For businesses that rely on Google organic search, things are much worse. Oh sure, Google Search Ecosystem general manager Mrinalini Loew claims, “AI Overviews and AI Mode are designed to help people find and visit great websites, and to help publishers and websites strengthen their audiences.”
That’s not what the websites are seeing. In fact, they’re seeing the opposite. Search Engine Land reports that three in four sites’ home pages have seen their traffic shrink in the past year. In the meantime, Ahrefs found that the “presence of an AI Overview now correlates with a 58% lower average clickthrough rate for the top-ranking page.” More specifically, Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said in the company’s latest earnings call that Google search referrals declined “meaningfully” because searchers didn’t go any farther than AI Mode and AI Overviews, instead of clicking onto Reddit.
Now, where does Google make its money? Why, that would be ad sales, wouldn’t it? So what happens when publishers and advertisers start seeing less and less return? They stop spending money on Google ads, don’t they? As Forrester analysts pointed out last week, “The company’s advertising revenue growth slowed to 12%, its slowest rate in five quarters.”