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The number of AI Overview users has been published. Photo: Google . |
Liz Reid, Vice President and Head of Search at Google, recently posted a blog message addressing concerns that AI-powered search engines are harming web traffic. According to Reid, click-through rates haven't decreased; on the contrary, AI is driving even more searches, and everything on the internet is fine.
Previously, numerous studies, including analysis by the Pew Research Center, showed that searches with AI Overviews had lower click-through rates. Several online news sites, such as The Atlantic and the Washington Post, also reported a decrease in web traffic, with the New York Times citing data from SimilarWeb to support this claim.
“This data contradicts inaccurate third-party reports suggesting that overall traffic is declining significantly,” Reid said. She further explained that these are often based on flawed research methodologies, isolated examples, or traffic changes that occurred before AI features were implemented in Search.
However, despite its optimistic tone, the article fails to provide any concrete data to support its conclusions. Even assuming Google's claims are true, that doesn't mean AI has no impact.
Google has also been forced to acknowledge this. “The trend is that users are shifting traffic to different pages, leading to some pages experiencing a decrease in traffic while others see an increase,” Reid said. The word “some” is also quite suggestive, as it doesn’t specify exactly how many pages are experiencing an increase or decrease in traffic.
"More and more users are turning to sites like forums, videos , podcasts, and posts where they can hear authentic voices and perspectives from real-life experiences," Reid explained. This statement seems to allude to the habit of accessing sites like TikTok and Reddit to find information.
Google partnered with Reddit in early 2024, gaining access to the platform's wealth of real-person content to train its AI. It's hard not to notice Google increasingly prioritizing Reddit links in search results since that agreement, according to Ars Technica.
Reddit's traffic has more than doubled since 2021, and growth has accelerated sharply in the 18 months since the two companies announced their partnership. According to Reddit, the number of daily active users has increased by 21% in just the past year, with over 110 million daily users.
Google has long been concerned that users tend to turn to Amazon for shopping recommendations, or TikTok and Reddit for trending topics. TechCrunch argues that the argument that AI isn't driving down clicks is correct, as users have been using Google's tools less frequently.
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Click-through rates decreased while "no clicks" on news pages increased. Photo: SimilarWeb. |
Many reports suggest that AI is still insufficient to offset the decline in actual clicks, despite becoming a major source of traffic. A recent study by Similarweb showed that the percentage of web news searches that did not result in any clicks to news pages increased from 56% to 69% by May 2025.
Google's new blog post is also attempting to shift the focus of its evaluation from the number of clicks to the quality of those clicks. Google says it's sending websites "a little more quality clicks" than a year ago, meaning users not only click but also stay to read the content.
However, Google did not disclose the specific increase, only emphasizing that when users click on the source link from the AI-generated response, they tend to learn more. Therefore, these clicks are more valuable.
Source: https://znews.vn/google-len-tieng-ve-ai-overview-post1574920.html
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