Page Traffic Impact
A new Pew Research Center study tracked the web browsing habits of over 900 consenting participants and found that AI Overviews have a negative impact on actual website traffic. Le duh.
Easier doesn’t mean Better
We all see these overviews and have probably also all witnessed how inaccurate they are, even though they seem straightforward. The Pew study found that 68,897 unique search queries on Google triggered AI Overviews for 12,593 of them. When the overviews were triggered, the users were likely to end their search without clicking on a link or visiting a website for more information. Just 8% of the users who were fed that overview went on to visit a site, and 1% of those same users even clicked the summary link in the overview itself.
Aggregating isn’t Researching
Referral traffic is the bread and butter of search engine optimization (SEO). When search engines are aggregating data from actual websites (you know, websites that took work, research, and people actually giving a shit to create), mixing it up in a bowl of word salad, and serving it to people in an overview, it’s frustrating.
Source Traffic for AI Overviews
Another problem the study overturned was the top three most commonly cited sources for the Google AI Overview results. Dominating the sources were Reddit, Wikipedia, and YouTube. Reddit and Wikipedia can be edited by anyone at any time, so while a lot of folks might use them as a starting point for research, they’re not the most factually accurate sources and are already widely used. Finally, Google owns YouTube, so placing that among the top three most cited sources is pretty wild business, in my opinion.
If you have a website or manage a website (hello, fellow digital marketers), this is all just a confirmation of what we already knew: AI Overviews take traffic from websites.
But wait! There’s more bad news!
Click-Through-Rates Suffering
Yet another study found that click-through-rates (CTR) from pages formerly ranking among Google’s top results have seen sharp declines thanks to AI Overviews. It’s not a tiny drop either. Pages formerly ranking #1 have fallen by over 30%. This study, by Growth SRC, looked at over 200,000 keywords from 2024-2025 and across a wide variety of pages, including blogs, e-commerce products, and long-form reports.
The research began as the industry noticed sharp declines in traffic after the March 2025 core update, which marked the official launch of AI Overviews. Of the 200,000+ keywords studied, 10,000 had overviews for them in August 2024. By May 2025, that number was 172,855.
Organic CTR of pages in the first ranking position fell to the fifth position by 17.92%. Pages that once sat in the sixth spot fell to tenth at a rate of 30.63%. Massive hits to businesses that rely on this traffic for new customers.
Zero-Click Search
Google has been moving toward a “zero-click search” for years. It’s what it sounds like – feeding users answers to questions without requiring two ounces of research. The core update in March that served as the official launch of AI Overviews feels like the final blow for a lot of people already exhausted by treading water.
Running a Search without AI
There are a few little tricks that seem to work when we want to search Google without being bothered by the AI Overview.
- Add a curse word to the search. Apparently, the overview overlords clutch their pearls and don’t bother you when you do this. I lovingly refer to this as the Fucking Loophole.
- Keep your search as specific as possible. AI works by aggregating content and when we get super-specific, it makes it harder for that aggregation to happen.
- Throw “-ai” into your query.
Moving Forward as a Small Business Owner
First things first: these studies prove that you’re not alone and you’re right to notice your site traffic has probably taken a hit thanks to the overviews. Fighting it by sharing information like these studies and letting others know why they shouldn’t be using them can’t hurt. But I like plans, ideas, and action. I’ll be real with you, though. This is a newish problem that’s just now being proven to actually exist. At the moment, I, and everyone I know and have talked to in my industry, are trying everything we can to combat it, and the old standbys are coming in clutch. Steady as she goes:
- Make sure your navigation is clear. If site users are getting to you but aren’t able to find what they’re looking for easily and quickly, they’ll leave.
- Improve your pagespeed. There are a lot of ways of doing this, including removing unused media, setting a cache policy, and minifying CSS files.
- Optimize your images for SEO. Label them with keywords in mind and remember to always add alternative text for screenreaders.
- Choose keywords that make sense. Keep them in mind when writing content.
- Remember your real customers. I mean the actual people who are most likely to actually spend their money with you. Your content should always be for them first.
- User header tags wisely. Search engines crawl them before crawling any content in paragraphs, and they play a big role in SEO.
- Keep your site updated. You don’t (and shouldn’t) constantly update every aspect of your site, but by keeping it fresh, you let search engines and site visitors know you’re tending to it regularly and it’s not something you’ve published and forgotten about.
- Add “you might also like” product suggestions if your site is e-commerce.
- Be yourself. The tone of your website should match the tone of your social media presence.
Green Ivy Creative’s Services
It takes a lot to proactively manage a website, and luckily, I dig that part of my job, too. I also offer web design, digital marketing, and website audits. So hit me up!