Google AI Overviews For Branded & Navigational Queries

Google AI Overviews generally do not show up for branded or navigational queries. So if you are searching for a brand or company, generally, Google has not shown an AI Overview.

And honestly, that still seems to be the case.

But the other day, Victor Pan from Hubspot, noticed that Google was showing an AI Overview for a search on [hubspot] – a branded or navigational query. He posted about it on X and it got a lot of attention. And he is correct, Google, for some reason, is showing an AI Overview in this case.

Here is a screenshot:

So I watched this and I tested dozens of different brands, including about a dozen brands in the same or similar space of Hubspot and Google is not showing AI Overviews for other brands. I tried Salesforce, Zendesk, Monday.com, Pipedrive, Zoho, Semrush and so many others. Nothing – not yet – at least.

Generally, you don’t want to see AI Overviews for branded queries. You don’t know what it might say and if that will lead to fewer clicks to your brand because it might mention competitors…

That being said, I think this Hubspot example is an outlier, maybe even a bug.

I mean, if it is not a bug, then sure, panic because:

TLDR; AI Overviews will likely hurt branded CTR, but not kill it entirely.

CTR curves are flattening

Page 1 ranking domination is getting harder

SEOs need a deeper understanding of branded vs unbranded traffic more than ever

— Victor Pan 🇹🇼🇺🇲 (@victorpan) September 25, 2024

Do you see AI Overviews trigger for brand terms or navigational queries?

Forum discussion at X.