Answer
Jun 03, 2025 - 10:20 AM
Obviously.....AI and Large Languange models like Google's AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, has shaken things up as far as how people are going to be finding information and products in the future. It's important that you understand how ecommerce products are showing up within those results and how to optimize your ecommerce site to ensure that you're going to be visible. The bottom line is this is evolving and will continue to evolve...but just know that beyond just providing the product, in order to survive and thrive as consumers get used to and start using AI more and more to find the products that are going to satisfy their needs....the foundation of how you'll be found is through the content that you produce to help your existing customers.
How Products Are Showing in AI Results
First, let's dig into how products are coming up in AI search results....see example here within Google's AI Mode:
See how the AI Mode result is giving some options to satisfy a very specific search....and see the table of products that it represents as options. It looks like those products it presents are...from a usability standpoint....consistent with Google's "Merchant Listings" (Popular Products tables) as you can see when you click on it...the engagement is showing consistent with what happens with popular products tables.
But....you can see that it's not showing the exact same product selection that you get in the Popular Products tables. If you click over to "All" that shows traditional search visibility....it shows a different selection of products as shown here:
It's also a different selection than what is shown in the "Shopping" tab....which you can see here:
You can see that its a different selection of products that show on those tables vs the one that "AI Mode" shows. This will continue to evolve, and we'll look to keep you updated on where things go in the future.
You can see how some other AI is displaying these kinds of results, see how ChatGPT is showing ecommerce products within results similar to Google...where you have actual products to look at...see here:
and another example here for product results on ChatGPT:
We know that Q&A powered by Answerbase has increased notably the visibility on Google and also the product positions within results (Answerbase powers Q&A on the TrainOasis site above)....and we also see that having an impact on LLM (large language models) as the searches are much more long tail and they are looking for the products that fit very long tail needs of the customer as they narrow things down as far as what product fits the bill.
You can also see how Perplexity surfaces and shows these kinds of queries...see here:
We did see with many of our tests that many queries came back mostly as text without the specific product showing...see example here:
and then here is an example of somebody looking for the "best" in the category...see here:
An interesting note on the above....see how the specific sites/brands that are servicing that specific audience is prioritized...and Amazon is actually referenced last.
What Drives Improved Visibility and Performance in AI Search Results?
What you need to understand about AI "searches" is that they are MUCH longer than your traditional keyword searches. They are not keywords....they are sentences and longer tail questions that are being asked in order to fulfill very specific needs. Google has communicated that the length of searches in "AI Mode" are 2-3X longer than traditional Google searches. Customers are searching for very specific things and varied combinations of variables when talking to AI to find their needed products....so you need to satisfy all of the informational needs in order to do this. Answerbase empowers ecommerce merchants do do this well because we help you fill in every single information gap related to your products that people are actually interested in...so that your brand can be providing the great information that customers are wanting before they purchase...and they can purchase from your store.
The good news is for ecommerce merchants who have that information and are willing to service customers, these are the merchants that are going to win and be most visible within ecommerce results when the AI queries are leading to a product purchase. AI (whether through Google or other) needs good content to feed on...and Answerbase enables businesses to identify customer demanded content, fulfill it, and effectively distributes and publishes that content for AI to feed on (whether that be Google's AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, or any other place that people trust for information). See how Google surfaces Answerbase-powered Q&A content within their AI overviews both within the overview text itself (referenced through a link right within the overview) and then also within it's more traditional references.
See how Q&A is referenced within Google's AI Mode here:
and in AI Overviews here:
You can see another example here where the link to the Q&A content reference is right within the AI Overview....see here:
We've also seen cases where the Q&A content references are ALL OVER the AI Overviews as the source of the content and then also referenced as a traditional "featured snippet" below that:
and see this Q&A as the reference to a discontinued product where our customer is leading them to the product replacement through the Q&A content here:
We've also seen variants of the response that link directly to the online merchant right within the answer....see example here:
So...Google's AI results are loving the Q&A content and referencing that quite prominently as it's looking to ensure that searchers can be exposed to great information and be able to easily know and reference who provided that information. But as mentioned, there are other players in the search space now and it's important to service them as well....so see how Q&A powered through Answerbase has powered the visibility within ChatGPT here:
and how the Q&A shows up and is referenced on Perplexity here:
So...as search technology continues to change....any search engine will need to source great content from great sources...and Answerbase helps facilitate that. We encourage you to read our post about why this will sustain into the future....as both Google and any other AI search engine still depend on the sharing of real experience by real people.
As far as how Q&A is referenced within AI mode.....that content is what drove a lot of what you see above and you can see Google is clearly referencing the content from Q&A pages (powered by Answerbase)....see example here:
So the winners of GEO, AEO, SEO...or whatever sticks as far as what people call this moving forward....it comes down to giving the information that real people are actually looking for. If you do, your brand will be seen....and when you're doing that...the information search engine that is used needs to create an incentive you to continue creating that content. Google does this through lift in Product visibility/rankings....and any "answer engine" will need to create similar incentives so they get what they need.
Become More Visible in the New SEO/GEO/AEO Landscape
Search engines, answer engines, large language models...or whatever you want to call them.....they need to create the incentive for businesses and people to give them what they need...and they need to reward those sites with something that is valuable to those businesses. For ecommerce merchants, that is through exposure/ranking of their products. Google has made this connection for years now....where the whole idea of "domain authority" has been completely shaken up...and they're respecting and ranking sites that are creating "information gain". 80% of Google's searches are for information....only 10% of searches are for products and services (the other 10% is for specific brands or sites). So.....the search engines NEED good information to satisfy the vast majority of their "customers"....and they need that information from others. The way they create the incentive for businesses to dump that information online is by rewarding them through visibility of their products. See this example where TrainOasis is 3 out of the top 10 organic product positions for a short tail product search:
Now here is the kicker....why are they so visible? Is it their "domain authority" that is causing that? Not in the way that it was judged previously, look at the "domain authority" according to one fo the "Top SEO Tools" on the market...
Well...you can see it has a domain authority of ZERO!!! What explains that then? The fact is....search engines are rewarding the sites that are giving them what they need...and that is the information. If you're doing that and it's information that is relevant to what people are actually searching for and asking, you will be rewarded...because that is what they need to survive and thrive.
So...this is quickly evolving and will continue to evolve but we'll look to keep you up to date on how product searches are displayed, and guide you on how to be visible in those results. We recommend you schedule a consultation with one of our SEO specialists and we'll make sure you're up to date with all of the "AI SEO" latest and greatest.
How Products Are Showing in AI Results
First, let's dig into how products are coming up in AI search results....see example here within Google's AI Mode:
See how the AI Mode result is giving some options to satisfy a very specific search....and see the table of products that it represents as options. It looks like those products it presents are...from a usability standpoint....consistent with Google's "Merchant Listings" (Popular Products tables) as you can see when you click on it...the engagement is showing consistent with what happens with popular products tables.
But....you can see that it's not showing the exact same product selection that you get in the Popular Products tables. If you click over to "All" that shows traditional search visibility....it shows a different selection of products as shown here:
It's also a different selection than what is shown in the "Shopping" tab....which you can see here:
You can see that its a different selection of products that show on those tables vs the one that "AI Mode" shows. This will continue to evolve, and we'll look to keep you updated on where things go in the future.
You can see how some other AI is displaying these kinds of results, see how ChatGPT is showing ecommerce products within results similar to Google...where you have actual products to look at...see here:
and another example here for product results on ChatGPT:
We know that Q&A powered by Answerbase has increased notably the visibility on Google and also the product positions within results (Answerbase powers Q&A on the TrainOasis site above)....and we also see that having an impact on LLM (large language models) as the searches are much more long tail and they are looking for the products that fit very long tail needs of the customer as they narrow things down as far as what product fits the bill.
You can also see how Perplexity surfaces and shows these kinds of queries...see here:
We did see with many of our tests that many queries came back mostly as text without the specific product showing...see example here:
and then here is an example of somebody looking for the "best" in the category...see here:
An interesting note on the above....see how the specific sites/brands that are servicing that specific audience is prioritized...and Amazon is actually referenced last.
What Drives Improved Visibility and Performance in AI Search Results?
What you need to understand about AI "searches" is that they are MUCH longer than your traditional keyword searches. They are not keywords....they are sentences and longer tail questions that are being asked in order to fulfill very specific needs. Google has communicated that the length of searches in "AI Mode" are 2-3X longer than traditional Google searches. Customers are searching for very specific things and varied combinations of variables when talking to AI to find their needed products....so you need to satisfy all of the informational needs in order to do this. Answerbase empowers ecommerce merchants do do this well because we help you fill in every single information gap related to your products that people are actually interested in...so that your brand can be providing the great information that customers are wanting before they purchase...and they can purchase from your store.
The good news is for ecommerce merchants who have that information and are willing to service customers, these are the merchants that are going to win and be most visible within ecommerce results when the AI queries are leading to a product purchase. AI (whether through Google or other) needs good content to feed on...and Answerbase enables businesses to identify customer demanded content, fulfill it, and effectively distributes and publishes that content for AI to feed on (whether that be Google's AI Mode, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, or any other place that people trust for information). See how Google surfaces Answerbase-powered Q&A content within their AI overviews both within the overview text itself (referenced through a link right within the overview) and then also within it's more traditional references.
See how Q&A is referenced within Google's AI Mode here:
and in AI Overviews here:
You can see another example here where the link to the Q&A content reference is right within the AI Overview....see here:
We've also seen cases where the Q&A content references are ALL OVER the AI Overviews as the source of the content and then also referenced as a traditional "featured snippet" below that:
and see this Q&A as the reference to a discontinued product where our customer is leading them to the product replacement through the Q&A content here:
We've also seen variants of the response that link directly to the online merchant right within the answer....see example here:
So...Google's AI results are loving the Q&A content and referencing that quite prominently as it's looking to ensure that searchers can be exposed to great information and be able to easily know and reference who provided that information. But as mentioned, there are other players in the search space now and it's important to service them as well....so see how Q&A powered through Answerbase has powered the visibility within ChatGPT here:
and how the Q&A shows up and is referenced on Perplexity here:
So...as search technology continues to change....any search engine will need to source great content from great sources...and Answerbase helps facilitate that. We encourage you to read our post about why this will sustain into the future....as both Google and any other AI search engine still depend on the sharing of real experience by real people.
As far as how Q&A is referenced within AI mode.....that content is what drove a lot of what you see above and you can see Google is clearly referencing the content from Q&A pages (powered by Answerbase)....see example here:
So the winners of GEO, AEO, SEO...or whatever sticks as far as what people call this moving forward....it comes down to giving the information that real people are actually looking for. If you do, your brand will be seen....and when you're doing that...the information search engine that is used needs to create an incentive you to continue creating that content. Google does this through lift in Product visibility/rankings....and any "answer engine" will need to create similar incentives so they get what they need.
Become More Visible in the New SEO/GEO/AEO Landscape
Search engines, answer engines, large language models...or whatever you want to call them.....they need to create the incentive for businesses and people to give them what they need...and they need to reward those sites with something that is valuable to those businesses. For ecommerce merchants, that is through exposure/ranking of their products. Google has made this connection for years now....where the whole idea of "domain authority" has been completely shaken up...and they're respecting and ranking sites that are creating "information gain". 80% of Google's searches are for information....only 10% of searches are for products and services (the other 10% is for specific brands or sites). So.....the search engines NEED good information to satisfy the vast majority of their "customers"....and they need that information from others. The way they create the incentive for businesses to dump that information online is by rewarding them through visibility of their products. See this example where TrainOasis is 3 out of the top 10 organic product positions for a short tail product search:
Now here is the kicker....why are they so visible? Is it their "domain authority" that is causing that? Not in the way that it was judged previously, look at the "domain authority" according to one fo the "Top SEO Tools" on the market...
Well...you can see it has a domain authority of ZERO!!! What explains that then? The fact is....search engines are rewarding the sites that are giving them what they need...and that is the information. If you're doing that and it's information that is relevant to what people are actually searching for and asking, you will be rewarded...because that is what they need to survive and thrive.
So...this is quickly evolving and will continue to evolve but we'll look to keep you up to date on how product searches are displayed, and guide you on how to be visible in those results. We recommend you schedule a consultation with one of our SEO specialists and we'll make sure you're up to date with all of the "AI SEO" latest and greatest.
