AI Overviews reduce position-1 CTR by 58% – Ahrefs, December 2025 data.
VANCOUVER, Wash., July 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Gravitate, a digital marketing agency based out of Vancouver for the past 26 years, released an analysis demonstrating that high organic search rankings are no longer sufficient to deliver website traffic. Combining public data from Ahrefs, Pew Research Center, SparkToro, Gartner and Press Gazette/Chartbeat, the analysis shows that Google’s new AI Overviews are acting as an accelerant to a decade-long structural shift away from click-through traffic. While Google was moving away from click-throughs before AI, the movement is now occurring faster than at any previous point on record.
The report takes on one of the most perplexing issues in the current digital marketing landscape: why businesses are paying for SEO, achieving good search results but watching website traffic continue to decline. The finding is that for an increasing number of search queries, the problem is not visibility. What is broken is the expectation that visibility translates into visitors.
Google Is Sending Less Traffic Even As It Handles More Queries
Google receives more searches than at any time before in history, but is responsible for driving an ever-shrinking percentage of that traffic outside of their platform and out into the open web. The data now shows that open web traffic is at its lowest point ever over the past 10 years.
A 2026 study from Spark Toro, conducted in collaboration with Similarweb, determined that in the U.S, 68% of all Google searches conclude without a click, a jump of almost seven percentage points in just two years (from about 60.45%), and up from an estimated 45%, 10 years ago. For every 1,000 searches on Google, there are now fewer than 320 directions to the external web.
None of this is entirely new to the AI era. Google had already been steadily reducing clicks over time. A 2024 SparkToro study based on inputs from the Datos clickstream panel data, showed that 58.5% of Google searches in the U.S ended without a click, and a little over 59.7% in Europe. People were already ending their session on the Google results page, either because they had found an answer or they just continued searching elsewhere on the page. AI overviews did not create zero-click behavior, it accelerated it.
The Effect of AI Overviews on Click-Throughs
As AI Overviews continue to roll out across search, these early numbers paint a grim picture. According to Ahrefs’ 300,000-keyword study of averaged Google Search Console data published in February 2026 (based on December 2025 data), AI Overviews correlates with a 58% fewer click-through rate for the first ranking search result. This is nearly double the rate than Ahref’s early analyses in April 2025 when the drop was only 34.5%. This signals that the effect is worsening as Google incorporates AI results into more search queries.
Pew Research Center’s analysis shows similar results. With direct behavioral data, it observed 900 U.S adults navigating from 68,879 Google searches and tracked actual link clicks and website visits as part of its March 2025 research.
On search queries that surface a featured AI Overview, just 8% of resulting search sessions resulted in a user clicking on a traditional link, versus 15% on searches that did not include an AI Overview (roughly a 47% drop in the chance of a click). Only 1% of all clicks were to a URL that was contained within the AI Overview.
The two studies measure different things, with Ahrefs analysing what happens to click rates when AI Overviews appear at scale, while Pew Research Center captured what people actually do on the search page. The results and its implication are clear.
When a Google AI Overview is present and a traditional result sits in position one directly beneath it, that result’s click-through rate drops 58% below baseline, according to Ahrefs data from February 2025.
The broader picture from Pew Research (2025) is just as stark: any traditional result appearing alongside an AI Overview earns a click-through rate of just 8%, compared to 15% when no AI Overview is present. As for the links embedded inside the AI Overview itself, they capture only 1% of clicks, meaning the feature that displaces organic traffic delivers almost none of it back.
Publisher Traffic Data Supports the Trend
The total publisher referral traffic shows the same trend. Referrals via Google search by publisher type dropped by roughly 33% globally in 2025 according to data from Press Gazette, Chartbeat, and the Society of News Editors. These referrals dropped 38% in the U.S and 17% in Europe. Publishers like Business Insider lost 55% of their referral traffic via Google and Forbes and HuffPost each lost about 50% of referral traffic.
They did not see the decline because they operate weak content sites that get caught up in spam and abuse policies; instead they are major editorial sites with a well established and reputable domain authority. Their losses are the result of Google’s attempt to satisfy more of the search queries, without users having to leave the Google ecosystem, and in doing so returning less traffic to the external publishers directly.
Additional Algorithms Pose Another Risk
While AI Overviews might be the most obvious factor for a drop in traffic, many other factors might lead to a decline in organic traffic. Combining these factors could lead to an incorrect culprit. In March 2024, Google released the company’s core update that reduced what the company considered low-value content from the search results page by 45%. This was considered one the biggest updates from Google in recent years. For many websites, some pages (or even a section of their entire site) had been de-indexed or effectively lost their ranking almost overnight.
While AI Overviews may suppress click-through rates but leave ranking intact, an algorithm update can completely remove a page’s ranking. Both are incredibly problematic, and they require very different actions to fix. This matters when it comes to the practical implications when trying to figure out why traffic is slipping.
As Gartner noted in February 2024, search engines are expected to shift 25% of all queries that used to be search engine-based to AI chatbots and other assistants by 2026. With generative AI, the answer for many previously searched-based questions are coming via chatbots, rather than traditional searches.
What the Gravitate CSI Report Measures
Gravitate’s Competitive Strategic Insight (CSI) Report (a 100% AI data-driven competitive audit designed for this environment), clearly illustrates where your web presence will be penalized or rewarded when people ask questions through AI search engines – prior to spending any of your marketing budget. Teams looking for a definitive gauge on their AI search position rather than a generic channel review can obtain the report for $1,500.
The analysis above synthesizes findings from Ahrefs (2026), Pew Research Center (2025), SparkToro/Datos (2025), SparkToro/Similarweb (2026), Gartner (2024), Google/Search Central (2024), and Press Gazette/Chartbeat (2025). Find out what the Gravitate marketing audit can do for your business.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is ranking number 1 on Google getting fewer clicks than before?
Because ranking and clickthrough aren’t the same anymore. Google has added more information to search results such as AI Overviews, features snippers and knowledge panels. People can find a satisfactory answer without ever leaving the results page. Ahref’s study of 300,00 keywords found that pages ranking first that also featured an AI Overview got an average of 58% fewer clicks than first-page pages that didn’t.
Are AI Overviews the sole culprit for having fewer clicks or are other factors at play?
Both can be true, but it’s important to distinguish them. Before AI Overviews, about 60% of US Google searches were already zero-click because users were finding answers on the results page via featured snippets and knowledge panels. AI Overviews intensified an existing trend, not a new one. According to 2026 data from SparkToro, 68% of US Google search traffic is already zero-click, the fastest increase in a decade, and the expansion of AI Overviews coincides with that surge.
Is it possible my traffic loss is due to an algorithm update from Google?
Yes, and it makes a difference in how you react whether the cause is AI Overviews vs. a search engine algorithm. Google’s March 2024 core update, caused long-established publishers to lose ranks within hours of activation and dropped low-quality content views by 45% within that category of sites. If your website saw a sudden, sharp drop within a few days or weeks of a Google core algorithm update, then there’s a strong possibility it was the primary cause of the problem.
About Gravitate
Gravitate is a digital marketing agency founded in 1999 and based in Vancouver, WA. The agency works with businesses in strategy, design, and marketing execution, with a focus on helping clients understand how their online presence performs before spending. The CSI Report is a core offering for businesses dealing with the changes in how AI search engines surface, evaluate and reward web content. More information is available at gravitatedesign.com
Media Contact
Contact: Matt Malonie, Gravitate
Email: [email protected]
Location: Vancouver, WA
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