The Digital Press

New research analyzing 300,000 keywords finds that Google's AI Overviews in search results reduce the clickthrough rate (CTR) for the top-ranking page by about 34.5%. Despite Google's claims that AI Overviews increase clicks on linked content, the data shows fewer users actually click through to websites.

Why it matters: AI Overviews drive more zero-click searches, decreasing traffic to top-ranking sites and impacting SEO strategies.

The big picture: This trend resembles the effect of Featured Snippets, which also reduce clicks by answering queries directly in search results.

Stunning stat: The average CTR for position one pages with AI Overviews dropped from 0.073 to 0.026, a roughly 34.5% decrease.

Commenters say: Many express concern over declining organic traffic and the challenges of adapting SEO to AI-driven search features.