This was such a timely report. I was only last week (Tuesday) expressing my scepticism with an old-fashioned approach to SEO, and the fact that professionals haven’t been guaranteeing clicks for a very long time. Part of my reasoning was the zero-click results from featured snippets and now the new Google AI Overviews.
When I attended BrightonSEO in 2018 the keynote speech was from none other than Rand Fishkin who highlighted the growing prevalence of zero-click searches. He stated that by Feb 2018 clicks were down 20% and 60% of searches ended without a click, especially on mobile devices.
Ranking highly in the search engine results pages (SERPs), he said, no longer guaranteed traffic.
I’ve seen this myself. Only last year I was working on a website for an ingredients specialist in the food industry. They were ranking highly, even 1st organic position, for certain products but their CTR was incredibly low for such a lofty result. Looking at the actual SERPs, and I suggest every business and SEO do this rather than just scan GA4, GSC, and SEMrush data, you saw why – their #1 organic listing was below-the-fold with shopping results dominating. I had to realise very quickly that the search intent wasn’t just transactional but was B2C and not B2B and Google knew this too, presenting their results geared toward household consumers not commercial buyers.
But I digress…
AI Overviews Reduce Clicks
I’ve been seeing the clicks for certain search results suppressed as well the opposite when I’ve seen keyword impressions quite literally spike. This has been down to content being picked up by Google and synthesised into their AI Overviews. Why does a user need to click through when Google’s already scraped a website and taken the result for itself? That’s more zero-click searches.
And now, two days after I was discussing zero-clicks from AI Overviews, this piece of research from Ahrefs comes out stating that AI Overviews Reduce Clicks by 34.5%
Now apologies to whoever highlighted the link to this post on LinkedIn, I’ve forgotten who it was, thank you, but it was epic timing.
And what was actually quite amusing was their inclusion of a quote by Google CEO Sundar Pichai saying that AI Overviews get higher CTR. OK, that was May 2024 and it’s now nearly a year later – a lot has evolved in that timescale.
But what is important is that what he said is not true. A data scientist at Ahrefs analysed 300,000 keywords and found that:
“…the presence of an AI Overview in the search results correlated with a 34.5% lower average clickthrough rate (CTR) for the top-ranking page, compared to similar informational keywords without an AI Overview.”
Research Methodology
The methodology involved analysing 150,000 keywords that had an AI Overview, and 150,000 terms that did not have an AI Overview. They compared March 2024 to March 2025 data to get an extremely relevant year-on-year analysis. And how did they know which searches had no AI Overviews and which ones did? Purely on the dates. March 2024 was before the US rollout of AI Overviews, and March 2025 was after.
I won’t simply repeat the calculations that Ahrefs conducted, but they came to a robust conclusion that AI Overviews eat about a third of your clicks. They also state that this is similar to previous zero-click search activity and results.
A key thought I had from my conversation on the 15th April was that the search intent of affected searches appeared to be informational. Ahrefs KW data was from informational keywords. They even went as far as saying that 99.2% of the keyword queries that trigger an AI Overview to be shown at the top of the SERPs was informational intent. So that’s a LOT of keywords taken out of regular search results and into an AI Overview.
Another interesting point in the Ahrefs’ conclusion though is their researchers’ frustration that Google Search Console (GSC), from where they pulled the data, does not help webmasters disambiguate AIO impressions and clicks from non-AIO impressions and clicks. That would be helpful wouldn’t it. Ahrefs even went as far as saying:
“It seems that Google doesn’t want us to see the clickthrough rate for AI Overviews.”
What, because we’d realise that AI Overviews do NOT increase clicks and in fact they actually reduce them by a third?
So What Do We Do, Boss?
Well, if over 99% of AI Overviews are informational search intent, then you should probably focus on optimising for the rest of your content – the navigational, commercial, and transactional results. Also, blog posts can be entertaining, so like a story or a long joke, summarising it in a synthesised AI snippet doesn’t work. What’s the point?
As an aside, I wonder what AIO does to Wikipedia when it’s so crammed full of information? I’ll look into that at another time.
But in the meantime, let’s have a look at our options
Content Optimisation
We need to continue to create high-quality, comprehensive content with clear structure and demonstrate the concepts we understand in the E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) framework. This could earn us a place in AI Overviews with an included link or, depending on the query and intent, or keep us outside and earn a high rank without ~33% fewer CTR.
Keyword Research Adaptation
Another option we have is that we’ll have to focus on those long-tail keywords, and even those question-based queries, so that we can continue to better understand the user intent of terms such that we can create content outside of AIO if need still need those clicks.
Brand Building
We’ll need to strengthen brand presence through mentions, social media engagement, and local SEO optimisation. Again, with search intent in mind, this can drive navigational and potentially commercial and transactional searches that swerve AIO’s reach… for now!
Engaging Content Formats
Pivoting to and adding more interactive content, original research, multimedia, and personal experiences might be the things that can recapture user engagement. The experience we have as individuals and professionals is something AI doesn’t have and it would be inauthentic for it to do so. As an SEO specialist, my stories are mine – not AI’s.
Measuring Success
Just like I was saying about the whole outdated concept of “guaranteed traffic” and clicks, we should promote alternative measurements of success. I like to look for the ranking of more relevant and engaging queries, those that ultimately generate events such as form completions, bringing in leads and sales. Measuring impressions, brand mentions, and engagement metrics is way better than clicks alone, right?
Endnote
This was great and timely research from Ahrefs and I’m sure it mirrors what I’ve also seen previously from Sparktoro.
There was even an amusing portmanteau in the report I’d not seen before – anecdata. I’m assuming this is the contraction of anecdotal and data right? There’s a lot of that about, and it’s not wrong, but the data highlighting that AI Overviews steals your clicks is undeniable.
If you’d like to discuss how to transition in the age of zero clicks, then call me so that I can help formulate an SEO strategy to help get around this situation we found ourselves in. Call me on 01252 692 765 or leave a message on my contact form.