Google's AI Features Drive Significant Traffic To One Site
Google's AI features accounted for an estimated 21% of one site's search clicks, according to SEO consultant Cyrus Shepard. This highlights the importance of AI features in driving traffic to websites.
Original reporting · searchenginejournal.com
Original: “Google’s AI Features Sent One Site An Estimated 21% Of Its Clicks via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern”
Read “Google’s AI Features Sent One Site An Estimated 21% Of Its Clicks via @sejournal,…” at Search Engine Journal →
How this was written. CTCV wrote this article with a language model from Search Engine Journal’s reporting (model: @cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast); it describes that reporting rather than adding to it. The original, linked above, is the full story.
Key points from Search Engine Journal’s report
- Google's AI features may drive significant traffic to some websites, with one site estimating 21% of its search clicks came from AI features.
- The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has given Google until December 3 to provide publishers with impressions, clicks, and click-through rate for AI search features.
- Website owners may need to optimize their sites to win AI citations and take advantage of the potential traffic benefits of AI features.
Google's AI features, including AI Overviews and AI Mode, may be a significant source of traffic for some websites, according to an experiment by SEO consultant Cyrus Shepard. Shepard, founder of Zyppy SEO, excluded his site from Google's AI features for four weeks to estimate their impact on traffic.
Shepard used Search Console's Search generative AI control to opt out of Google's AI features on September 1 and opted back in on September 29. He then compared the site's traffic during the period it was opted out to the period it was opted back in, using the same searches and position rankings to limit the effects of position and search query changes.
According to Shepard, the site's AI Overviews and AI Mode accounted for approximately 10% of all impressions via Google searches, and he estimates that these features drove around 21% of the site's search clicks. He also found that the site's organic results received higher click-through rates once it appeared in the AI Overview section of search engine results pages.
Shepard attributes this to a 'halo effect', where people who see a site listed several times on one results page are more likely to click at least one of them. He estimates that when including the additional clicks on regular organic listings, around 23% of all search clicks to the site were tied to AI features.
The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has given Google until December 3 to provide publishers with impressions, clicks, and click-through rate for AI search features. This may provide more insight into the impact of AI features on website traffic, and Shepard's experiment provides an example of how much traffic may be at issue.
Shepard's findings are based on a single experiment on a single site, and he notes that readers should treat the findings 'more as a directional yardstick than Google gospel' and not assume the numbers apply to other sites. However, his experiment highlights the potential importance of AI features in driving traffic to websites, and the need for website owners to understand their impact. This article is based on reporting by Search Engine Journal.
Questions and answers
How did Cyrus Shepard estimate the impact of Google's AI features on his site's traffic?
Shepard compared the site's traffic during the period it was opted out of Google's AI features to the period it was opted back in, using the same searches and position rankings to limit the effects of position and search query changes.
What is the 'halo effect' that Shepard attributes to the increase in click-through rates for his site's organic results?
The 'halo effect' refers to the phenomenon where people who see a site listed several times on one results page are more likely to click at least one of them, likely due to brand reinforcement.
What action has the UK's Competition and Markets Authority taken regarding Google's AI search features?
The UK's Competition and Markets Authority has given Google until December 3 to provide publishers with impressions, clicks, and click-through rate for AI search features, according to Search Engine Journal.
