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The AIpocalypse is here for web sites as search referrals plunge

The Register · Thomas Claburn · last updated

Google AI Overviews and other AI search services appear to be starving the hand that fed them.

Google’s AI-generated summaries of web pages, officially released in May 2024, show up atop its search results pages so search users don’t have to click through to the source website.

A year later, enterprise AI analytics biz BrightEdge reported that Google AI Overviews had generated more search impressions (up 49 percent), but click-throughs to the actual web sites dropped 30 percent

That means AI Overviews is leading more people to use Google Search to find answers to their queries. But those people are less likely to follow search results links that lead to the source website. Good for Google. Terrible for the ecosystem of web sites that had learned to depend on search referrals for buyers, readers, and viewers.

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