Google AI Overviews Hurting Click-Through Rates: Studies By John P. Mello Jr. April 23, 2025 5:00 AM PT Studies show Google's AI Overviews reduce clicks to websites by answering queries directly, raising concerns over traffic and visibility. ADVERTISEMENT Proven Tactics to Scale SMB Software Companies in Competitive Markets Gain market share, boost customer acquisition, and improve operational strength. Get the SMB Software Playbook for Expansion & Growth now -- essential reading for growing tech firms. Free Download. Two studies released last week indicate that Google’s AI Overviews are having a negative impact on click-through rates from online searches, which could ultimately reduce traffic to original sources and affect the quality of content on the internet. An analysis of 300,000 keywords by Xibeijia Guan, a data scientist at SEO tool provider Ahrefs, found that the presence of an AI Overview in search results correlated to a 34.5% lower average click-through rate (CTR) for the top-ranking page compared to keywords without an Overview. “This isn’t surprising. I have seen anecdata suggesting that some websites have seen clicks reduce by 20% to 40% since the rollout of AI overviews,” Ryan Law wrote in an Ahrefs blog on April 17. He explained that AI Overviews function in a similar way to Featured Snippets. They try to resolve the searcher’s query directly, which likely contributes to more zero-click searches. “And although AI Overviews often contain citation links, there can be many of these links cited, making it less likely for any single link to earn the lion’s share of clicks,” he wrote. “Assuming AI Overviews stay in this current form, this is also likely the highest the CTR will be. As the novelty wears off and the law of shitty click-throughs kicks in, I would expect to see clicks reduce further,” he noted. Brand Queries See CTR Lift Meanwhile, in a study of 700,000 keywords, performance agency Amsive found keywords that triggered an Overview had an average click-through decline of 15.49%. The study also noted that while only a small percentage (4.79%) of branded keywords generated an Overview, those that did had an average click-through rate increase of 18.68%. By contrast, non-branded keywords that generated an Overview had an average click-through rate drop of 19.98%. “It’s no surprise that branded keywords are getting more clicks than non-branded keywords,” said Greg Sterling, co-founder of Near Media, a market research firm in San Francisco. “The vast majority of AI Overviews trigger when the user does an ‘informational’ search — people looking for general information,” he told TechNewsWorld. “When somebody uses a branded keyword, there’s a higher degree of intent and thus a higher CTR. There’s nothing new in this.” Ben James, founder of 404, Bittensor Subnet 17, an online 3D content creation company, explained that non-branded keywords typically drive discovery and surface diverse viewpoints. “If AI Overviews are disproportionately reducing CTR for those terms, it reinforces concerns that Overviews consolidate traffic around known brands or Google’s own properties — shrinking the opportunity space for independent publishers and startups,” he told TechNewsWorld. However, the researchers’ findings seemed nonintuitive to JD Harriman, a partner at the Foundation Law Group in Burbank, Calif. “It is not clear what searchers are doing when they see an AI Overview of a branded word,” he told TechNewsWorld. “It is likely that the searcher wanted to get to the branded site in the first place, and goes ahead and clicks through, possibly ignoring the content of the Overview and just getting where they wanted to be anyway.” Fewer but Higher Quality Clicks? “There have been several studies done by different companies that show the same thing, so this was not a surprise to me at all,” said Chris Ferris, senior vice president of digital strategy at Pierpont Communications, a public relations agency in Houston. “When AI overviews are present on search engine results pages, the click-through rate for the organic stuff falls anywhere from 35% to 70%,” he told TechNewsWorld. “This makes sense because Google has been increasingly stuffing stuff at the top of their results pages, which is pushing down the organic results, which means fewer people see them, which is depressing the click-through rate,” he explained. While click-through rates might decline on pages with Overviews, Google contends that the quality of the clicks on the page improves. “We see the clicks are of higher quality because they’re not clicking on a web page, realizing it wasn’t what they want and immediately bailing. So, they spend more time on those sites,” Head of Google Search Elizabeth Reid told the Financial Times in an interview published April 14. “The studies don’t directly disprove Google’s claim about ‘high-quality clicks,’ but they show that AI Overviews likely reduce visibility and traffic for many sites, especially on non-branded, informational queries,” said Danny Goodwin, editorial director of Search Engine Land & SMX, a digital marketing and advertising technology publication. Goodwin pointed out some deficiencies in the studies. “Neither study examined whether the pages cited in AI Overviews got more clicks than they would have in a traditional search listing,” he told TechNewsWorld. He added that Google’s concept of “high-quality clicks” is vague and unverifiable outside of Google itself. A Google spokesperson was not immediately available to comment on this story. Antitrust Red Flags For some tech watchers, the studies’ results reinforce the notion that Overviews are harmful to quality content on the web. “By answering specific queries within the search interface, AI Overviews reduce the incentive to click through to original sources, diminishing traffic and weakening the feedback loop that sustains quality content creation,” said Mark N. Vena, president and principal analyst at SmartTech Research in Las Vegas. “If original content creators lose traffic, and I do fear this, monetization becomes harder, which may lower the quantity and quality of web content,” he told TechNewsWorld. “Long-term, this could degrade the richness of information available on the open web and increase dependence on platform-controlled summaries.” Rob Enderle, president and principal analyst with the Enderle Group, an advisory services firm in Bend, Ore., added that it’s intuitively obvious why Overviews will reduce the quality of web content. “Few people who buy CliffNotes read the source material because the notes fulfill the core needs of getting the gist of the content,” he told TechNewsWorld. “In reports, most only read the executive summary, as well. If you don’t need to review the full detail, why bother unless you have a unique need for a deeper understanding?” Study findings on the impact of Overviews on website traffic could play a role in antitrust actions against Google. “Google has been under scrutiny for a while now for self-preferencing its own products and services in search,” Goodwin said. “AI Overviews are another big and bold example of Google preferencing itself, many times at the expense of content creators.” “I, and many others, would love to see actual data about how much traffic Google is actually taking for itself via AI Overviews compared to the open web,” he noted. Sterling agreed. “I do think that AI Overviews will have an impact on antitrust considerations,” he said. “AI Overviews can be seen as a form of Google self-preferencing, which will create problems for Google in Europe under the Digital Markets Act. In the U.S., the decline of clicks will reinforce perceptions of Google as a monopolist hoarding traffic.” AI Overviews Reflect Market Pressure However, Jennifer Huddleston, a technology policy research fellow at the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank, argued that companies, including Google, continue to innovate to respond to changing consumer expectations and demands, including better ways to display search content such as AI Overviews. “The use of AI Overviews illustrates how AI is changing the nature of search, and consumers may be increasingly expecting more generative AI-type results to their queries,” she told TechNewsWorld. “While the court rejected the emergence of AI as changing the market in this case,” she noted, “the continued improvements of the product indicate how the company must respond to pressures from other market leaders and consumers, a behavior that would not be necessary in a true monopoly situation.” John P. Mello Jr. has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, IT issues, privacy, e-commerce, social media, artificial intelligence, big data and consumer electronics. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including the Boston Business Journal, the Boston Phoenix, Megapixel.Net and Government Security News. Email John. Leave a Comment Click here to cancel reply. Please sign in to post or reply to a comment. New users create a free account. Related Stories More by John P. Mello Jr. view all More in Search Tech