Google Dismisses Claims of AI Overviews Harming Website Traffic

September 23, 2025 | 08:13 pm

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Google denies allegations that artificial intelligence (AI)-based search features impact referral traffic to news and content publisher sites. The tech giant said organic clicks from search results to websites have remained 'relatively stable' from year to year, and even the average quality of clicks has improved.

"This data is in contrast to third-party reports that inaccurately suggest dramatic declines in aggregate traffic—often based on flawed methodologies, isolated examples, or traffic changes that occurred prior to the roll out of AI features in Search," said Google's Vice President and Head of Search, Liz Reid, as quoted by Tech Crunch.

As reported by Antara on Thursday, August 7, 2025, although not detailing supporting data, Google acknowledges a shift in user behavior. This has led to some sites experiencing increased visits, while others have seen a decline.

However, the company did not specify how many sites have been affected. On the other hand, traffic to chatbot services such as ChatGPT has continued to rise in recent months, while many digital publishers are facing challenges.

According to Liz, users are now more interested in content with authentic voices, such as forums, podcasts, videos, and direct experiences.

Google also added that the AI Overviews feature has been integrated with more links. They claim that this feature actually opens up new opportunities for websites to appear and be clicked by users.

Google is now shifting the success measure of searches from merely the number of clicks to the quality of clicks. The term 'quality clicks' refers to when users do not immediately return to the search page, but actually engage with the content and read it thoroughly.

Nevertheless, data from external parties indicate that the presence of AI-based features still affects a general decrease in the number of clicks.

Similarweb reported that since the launch of AI Overviews in May 2024, the number of news searches that did not result in clicks to publisher sites rose. In May 2025, the figure skyrockets from 56 percent to 69 percent, meaning the majority of users no longer open news sites after conducting a search.

Google then released a specific product for publishers in response to the traffic decline. This product offers new monetization schemes, such as newsletter subscriptions or micro-payments, as alternatives to conventional ads.

According to Techloy, Google introduced AI summary features for video content in June. Now, this feature has been expanded to include text articles. The company also updated the interface by adding a 'Save' icon among the heart icon and three-dot menu, enabling users to easily save favorite content.

Bing, Microsoft's search engine, had previously introduced AI-based summary features in search results. This feature has been available for more than a year and works responsively, only appearing when users input specific queries or click on links. For example, Bing's Copilot is able to summarize web pages or news, but only when directly requested.

Google's approach is different. Through the Discover platform, their AI system works proactively. Article summaries are automatically generated without waiting for user commands.

Google is also testing a new display for news in Discover. Some articles are now accompanied by key points below the title, or grouped together with similar news. Nevertheless, these contents are not labeled as AI-generated.

Sukma Kanthi Nurani contributed to the writing of this article.

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