Google denies AI search is killing website traffic

Google said that website traffic from its search engine has remained stable year-on-year, countering recent reports that AI features and chatbots are reducing clicks to publisher sites.

Liz Reid, Google’s VP and head of search, wrote in a blog post that average click quality has also seen a slight increase, although the company did not provide specific supporting data.

Reid acknowledged that while some sites are seeing less traffic, others are gaining, citing shifts in user preferences toward forums, videos, and podcasts.

Studies from third parties, including Similarweb, have shown a rise in searches that result in no clicks to news websites, with such instances rising from 56% to 69% since the introduction of AI Overviews.

Google said its AI features provide more opportunities for websites to be linked in search results, and recently introduced new tools to help publishers monetize traffic beyond ads.

🔗 Source: TechCrunch

🧠 Food for thought

1️⃣ AI Overviews dramatically reduce publisher clicks despite Google’s denials

While Google claims search traffic remains stable, independent research reveals a stark reality about user behavior with AI summaries.

A Pew Research study analyzing nearly 69,000 Google searches found that users who encountered AI summaries clicked through to websites only 8% of the time, compared to 15% for traditional search results 1.

The impact on news publishers has been particularly severe, with CNN reporting a 30% traffic drop and Business Insider and HuffPost seeing around 40% declines since AI Overviews launched 2.

Additional studies show significant click-through rate reductions of 54.6% and 34.5% for queries displaying AI Overviews 3.

This data contradicts Google’s assertion that AI features aren’t significantly impacting publisher traffic, suggesting the search giant may be measuring aggregate numbers while individual publishers face substantial losses.

2️⃣ Search migration to social platforms began years before AI arrived

The current traffic concerns reflect a longer trend of users abandoning Google for specific types of searches, particularly among younger demographics.

As early as 2022, Google’s own executive admitted that “almost 40% of young people” use TikTok or Instagram instead of Google Maps or Search when looking for restaurants [original article reference].