Reframing the Google Algorithm: Insights from BrightEdge Data

BrightEdge, an enterprise SEO platform, actively monitors millions of keyword search results, identifying real-world trends in Google's AI Overviews and organic search related to the current November 2024 core algorithm update. This data provides six preliminary observations about the direction of Google's algorithm and what publishers and SEOs need to know now.

AI Overviews is a search feature, so any changes to Google's core ranking algorithm will be reflected in AIO, especially since there are several ways in which AIO and organic search results intersect.

🚀 This data was exclusively shared by BrightEdge with Search Engine Journal. One of the most interesting trends that continues this month is the intersection of websites cited in AIO and organic search results. This change, first noticed in September, was very noticeable, especially in the top ten organic search results. Highly ranked organic content has a high chance of being cited in AIO. This trend suggests that Google is increasingly aligning AIO citations with the organic search algorithm.

• 📌 How Google aligns organic SERPs with AIO is anyone's guess, as Google has not commented on this trend. Perhaps AIO is based on organic search results that align more and more closely to the subject of the search query. Google's information augmentation patent describes a way to rank websites that tightly links Google's organic search ranking with an AI-powered search interface. These trends observed by BrightEdge correspond to this type of symmetry between AI Search and organically ranked answers.