemented. Search Engine Land will provide updates as soon as more information becomes available.
