Jun 22, 2025
Why you shouldn't trust AI overviews for Japan
If you've used Google search engine lately no doubt you've noticed the AI overview (AIO) at the top of results for many queries. They've replaced rich snippets, which were really the precursor to AIO. If they worked correctly, they would be very useful for getting a quick answer to certain queries. But the biggest problem with Google AIO is that for Japan, they are inaccurate a lot of the time. Far too often. With the result you need to check the information they give you, which really defeats their purpose.
I could, hand to God, give you hundreds of examples of when the AIO gave incorrect information for Japan related queries. Sometimes, its so bad I take screenshots. This post would end up being far too long if I shared the ones I've taken in the last week alone, so I'll just share two from today. Two straight forward queries that Google AIO produced inaccurate information for.
The first, pertaining to my last post about lilies in Japan. I was looking for some news places where I could personally go see lilies myself and a search in Google, produced this:
First and foremost, red spider lilies are not lilies. They are so called because they look like lilies, but they are in an entirely different family of flowers - the amaryllis family. What was particularly concerning about the results for this search, was that not only was the AIO completely off, the first page of organic results only gave places for red spider lilies and not one place for actual lilies!
The second one I took a screenshot for today was about a particular place, "Hana no Oasis". The AIO, pictured below, says that it is in Omiya Saitama City. It is not, it is in Konosu city. It also says its a public agriculture and forestry park. It is not, it is a community field. The photo they show on thn right is correct and is from my personal blog, which I never gave them permission to use. But that's a post for another day! The organic results below the AIO were correct though, in this instance.
As I said, I have countless examples. But in short, the moral of the story is - you really need to be careful when you are using AIO for queries related to Japan!
Former nickname was "Saitama". Changed it to save confusion on place review posts! Irish, 20+ years in Japan! I also write on my personal website: insaitama.com
5 Comments
genkidesu
on Jun 22
I really feel for international travelers who are going to be absolutely screwed over by stuff like that if they don't research appropriately and just take those AI results as gospel. To be honest, even domestic travelers visiting somewhere they don't know well might be caught out by it. Is there much you can do about the use of your photos? Is it at least resulting in extra traffic to your blog or something? I'm hoping there's at least some upside!
BigfamJapan
on Jun 22
@genkidesu thanks a million. Unfortunately, I have not seen an upside yet. Traffic is lower than ever, and it would seem that its a worldwide phenomenon for most sites that aren't mammoth publishing names. Which would suggest far too many people are taking AIO at its word and not clicking the photos or the links that are provided. :( I really can't understand why they rolled it out when its obviously still very underdeveloped / immature. The amount of trust they've lost should concern them, but they really don't seem to care once they are rolling in the bucks. Amazingly I've only heard of one person so far that was caught out, but I am certain there are more. Maybe people are too embarrassed to say they didn't check official sources. That person took AIO at its word about an event date - it was way off - by NINE months!
genkidesu
on Jun 22
@BigfamJapan Yes like most things I'm sure that the money-making aspect is probably what's driving them to roll it out when there are still many outright mistakes or inconsistencies. I think you're right as well about people not speaking up about their mistakes in trusting the AI answers. There's probably a bit of humble pie when people turn up to an event that doesn't exist or had completely wrong dates, or gave wrong locations and so forth. I'm pretty curious now about Googling more things in Niigata and seeing what AI spits out to catch the errors!
TonetoEdo
on Jun 22
I just had a go at a Google search for "Tochigi City attractions", and the AIO pumped out Nikko, Utsunomiya, Nasu. Everything but Tochigi City. My second try was a search for "Tochigi City tourism". That turned up specifically Tochigi City locations but lumped in many outside the city, some far away. The unreliable results have the potential to damage local efforts to attract tourism.
BigfamJapan
on Jun 23
@TonetoEdo tbh, I think it is already negatively affecting off the beaten path spots that could do with more visitors, because it often only shows the large places. I did a search two weeks ago for lavender in Saitama and guess where it brought up... Hokkaido! Because of the famous lavender fields there. I could maybe excuse a Tochigi or Gunma option as, at a push, they could be done in a day trip, but frigging Hokkaido... absurd!