Google’s latest AI overviews are making it harder than ever to drive organic traffic to your website. Instead of sending users to blogs and independent creators, Google is stealing content directly from sites, repackaging it with AI, and serving it at the top of search results. Meanwhile, YouTube—the platform Google owns—is doing the opposite. YouTube is actively boosting smaller creators and making it easier for videos to reach new audiences.
In this episode, Eric dives into:
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How Google’s AI overviews are cutting independent creators out of search results.
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Why YouTube is pushing small creators forward while Google throttles organic reach.
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The paradox of Google’s approach to AI and why it matters for content creators.
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Why now is the time to shift your focus from blogging to video content.
If you rely on Google for traffic, this episode is a must-listen.
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How Google’s AI Overviews Are Stealing Content
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Google’s AI overviews summarize content directly in search results, pulling from independent blogs and sites.
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This means fewer people are clicking through to original content, hurting creators who rely on search traffic.
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AI-generated answers are prioritized over linking to independent sources, making it harder for new sites to rank.
The YouTube Paradox: Why Video Is Thriving
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Unlike Google Search, YouTube is actively pushing good content forward.
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Smaller channels are getting boosted in the algorithm, giving new creators a real shot at growth.
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YouTube’s recommendation system rewards watch time and engagement, making it an opportunity for creators to thrive.
Should You Pivot to Video?
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If you’re just starting out, video might be a better bet than blogging.
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Blogging still has value, but AI-driven search results are making it harder to break in.
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YouTube wants creators to succeed because more views = more ad revenue.
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Investing in video now could help future-proof your content strategy.
What’s Next for Independent Creators?
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Google’s AI-driven changes could lead to a walled-off internet where only major media brands dominate.
[00:00:00] Is Google Stealing Your Content? With AI Overviews and the algorithm changes, it's getting harder than ever to drive organic traffic. Meanwhile, YouTube is doing the opposite. It's like this great paradox because Google owns YouTube. But YouTube is pushing creators forward. Smaller channels are getting boosted in the algorithm. And if you put out good content on YouTube with good target keywords, your video will get views.
[00:00:35] What's up everybody and welcome back to the show. As always, I'm Eric your host and you're listening to Clipped. And Clipped brings you the tips, resources and people to help you crush your content goals. So in this episode, I'm going to be diving into how Google is throttling organic reach. And how YouTube is doubling down on helping creators and pushing their content to new audiences. But before we get into it guys, just got to give a shout out to Riverside. They sponsor this podcast. And Riverside is my favorite place to record high fidelity audio and 4K video.
[00:01:05] They've got a bunch of features to help creators such as AI transcription, AI show notes. Those are both great for podcasters. And if you're a YouTuber or someone that likes to create vertical short form content for social media, check out their feature called Magic Clips. You upload your video into Riverside and their AI will turn that video into vertical short form content for social media.
[00:01:27] All you have to do is click a few buttons, type in some keywords and their AI will search those keywords in your transcript and create those vertical videos for you. It's really done with just the click of a couple buttons. And that's why I love Riverside and I'm stoked to have them as a sponsor. And if you're interested in getting started with Riverside, head on over to Riverside.fm and enter promo code CLIPPED, the name of this show, C-L-I-P-P-E-D, at checkout for 20% off. Explain something.
[00:02:08] Okay, so if you've been on Google in like the past six months, you've probably seen the AI overviews. So what that is, is Google is searching the web and pulling everybody's content in, AKA stealing everybody's content and basically writing an AI summary to your search query. So if you type in, how long do Maltese dogs live?
[00:02:29] Google's going to pull in all that information from different creators' articles and blogs and information and come up with their own answer via AI. It's at the very top. It's called AI overviews. I'm sure you've seen it. It's not for every search query, but it's becoming more and more popular. And so, yes, they are stealing your content because all the info that it's pulling in is from creators, from blogs that they've written, from different websites that they've built.
[00:02:56] And it's taking your information and your copy and formulating an answer. And so it's weird, right? Because that's what Google's doing. And on the flip side, Google owns YouTube, but YouTube's doing the exact opposite where it's actually rewarding creators for creating good videos. So it's like this weird paradox, right? It's like on one hand, the company has like this all in on AI strategy. And on the other hand, YouTube has a different strategy.
[00:03:27] YouTube's actively pushing out good videos. If people are liking and watching your video, it's going to get fed and fed and fed and the machine starts rolling. Where that used to be the case with Google, where if you typed in the, if you created content around keywords that are being searched for, your article would slowly climb the ranks and then people would look for answers and they would click on your article. But it's becoming a lot harder to do that.
[00:03:51] And so I want to talk about how you need to shift your thinking and rely more on video and YouTube. Because as a creator, you're going to want to focus your time and attention on video and on a platform that's actually rewarding you. Now, what's a bummer is almost all my traffic to my business website is through Google is from the blog.
[00:04:17] I think right now I'm at between five and 7000 views a month, but my YouTube channel is small. You're watching right now, you can tell. So it's really affected me because I was relying on articles and blogs to get my pages in the top couple positions on Google. And now there's still stuff that ranks. And by all means, Google isn't going away and you should keep cranking out written content in addition to the video.
[00:04:47] But I think you want to focus more time on video. YouTube wants to keep users watching videos. That's going to boost revenue for you and them if you have a channel large enough to be monetized. Because those ads that get placed, they're going to take a cut of that. And so they want you to stay on the platform. So thus there's incentive for them to push out your videos. It really makes the platform more valuable for you and for them.
[00:05:12] So is AI content eventually going to completely replace the need for you to create written content? It seems like it's already replacing independent websites, blogs and media. And as Google continues to prioritize these AI summaries over linking to creators work, it's definitely can reshape the way the Internet works.
[00:05:35] And it's going to create like this walled off system where you're creating content, but Google is just taking it and they're featuring it within their AI summaries. And I think that's just going to hurt the creator more and more. And only bigger sources of news and media and information are going to prevail. And I don't want this like walled off system where like the independent voices can't get ahead. So you do need to pivot to video, I think.
[00:06:04] And if I were starting fresh today, I don't know if I would build a blog. I mean, I've got hundreds of articles and I did spend a lot of time. And I think that's the one thing that gives me a little bit of an advantage is that I already have a lot of stuff ranking. But if you don't have stuff ranking already, I think it's going to be even more difficult to get in the top positions on Google.
[00:06:28] I wonder if Google will eventually kind of go back to the old days where they were featuring websites and articles from independent creators. But in this AI race, it seems like everybody's like wants to focus on getting their AI product front and center. Until next time, guys, keep listening. Keep engaging. Keep creating. I'm out.