One of the many complaints against the rise of AI is the degree to which it diminishes traffic to website owners and publishers. This phenomenon is generally overstated, but real. It also accelerates an existing zero-click search trend where AI answers/overviews preempt the need to click to find out more.
That existing trend has occurred as Google SERPs over the past decade increasingly offer in-depth answers and Knowledge Graph content. Now, AI accelerates the trend as comprehensive answers to questions – though they’re appended by citations and source links – are increasingly sufficient.
The resulting loss of traffic has been mostly anecdotal through first-party grievances. But there’s also a growing bank of data that supports AI’s aggregate zero-click effect (more on those in a bit). Meanwhile, many websites have accepted the new way of the world and gained an early edge by learning AI SEO.
The good news for now is that citations are still a central component. Because self-interested AI engines are working against some trust issues, citations and source links ground their answers in a degree of validity. The question is the degree to which those citations, when clicked, offset zero-click search.
The Bad News
A new data dump from Digiday has begun to quantify these dynamics and answer some of the above questions. The short version is that there’s good news and bad news. The net result is likely negative for anyone relying on referral traffic… but it’s also an opportunity for AI SEO early movers.
First, the bad news, a recent Pew survey of U.S. Adults (n = 900) shows that searchers are indeed satisfied with the level of depth of AI overviews, to the extent that it expressly diminishes their SERP clicks. Focusing only on Google AI Overviews, users did less clicking than on pages without overviews.
For example, 15 percent of respondents report clicking links in search results on regular (non AI-overview) SERPs. However, only 8 percent clicked links in SERPs when there was an AI overview that preceded the regular set of blue links. This question didn’t include links within the AI overviews.
As for those links and citations sprinkled into AI overviews, only one percent of survey respondents report clicking on them. There’s no comparison to that data point for SERPs without AI Overviews, but we can generally compare that 1 percent to the average single-SERP CTR of about 40 percent.
The Good News
The above is another validation of what we all pretty much know is happening with AI’s impact on search referral traffic. But there’s some good news in that the lower quantity of traffic that results is at least of a higher quality. In other words, traffic from AI engines is demonstrating an ability to convert better.
For example, a study by Microsoft Clarity reports that conversion rates among publisher and news websites (think: newsletter subscriptions) were meaningfully higher for traffic that came from AI engines. This was compared to traffic from traditional search engines, direct navigation traffic, or social channels.
Specifically, site visitors coming from AI engines converted at a rate of 1.66%. That compares to .15 percent for search, .13 percent for direct-navigation traffic, and .46 percent for social. That’s at least a silver lining… and could be greater motivation for marketers to start learning the dark arts of AI SEO.
Put another way, AI search is here to stay. Publishers and marketers can choose to complain about it or take an “if you can’t beat them, join them” approach. Those who choose the latter will have an edge in the zero-click search era. Those who don’t may have the same fate as last decade’s mobile marketing laggards.
Header image credit: Carrie Allen on Unsplash
