Quite a few research point out that the shift to AI search options and using AI chatbots are killing site visitors to publishers’ websites. However Google on Wednesday denied that’s the case, a minimum of in combination. As a substitute, the search large says that whole natural click on quantity from its search engine to web sites has been “relatively stable” year-over-year and that common click on high quality has barely elevated.
“This data is in contrast to third-party reports that inaccurately suggest dramatic declines in aggregate traffic — often based on flawed methodologies, isolated examples, or traffic changes that occurred prior to the roll out of AI features in Search,” writes Google VP and Head of Search, Liz Reid, in a brand new weblog publish.
Although Google hasn’t shared any particular information to again up its conclusions, even when we assume Google’s claims to be true, this doesn’t essentially imply that AI isn’t having an influence.
Even Google has to confess this, as Reid acknowledges that “user trends are shifting traffic to different sites, resulting in decreased traffic to some sites and increased traffic to others.”
That phrase “some” is doing heavy lifting right here, as Google doesn’t share information about what number of websites are gaining or dropping. And whereas chatbots like ChatGPT have definitely seen site visitors improve in current months, that doesn’t imply on-line publishers aren’t struggling.
Google has been revamping its search engine for years to reply extra questions straight on the search outcomes web page, and now does so with AI via its “AI Overviews” that seem on the high of search outcomes. Google additionally permits customers to work together with an AI chatbot for some queries. But Google denies that that is considerably reshaping the search panorama. Quite, it factors to customers shifting their consideration to different websites to begin their queries.
Reid explains, “People are increasingly seeking out and clicking on sites with forums, videos, podcasts, and posts where they can hear authentic voices and first-hand perspectives.”
Studying between the strains, it looks as if Google.com isn’t essentially individuals’s first cease on the internet nowadays. However that’s one thing we’ve recognized for a while. Again in 2022, a Google exec even mentioned that social websites like TikTok and Instagram have been consuming into Google’s core merchandise, like Search and Maps.
“In our studies, something like almost 40% of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search,” mentioned Google SVP Prabhakar Raghavan, who ran the corporate’s Information and Info group on the time (he’s now its Chief Technologist). “They go to TikTok or Instagram,” he famous.
Google has additionally lengthy been nervous that Amazon.com had develop into individuals’s first cease for on-line procuring searches, and Reddit.com had develop into the primary cease for researching subjects of curiosity.
Over a few years, the corporate has tried to give you compelling options for each customers and retailers that may entice extra customers to Google Purchasing. These efforts have included common procuring carts, native stock checks, deal finders, procuring from product photos on web sites, and extra. It even made its Purchasing listings free for retailers in 2020.
In the meantime, as customers complained that Google Search high quality was declining, the search large was seeing a lot demand for Reddit that it lastly added a “Reddit” filter to permit customers to slender down outcomes on related search queries. (Now that filter merely reads, “forums.”)
So maybe there’s some fact in Google’s denials — it’s not AI that’s completely answerable for killing search. Search was already dying.
Google’s new weblog publish additionally makes an attempt to maneuver the purpose posts a bit about what it means for web sites receiving Google’s clicks. Now, as an alternative of counting clicks, it needs publishers to consider click on high quality.
The corporate says common click on high quality has elevated, and Google is sending “slightly more quality clicks” to web sites than a yr in the past. (Google explains {that a} high quality click on is one the place customers don’t shortly click on again — they keep and browse.) How a lot of a rise, although, Google doesn’t say. The corporate solely factors out that when individuals click on via on an AI response to the supply, they’re extra more likely to dive deeper, so these clicks are extra beneficial.
What’s extra, Google paints AI as a possibility for internet publishers to realize elevated publicity, saying that “…with AI Overviews, people are seeing more links on the page than before,” as Reid writes. “More queries and more links mean more opportunities for websites to surface and get clicked.”
However AI, whereas a rising referral supply, isn’t but making up the distinction when it comes to clicks, studies have proven. One current examine from Similarweb signifies that the variety of information searches on the internet leading to zero clicks to information web sites has grown from 56% (when Google launched AI Overviews in Might 2024) to 69% as of Might 2025.
Google seems to is aware of this can be a development, too, because it just lately launched a product for publishers that helps them monetize their dwindling site visitors in different ways in which don’t rely solely on promoting, like micropayments or publication sign-ups.
The truth that Google is pushing this “AI is not the end of search traffic!” PR now solely makes the state of affairs appear extra dire. It’s as if Google needs publishers to consider not what their very own eyes — and graphs and charts — inform them, however as an alternative take consolation in the truth that Google nonetheless sends “billions of clicks to websites” day by day, simply because the publish claims.
