Google Says AI Search Features Haven't Hurt Web Traffic Despite Industry Reports

Google says total organic click volume from its search engine to websites has remained ""relatively stable year-over-year" despite the introduction of AI Overviews, contradicting third-party reports of dramatic traffic declines. The company reports average click quality has increased, with users less likely to immediately return to search results after clicking through to websites. Google attributes stable traffic patterns to users conducting more searches and asking longer, more complex questions since AI features launched, while AI Overviews display more links per page than traditional results.

Nothing to see here...

[Anonymous Coward]

Move along... these are not the stats you're looking for.

Re:

[bobmagicii]

pay no attention to the man in front of the curtain.

Re:

[MogNuts]

lol yup, it's obvious, Google ads have skyrocketed to $20 per click, volume dropped by 60% and CTR is down by 50% according to data from an internal study by https://loucrm.com/ [loucrm.com] which does marketing tools and digital marketing. Nobody is clicking anymore on Big G, so ad inventory has dropped and prices jumped. Google says people are clicking... but so what? No one is clicking AFTER they get to Google which is everyone original point. People come in, get an AI answer, then leave. They DO NOT look at ads. The

Anyone else getting tired of being lied to?

[rsilvergun]

Especially in such a transparent way. Like how the person in charge of job numbers just got shit canned. Or how we are literally taking down satellites because they keep churning out inconvenient data.

I am so sick and tired of being lied to. Maybe if I had 50 fewer IQ points it wouldn't be so transparent. I sometimes wonder if it would be better to be dumber. I mean if I was a lot smarter that would be fine because I could use that intelligence to overcome the current mess but if I can't be smarter I kind of wish I was dumber so I would have no idea how bad things are.

It sucks being just smart enough to know we are all fucked but not smart enough to do anything about it.

Re:

[Woeful Countenance]

Lisa Simpson: "Dad, as intelligence goes up, happiness often goes down. In fact I made a graph... I make a lot of graphs."

It's an indictment either way

[nothinginparticular]

Either google is lying or their front and centre AI results (combined with enshitified results) are not swaying people to use AI of normal results. Either way it's not good. Let's be honest, it's most likely both.

Re:It's an indictment either way

[anoncoward69]

Yup, its a glaring admission that users don't trust AI search results.

Re:

[nightflameauto]

Yup, its a glaring admission that users don't trust AI search results.

Along with a glaring admission that their public discourse is handled by people not bright enough to realize that they just admitted publicly that nobody really wants to deal with their AI first results on the search page.

Re:

[karmawarrior]

Yeah, I can't tell if they're lying, but if they're not the obvious explanation is that nearly everyone is recognizing Gemini is just shit. Which is why they're not returning to Google after finding pages that cover the subject they were looking up.

And to be honest, other than the AI boosters on Slashdot who seem incapable of actually looking at what it is they're promoting, it's hard to believe most people aren't noticing that Gemini is wrong or posting irrelevant crap more than half the time. (I'd say the

This Just In: Google Says Google Is Great!

[ihadafivedigituid]

1: Be Evil
2: ...
3: Profit!

No we haven't punched ourselves in our own dicks

[jacks smirking reven]

Please stop saying that

Impact not evenly distributed

[Tony Isaac]

Maybe the average impact isn't much changed, but the impact of AI is not evenly distributed.

If you're looking for a local business or restaurant, or you want to do something like buy a product or service online, AI probably isn't going to change where you end up, and I can see the quality even being a bit better.

If you're looking for answers to questions, that's a different story. AI is pretty good at summarizing answers, so sites that do nothing but host Q&A community forums, will probably be severely