Impact of Google AI Overviews on Web Traffic and Content Discovery

Google AI Overviews have a significant impact on web traffic and content discovery, with mixed effects depending on whether a webpage is featured in the AI Overview or not. Pages included in Google’s AI Overviews generally experience increased traffic, sometimes substantially, while those excluded tend to suffer a loss in clicks and visibility.

Key findings include:

• Webpages featured in AI Overviews gain more clicks: For top-ranked transactional queries, pages included in AI Overviews receive about 3.2 times more clicks than those excluded. For informational queries, inclusion leads to 1.1 to 1.5 times more clicks depending on ranking position.

• Traffic shifts and zero-click searches: Despite some pages benefiting, overall website traffic has declined due to AI Overviews providing direct answers in search results, reducing the need for users to click through to websites. Studies show a rise in zero-click searches, with around 60% of Google searches not leading to any website visit after an AI-generated summary is shown.

• Significant traffic declines for many sites: Data from Similarweb and other sources indicate a 55% drop in search traffic to websites between 2022 and 2025, particularly affecting news sites, publishers, and content-heavy sites like holiday guides, health tips, and product reviews.

• User behaviour changes: Users are less likely to click on links when AI summaries appear. Only about 8% of users who see an AI summary click through to a website, compared to 15% for standard search results without AI summaries.

• Winners and losers: Users benefit from quick access to summarized information, and Google increases engagement and ad revenue by keeping users on its platform. However, many publishers and website owners face challenges as their SEO strategies and referral traffic are undermined.

To adapt, content creators are advised to:

• Focus on niche, long-tail, and conversational keywords less dominated by AI summaries.
• Improve E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) to become preferred authoritative sources.
• Use AI tools strategically for research and content planning rather than direct content creation.

In summary, Google AI Overviews reshape content discovery by providing immediate answers, which benefits featured pages but reduces overall referral traffic to many websites, posing challenges for publishers reliant on organic search traffic.