Google AI Overviews, clicks and traffic impact: Unraveling the mystery
Jun 22, 2025 am 09:42 AMGoogle started including AI Overviews (AIO) in U.S. search results on May 14. While Google has made vague references to the fact that links within AIO may experience higher click-through rates (CTRs), it remains unclear when directly questioned about this.
In conversations with my clients, we focus on two key points:
- AI Overviews offer a completely different user experience, so interpreting CTR using traditional metrics might be misleading and could cause you to miss out on new opportunities.
- Google might be truthful but not effectively conveying this intriguing detail—or they may intentionally be keeping things ambiguous.
Although the discussion centers around AI Overviews, many of these thoughts and concerns also apply to Bing Copilot.
AI Overviews: UI and UX
Both Google AI Overviews and Bing Copilot introduce a novel way for users to interact with search results. This shift begins when users engage with generative AI—whether by prompting an AIO response, expanding an existing one, or submitting a query.
These interfaces from Google and Bing take over the entire search result space, offering a much richer and more detailed response than the conventional search engine results pages (SERPs).
According to Liz Reid, Google’s VP and head of Search, users tend to be more satisfied when AI Overviews are presented. AIO typically delivers summaries covering main topics along with brief explanations for each subtopic, often including links to external websites.
Regarding CTR, if the AIO summary is segmented into multiple sections, each section usually contains at least one link. Bing’s Copilot functions as a single-page application, delivering a more interactive and iterative search process compared to standard Bing results.
We must refine our understanding of CTR because the nature of interaction with generative AI interfaces differs significantly from that of traditional SERPs.
This ambiguity from Google and Bing regarding CTR is what makes the situation frustrating.
When thinking through potential outcomes, I consider two extremes:
- The summary fully addresses the user's needs, concluding their search without clicking any links.
- The user becomes better informed and proceeds to ask follow-up questions, increasing the likelihood they’ll explore the provided URLs via further interaction with the search engine or AI interface.
Generative AI user interface is likely to lead to higher CTR
An important observation: Generative AI interfaces dominate the screen and present fewer clickable options compared to other search features.
Notably, the links inside AIO stand out more than standard search results, often including site names, headings, snippets, and even images—all neatly formatted in card-like structures designed to encourage clicks.
So, when users want to click a link, the reduced number of visible options in AIO (compared to the classic 10 blue links) inherently leads to a higher CTR.
Mathematically speaking, CTR is calculated as clicks divided by the number of available targets. With fewer targets, the denominator shrinks, thus inflating the CTR.
The real question is how frequently users actually decide to click a link. Only Google holds definitive data on this, as it isn’t publicly accessible. Later in this piece, we’ll explore ways to estimate this behavior indirectly.
What Google said about clicks in AI Overviews
The most direct statement comes from Reid’s announcement:
- “And we see that the links included in AI Overviews get more clicks than if the page had appeared as a traditional web listing for that query.”
Frustrating, isn't it? This sentence lacks clarity and seems crafted by corporate communications to obscure unfavorable implications.
Let’s break down some possible interpretations:
CTR measured by search feature
Google evaluates CTR per search feature. For instance, AIO, sitelinks, Knowledge Panels, and featured snippets all have individual CTRs.
From a UX perspective, a more dominant interface tends to attract more clicks. Since AIO is visually commanding (and Copilot occupies the full screen), its links are likely to achieve a higher CTR.
CTR measured as clicks to a link within the search feature
Each search feature sees varying CTRs among its internal links. In the case of the 10 blue links, Position 1 gets more clicks than Position 9.
AI Overviews typically display between two and five links, which is far fewer than the usual 10 blue links.
With fewer choices, the average CTR for each link within AIO is expected to be higher than those found in the 10 blue links.
CTR measured as clicks to a given link
You can compare the same URL appearing in AIO versus another search feature. Due to AIO’s prominent placement, contextual richness, and limited number of links, the CTR is likely boosted.
Several factors complicate understanding AIO performance:
- Duplicate URLs: In traditional search, a URL appears only once in the top 10 results. During testing, however, a URL might appear multiple times within AIO responses. This may not occur in the live version, but it’s worth noting.
- CTR measurement: Because AIO and Copilot are interactive, CTR fluctuates depending on whether it’s tracked per session or per query. Measuring per session generally shows a higher CTR.
- Variable responses: AIO answers to the same query can differ greatly over time. Unlike static SERPs, AIO content—including which links are shown and formatting elements like sections or image carousels—can change with each query.
CTR of the whole SERPs
One aspect rarely discussed by Google or industry experts is the overall CTR across the entire search results page.
The introduction of any search feature can influence both its own link CTR and that of other features.
Given the prominence of AIO and Copilot on SERPs, it’s plausible that these features reduce clicks on others, especially the 10 blue links.
This suggests that while links within AIO may enjoy higher CTRs, the total number of clicks on the SERP might decline.
This could result in more search sessions ending without any clicks.
If true, this would have major consequences for organic traffic to websites.
The search engines need to step up
So, which interpretation of CTR does Google mean?
I suspect it’s the third: a link shown in AIO is more likely to be clicked than one appearing among the 10 blue links.
The issue is that we don’t know how Google and Bing calculate CTR for these new interfaces—and they’re avoiding giving a clear answer.
Greater transparency is needed from the search engines.
Rather than dodging these questions, Google and Bing should clearly outline how they assess CTR and related metrics for these new experiences.
Measuring the impact of AI Overviews on your website’s traffic
While waiting for Google to provide clearer data, what steps can you take to evaluate the impact of AI Overviews?
To gain insights, I’ve been using three data sources with my clients to build a rough picture:
- A SERP tracking tool: I use Authoritas to monitor how AIO appears in SERPs over time. The same query can yield very different AIO responses. Therefore, any tracking tool must capture these variations. Manual checks should be done carefully.
- Web analytics: Use Google Analytics (or similar tools) to track referrals from Google containing #:~:text=. This format highlights specific page segments in SERPs for featured snippets and AIO links. You should already be monitoring this!
- Search Console data: Export bulk data from Search Console into BigQuery for deeper analysis of page-query combinations. Analyzing this for AI Overviews and featured snippets is crucial and should be part of your regular reporting.
Reporting on these three data sources in a business-friendly format helps you estimate how often:
- AIO appears for a particular query.
- Your website appears in AIO.
- Your site receives clicks from AIO.
Though imperfect, this approach offers a directionally accurate view.
Contributing authors are invited to create content for Search Engine Land and are chosen for their expertise and contribution to the search community. Our contributors work under the oversight of the editorial staff and contributions are checked for quality and relevance to our readers. The opinions they express are their own.
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