YouTube Experiments with AI Overviews in Search Results

YouTube is quietly testing a new feature that could reshape the way people find videos: AI Overviews.

This feature, still in its experimental phase, introduces a carousel of AI-selected video highlights directly in the search results. Instead of scrolling through entire video titles or watching full intros, users will see quick, curated clips pulled from relevant videos matching their query.

Why This Matters?

For content creators and brands, this experiment raises a familiar concern.

Just like Google’s AI Overviews on Search have been accused of diverting clicks away from websites, YouTube’s version could potentially impact video views. If the AI summarizes and displays the most useful parts upfront, will users still click through to watch the full content?

How It Works?

When a user types a specific type of query, YouTube’s AI scans its video database to:

  1. Identify clips it considers highly informative or relevant
  2. Display these snippets in a carousel format within search results

This means viewers might get what they’re looking for without ever pressing play on the full video.

Currently, the feature is focused on queries related to:

  1. Product research (e.g., best noise cancelling headphones)
  2. Travel and local guides (e.g., museums to visit in San Francisco)

Who’s Seeing It?

This isn’t available to everyone yet. Here’s who gets access for now:

  1. A small group of U.S.-based YouTube Premium members
  2. Only for some English-language search queries

What’s Next?

YouTube is actively gathering feedback through thumbs-up and thumbs-down buttons. Based on this user input, the company will decide whether to tweak the feature, roll it out more broadly, or possibly even shelve it.

Did You Know?

Google’s introduction of AI Overviews in search has already sparked concern among publishers and SEO professionals. Now, with YouTube exploring a similar path, the question arises: Will AI boost discovery or overshadow original creators?

Are AI Overviews Killing Your Clicks? Ahrefs Thinks So

If you’ve noticed a sudden drop in clicks—even when ranking #1—you’re not imagining things. Ahrefs just ran a deep dive on 300,000 keywords and found something pretty wild:

👉 When an AI Overview shows up in the search results, the click-through rate (CTR) for the top-ranking page drops by 34.5%.

Let that sink in.

Their data compares search performance before and after Google rolled out AI Overviews in the U.S. Here’s what they saw:

In 2024 (pre-AI Overviews), position 1 had a CTR of 0.073

In 2025 (post-rollout), it dropped to 0.026

That’s not just a dip—it’s a nosedive.

📉 Why? Because AI Overviews often answer the user’s question right there on the page. No click needed. It’s like featured snippets, but more aggressive. And while Google claims links inside these Overviews get more clicks… we have no way to verify that. Google doesn’t separate those clicks in Search Console.

The bottom line? If AI Overviews stay the same, this 34.5% drop could just be the beginning.

This might be the moment SEO folks rethink how they win attention—not just rankings.

📊 Full breakdown via Ahrefs: ahrefs.com/blog/ai-o…

Google Drops Organic Result wrt Local Listings

In January 2025, it seems like Google Search has brought a new update. Many call it “January 2025 Local Search Update”.

So, what is this January 2025 Local Search Update all about?

Well, with this update, Google Search has empowered Google Business Profile listings over the website’s organic search results.

For example, say you have a Google Business Profile listing and in that listing’s website field you have added your website’s URL.

Now earlier, both of your website’s URL and Google Business Profile listing were ranking but now Google Search will only rank the GBP listing.

So, if you are doing Local SEO (on website) and GBP optimization for your brand at the same, then it may happen that your organic traffic might degrade for the Local keywords.

The best way to resolve this issue is simply by changing the GBP profile’s URL to a different one if it is the same as the organic search result.

Product Comparison in Google AI Overviews

Back on May 14, 2024, Google released AI Overviews in the US and then soon after 5 months (i.e. in October 2024), made it available to over 100 countries and territories.

Since then, Google brings several new features to AI overviews, for example, solving complex maths queries, coding queries, multimodal search and more.

Now, to help out users coming with commercial intent, Google AI overviews has brought a new feature. It can do product comparisons.

For example, if you place queries like “iphone 15 vs iphone 15 pro”, it will give you a detailed comparison report (based on product specification or any other differentiating factor).

x.com/blairmacg…

Impact

This new feature will impact websites doing product comparisons or affiliate marketing. However, it will give a new place for advertisers to put their ads on.

Google AI Overviews now helps you out with Coding

The competition between Google AI Overviews and ChatGPT is getting intense day by day.

And, it starts with bringing more similar feature in both of these platforms.

So, far ChatGPT had the capability to give you the desired programming code, but now Google AI Overviews has integrated the same directly in the Search Result, making Google Search more productive.

This came soon after a released data showcasing the usage of Google Search is getting degraded day by day.

Below, I have added a screenshot that shows how this feature works and looks actually in Google Search.



URL is Unknown to Google - What does it mean in SEO?

Through a LinkedIn Post, Adam Gent asked a question to Garry Illyes about an issue that you may have encountered in GSC.

And, the issue is about “URL is unknown to Google”.

Adam asked, Does URL is unknown to Google issue have the lowest crawl priority for the Google?

In response to this question, Garry Answered that “URLs encountering this issue in GSC are simply unknown to Google and hence these URLs have no crawl priority at all.”

Google Search Console now Updates Report Data in 30 Minutes Interval

To enhance the capability of fresh reporting, Google Search Console now refresh the report data in 30 minutes interval.

So, earlier, when we check the performance tab in Google Search Console, we see Last Updated 3 hours ago or 5 hours ago like that.

However, now it is showing Last Updated 3.5 hours ago, so here the .5 hours indicates, Google Search Console is now updating reports data in 30 minute interval.

What your opinion in the use of getting this fresh data in a short span of interval time? Let me know in the comments down below.

Google Removes Breadcrumbs from Mobile Search Result

To improve the user’s experience on Mobile Devices, Google removes breadcrumbs for Search Result.

Now, users on mobile devices will only see the domain name for the search result alongwith Title, Description, and other elements.

Breadcrumbs was introduced to improve the user experience because it helps in navigating the website. However, the screen size limitation of mobile devices truncates the breadcrumbs. That’s why Google decides to depreciate this feature from mobile devices.

However, breadcrumbs will remain present in Google Search for Desktop devices. And, there is no need to change the implementation strategy of breadcrumbs on the website.

This new change has been added to all the regions where Google Search is available.

How to Identify Number of Google Maps Listings a Brand have in a Particular Location?

While doing Local SEO for a brand, sometimes you may need to know, “How many Google Maps Listing the brand has in a particular location?”.

Well, this is understandable, because the more a brand has Google Maps Lisiting, the more number of its listing has chances to rank highers in Google Search for different queries.

So, without a further ado, here is a trick to find out the same. Actually, we will use the Google Search Operators to do this easily.

  1. First open “Google Maps”.
  2. Type the below Syntax for Google Search Operator: “brandname” “store” OR “dealer” OR “showroom” location:locationname
  3. Hit Enter

Note: Keyword Marked in italics are variables and you can change it as per your need.

Studio Makes WordPress Local Development Simpler

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