Google denies AI search features are killing website traffic

Numerous studies indicate that the shift to AI search functions and the use of AI -chatbots kill traffic to publishers sites. But Google denied Wednesday that that is the case, at least in total. Instead, the search giant says that the total organic click volume of the search engine to websites year-on year has been “relatively stable” and that average click quality has increased somewhat.

“In contrast to reports from third parties, this data is inaccurately suggests that dramatic falls in aggregated traffic is very often based on poor methods, insulated examples or traffic changes that took place prior to the rollout of AI functions in searches,” writes Liz Reid, A new blog post.

Although Google has not shared specific data to back up his conclusions, even if we assume that the claiming of Google is true, this does not necessarily mean that AI has no impact.

Even Google has to admit this, because Reid recognizes that “user trends are moving traffic to different sites, resulting in reduced traffic to some sites and more traffic to others.”

That word ‘some’ does heavily lifting here, because Google does not share data about how many sites win or lose. And although chatbots such as Chatgpt have certainly seen traffic increase in recent months, this does not mean that online publishers do not suffer.

Google has been renewing its search engine for years to answer more questions directly on the page with search results, and is now doing this with AI via its “AI overviews” that appear at the top of search results. With Google, users can also communicate with an AI chatbot for some questions. Nevertheless, Google denies that this considerably reforms the search landscape. It previously points out that users put their attention to other sites to start their questions.

Reid explains: “People are increasingly looking for and clicking on sites with forums, videos, podcasts and messages where they can hear authentic voices and perspectives firsthand.”

Reading between the lines, it seems that nowadays Google.com is not necessarily the first stop of people on the internet on the internet. But that is something we have known for a while. In 2022, a Google -Exec even said that social sites such as Tiktok and Instagram broke in the core products of Google, such as searching and cards.

“In our studies, something like almost 40% of young people, when they are looking for a place for lunch, they do not go to Google Maps or are searching,” said Google SVP Prabhakar Raghavan, who at the time led the company’s knowledge and information organization (he is now the most important technologist). “They go to Tiktok or Instagram,” he noticed.

Google has also been worried that Amazon.com had become the first stop of people for online searches in the field of shopping, and Reddit.com had become the first stop for investigating interest topics.

For many years, the company has tried to come up with fascinating positions for both consumers and retailers who would attract more users to Google Shopping. These efforts include universal shopping carts, local stock controls, deal seekers, shopping of product images on websites and more. It even made its shopping contexts free for traders in 2020.

Meanwhile, as users complained that Google search quality decreasedThe search giant saw so much demand for Reddit that it finally added a “Reddit” filter to enable users to limit the results on relevant searches. (Now that filter simply reads ‘forums’.)

So perhaps there is some truth in the refusal of Google – it is not ai who is fully responsible for killing. Searching died.

The new Google blog post also tries to move the goals a bit about what it means for websites that receive the clicks from Google. Now, instead of clicking, it wants publishers to think about the click quality.

The company says that the average click quality has increased, and Google sends “a little more quality click” to websites than a year ago. (Google explains that a quality click is where users do not click back quickly – they stay and read.) However, how much increase does not say Google. The company only points out that when people continue to an AI response to the source, they dive more deeply, so they clicks are more valuable.

What is more, Google paints AI as an opportunity for web publishers to get increased exposure and say that “with AI overviews people see more links on the page than before,” writes Reid. “More questions and more links mean more options for websites to come up and be clicked.”

But Ai, although a growing source of referring, has not yet made up for the difference in terms of clicks, has shown reports. A recent study by SimilseWeb indicates that the number of news search assignments on the web results in zerlikken to news websites grew from 56% (when Google AI overviews launched in May 2024) to 69% from May 2025.

Google seems to know that this is also a trend, because it recently launched a product for publishers that helps them to make money with their decreasing traffic in other ways that are not only dependent on advertising, such as Micropayments or registrations of the newsletter.

The fact that Google pushes this ‘AI is not the end of search traffic! “PR now only makes the situation look worse.