Google’s AI Overviews are crashing the party for search clicks, slicing through click-through rates like a blunt knife. These summaries have sparked a 30% drop in overall search clicks, according to various studies. Yet, here’s the twist: search impressions are up by 49% year-over-year. Go figure. Users get answers right there on the page, mostly for informational queries that make up 99.2% of triggers. It’s like Google handing out free snacks, but at what cost?
These overviews mimic old Featured Snippets, pushing more zero-click searches. Oh, the irony—everyone’s staring at the screen, but nobody’s clicking through. 35% to 70% decline in organic CTR has been observed in studies when Overviews are present, highlighting the broader impact on traffic.
These overviews echo Featured Snippets, fueling zero-click searches—oh, the irony of staring without clicking through.
Dig deeper, and the numbers sting. Ahrefs found a 34.5% CTR drop for top pages across 300,000 keywords when AI Overviews show up. Amsive piled on with an average 15.49% decline, jumping to 37.04% when paired with other features. Non-branded keywords? Hit hard, with a 19.98% nosedive. Studies pull from Google Search Console data, no fluff. It’s straightforward: these overviews steal the spotlight, leaving websites in the dust.
This mess ripples out, reducing traffic to original sources and sparking publisher worries. Users grab instant answers and bounce, fueling zero-click trends. Sure, Google claims higher-quality clicks(dynamic content personalization), but publishers aren’t buying it.
Behavior’s shifting fast, with folks less inclined to wander off the results page. Long-term? The novelty might fade, cranking up CTR losses even more. It’s a wild ride, this AI experiment—funny how innovation can feel like a gut punch.
Publishers watch, waiting for the other shoe to drop, as search evolves in unpredictable ways. In particular, industries such as healthcare and education are now facing 90% query coverage from AI Overviews.
