AI isn’t stealing clicks. Google’s change in user interface is.
Yes, many people using AI search. But outside of entrepreneur and marketing circles/bubbles, not as many people as you think use AI to begin with.
All of the most used AI tools like ChatGPT, MetaAI, Perplexity, Gemini, and Claude make up less than 0.4% of the search market. (source: chatgpt-vs-google)
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All the traffic is still on Google. They’re just not sharing the click-thru like they used to.
- AI Overviews appear on 43% of desktop search queries
- Zero-click rates are 74% with an AI Overview vs 54% without
- Positions #2 and #3 take an even bigger hit: −64% and −56%
- Commercial queries are hit hardest (−71% at #1)
- Position #1 CTR is down 25% year over year
- (source: Advanced Web Ranking)
Sounds all bad, right? Not entirely.
Instead of clicks being shared among a few results, the top dogs just get all the clicks. No sharing. And if you’re that top result, SEO is paying dividends more now than ever.
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