Google says AI is boosting Search. Yes, but…

 

A new Google blog post shares some broad traffic trends and tells us that AI drives more queries and higher quality clicks

Google is touting AI as the biggest upgrade to Search in its history – claiming more queries, higher quality clicks, and a healthier web. But a new blog post (authored by Liz Reid, VP, head of Search) leaves out actual details about who’s winning, and losing – and how much control publishers really have.

Here’s what Google says, and what they’re not saying.

Google: AI Overviews are driving more searches

“People are able to ask questions they could never ask before… searching more than ever.”

• Yes, but Google doesn’t share how many queries are actually leading to clicks or how many are now fully answered on Google without the need to visit a site.

Google: Traffic is ‘relatively stable’ year-over-year

“We’re actually sending slightly more quality clicks to websites than a year ago.”

• Yes, but: No data, no definitions. “Slightly” and “quality” are vague, unverified metrics. Google wouldn’t say how many total clicks are down or which sites are losing them.

Google: AI Overviews show more links, so more chances to click

“People are seeing more links on the page than before.”

• Yes, but: Google Search Console data shows for many sites that impressions are going up and clicks are down. People may “see” the links – but I may also “see” a display ad on a webpage that I completely ignore.

Google: Click quality is up

“Users don’t quickly click back… typically a signal that a user is interested in the website.”

• Yes, but: AI search clicks aren’t always better traffic. Also, one report found LLM traffic isn’t as engaged as organic traffic (albeit, there isn’t a lot of data on this yet).

Google: Search behavior is shifting – users want “authentic voices”

“People are increasingly seeking out and clicking on sites with forums, videos…”

• Yes, but: That shift may not be entirely natural. It could simply reflect Google’s favoring its partner Reddit (though the Google’s Reddit partnership is unrelated to Reddit’s huge search visibility boost, according to Google) and its own video platform – YouTube.
• Although, granted, there was much discussion a couple years back that people had to add “Reddit” to their searches to find what they actually wanted. Regardless, Reddit’s organic traffic has been booming since last year, often appearing directly under AI Overviews or ads as the de facto top organic listing.

Google: The web is healthy and thriving

“We continue to send billions of clicks to websites every day.”

• Yes, but: Billions mean nothing without context. The distribution of that traffic matters, especially for publishers whose traffic is vanishing. All we know is Google sees more than 5 trillion searches per year. And also numerous reports (flawed or not) indicate that CTR is down and impressions are up (a.k.a., the great decoupling) when AI Overviews appear.

Google: Search is built to highlight the web

“It’s not the web or AI — it’s both.”

• Yes, but: AI Overviews often repurpose and repackage web content, reducing the need to click. Google’s framing of “highlighting” may be seen as summarizing what creators have created, without compensation and sometimes without credit.

Bottom line

Google wants credit for expanding the web’s reach, but won’t or can’t show us the data. Without real transparency, it’s hard to know where the truth lives. For now, creators, SEOs, and publishers are left guessing how much of their traffic has been eaten by AI – and how much is simply hidden