Howdy. Many of you already know this, but here’s a fun fact for our readers in English-speaking countries: did you know that everyone else in the world is on day two of a four-day weekend?
It’s true. All of the red countries on that map observed Labor Day yesterday.
We bring this up because we’ve got colleagues in Europe that we’re covering for right now and we need to rush today’s blog post as a result.
Here’s what we’ve got for you today: AI Overviews are creeping into Local Search results. This is bad news. The effects of AI Overviews are still being studied, but a credible March 2025 evaluation by Ahrefs concluded that they reduce click-through rates by over a third.
To put things more plainly, this is Google breaking the social contract it has with the rest of the internet– the idea that Google will fairly distribute traffic to the right places if everyone buys into its system. Google is now trying to retain traffic in as many situations as possible. It has ingested the internet in its entirety and wants to serve it up, one dose at a time, with its Gemini large language model (averting the need for people to view other websites).
Google’s one-stop-shop vision isn’t fully implemented. With luck, its recent antitrust lawsuit losses will curtail it. Realistically, it’ll probably take governments a decade (at least) to recognize what’s going on. We’ve got advice about what you can do for your clients in the meantime: spend some time emphasizing search terms that do not trigger AI Overviews.
You’re probably already prioritizing search terms that (currently) dodge AI Overviews. You can find some generic examples of such search terms below.
“plumber near me”
“emergency HVAC repair [city]”
“roof replacement quotes [zip code]”
“licensed electrician in [suburb]”
“landscape lighting installation in [neighborhood]”
“best roofing company [city] with financing”
You can play around with local search to get a better understanding of which ones are likely to produce results that leave your clients in the dust. If you don’t see any AI Overviews at all, it’s probably because you live in a metropolitan area that is not yet subject to them. Consider yourself lucky.
We need to jump right into today’s closing links. First, from Hootsuite, data about the best times to post to TikTok. Next, from Later, a guide to Meta’s new video editing app, Instagram Edits. Finally, from The Atlantic, an article about the ways generic brands are growing in grocery stores.
Be patient with each other out there.
Have a great weekend.