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Google AI Overviews : What impact on the visibility SEO.
The Google AI Overviews reduce the visibility of websites in search results.
This is not an opinion, it is a fact observed in 20 recent studies conducted by SEO experts on theimpact of AI Overviews.
Result : less impressions, fewer clicks, and a click rate compared to the classical results.
Google AI Overviews : fall of clicks, drop in CTR.
Since the arrival of the AI Overviews in Google Search, that’s all the game of SEO is shaken.
Ten links blue properly stored ? Done. Today, it is a summary that is generated by Gemini – AI Google home – which throne at the top of the SERPS. Quick, synthetic… and clearly not there to share the limelight.
In this article, we are going to dive into the hard with concrete : impressions, clicks, traffic, CTR… Spoiler : the slap is real.
If you débarques, I invite you to read this article where I traces the arrival of Google AIO : from Bard to Gemini. As well asa piece on the passage of the EMS to HAVE Overviews and how it plays with the SERP classic.
I also took the time to explain to you how does Google AIO from a technical point of view, simply, without jargon. Promised, it is available even if you’ve never set foot in a Search Console.
And now ? Place the figures. And yeah, it’s going to heat up.
Google AI Overviews and answers zero clicks.
For the first time, the results of zero clicks exceed those that generate a click.
In this trend, Google AI Overviews is just one of the many formats that contribute to this change : rich snippets, instant answers, knowledge panels… all is done to keep the user in the ecosystem Google.
Why I speak to you about the results of zero clicks ?
Because they are at the heart of the problem. And by extension, the Google AI Overviews either do not play in favor of content creators. Fewer clicks, less traffic, more value is captured directly by Google… while the publishers, but them, watching their visibility collapse.
The testimonies of SEO, webmasters and bloggers accumulate : less traffic, a drop in CTR, loss of positions visible… And this time, we are not talking about a bug or an update badly calibrated.
There was a real consensus : the decline is widespread. And the most worrying thing is that the deployment of the answers AI is only just beginning.
The deployment of Google AI Overviews
In the United States, the deployment of Google AI Overviews has clearly grown in size since the update of Google in march 2025.
Theimage below (courtesy of SEO clarity ) perfectly illustrates the pace andaggressiveness of the deployment.
The image below(courtesy of Sistrixshows perfectly the aggressive deployment of Google AI Overviews in the United Kingdom.
At the time I write this article, Google AI Overviews is available in 200 countries around the world. In 40 languages.
– 34% in CTR with Google AI Overviews
Google AI Overviews to drop the traffic page of 34 %.
The team Ahrefs, a renowned player of SEO, has analyzed 300 000 mots-clés to measure the impact of AI Overviews on the visibility.
They have found that when a preview AI appears in the results, the rate of clicks through on the first page down to 34.5 % compared to keywords similar non-preview IA.
We would have liked to have an equivalent graph for France, but for now, HAVE Overviews are not yet available in us. Unlike other european countries, where they are already actively in place in the search results.
In other words : what we see elsewhere could soon affect us directly…
Less visibility for the top 10 pages of Google AI Overviews
In the same vein, a survey by Search Engine Land reveals that the content ranked in the top 10 organic results of Google were less likely to be cited today as before the update of march 2025.
Google AI Overviews by niche
All niches have not been impacted the same way by the Google AI Overviews(courtesy of SEO clarity ).
What appeals to me is that even within the niches YMYL (Your Money Your Life), the impact varies.
Health, yet ultra-sensitive, at the head of the sectors concerned, while, normally, Google would hesitate to entrust this matter to a IA.
Conversely, the finance, which is also part of niches YMYL, is much less affected, ranked only 11ᵉ.
Return of the SEO community on Google AI Overviews.
The drop in traffic is so violent that it shook the entire SEO community.
Some attack Google in justice, other publish open letters to expose a web of increasingly centralized, where the small creators find themselves in hostile terrain, already weakened by the successive updates.
He said : ‘ Google is a boss ghost. It changes the rules without warning, modify the KPIs in a sweet, te punishes without tell you why… and you have to smile, you adapt, repeat.
The message is clear : work to exist in the SERPS, it has become a crazy race. You write, you optimises, you play the game… and the next day, paf, update. Your traffic collapses, and no one tells you why.
Result : editors who still struggling, quality content that will disappear in abstracts a-I, and a web where Google keep, give little, and imposes her rules like a king without a crown.
And the worst part ? This is what we all signed up for it. Because we don’t have a choice.’
And small precision in passing : NDTV, this is not the blog of your cousin who is 10 clicks per day.
There is talk of a big media, installed for years, with the budget of the teams, the visibility. Finally… this was the case. Because today, even behemoths like NDTV are sounding the alarm.
They see their traffic, melt, their seo collapsing and they say it loud and clear : Google has become unpredictable, uncontrollable… for the ecosystem.
The return of the users on Google AI Overviews
Since the launch of Google AI Overviews, a lot of users complained about from these pages of results generated by AI.
Of course, at first glance, one might think that it is just a reflex human : fear of change, and the attachment to the known.
But with a little digging, some criticisms are completely legitimate.
The first big downside : the non-observance of the will of the users and their privacy.
For example, at the top, you will see a user on a forum or Google, who complains of always seeing the results of AI, even after so-called disabled. Except… you can’t really disable it. In reality, Google requires this format, whether we like it or not.
Then, there are the practical and aesthetic.
As you can see in theimage above(courtesy of Growth Memo), ‘VE Overviews take a lot of screen space, especially on mobile, and pushing organic results below. Clearly, it annoys.
Google AI Overviews hallucinate
Finally, and this is perhaps the most disturbing : the AI has a tendency to hallucinate.
She prefers to swing a response, even to invent or distort the information.
SEO experts have even tested it : ask the AI to explain phrases invented and guess what ? The AI starts to lay explanations… totally bogus.
There are plenty of examples of the genre, but my favorite is the one where a user asks Google AI Overview to explain the expression “two dry frogs is a situation,” an expression that, of course, does not exist.
And guess what ? The AI pond when even an answer well constructed and believable.
It is funny when it is for expressions invented… a little less when it comes queries serious we expect information to be reliable.
Lily Ray, an expert in SEO I often cited for its responsiveness on the subject, is well tide in the testing of Google AI Overviews and talent to hallucinate.
For example, she noticed that the AI of Google predicts the results of a game… that has not even occurred yet.
Either Google has a wild secret for predicting the future, either the AI lets just say anything.
In both cases, it is a sacred bazaar.
You will have understood, the impact of responses Google AI Overviews is far from being positive.
Among the pros of SEO or the side of the users, the sentiment is clear : this new way of displaying the results is not unanimous.
Only time will tell if this new deal will become the norm…
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