Google Denies AI Search Features Impact Website Traffic

Google has denied allegations that its AI search features are negatively affecting website traffic. In a recent blog post, Google stated that the total organic click volume from its search engine to websites has remained "relatively stable" year-over-year, with a slight increase in average click quality announced on their website.

Google's VP and Head of Search, Liz Reid, emphasized that third-party reports suggesting significant declines in traffic are often based on flawed methodologies or isolated examples. Reid acknowledged that user trends are shifting traffic to different sites, resulting in decreased traffic to some sites and increased traffic to others.

Google's AI Overviews and chatbots are designed to enhance the search experience by providing more links and opportunities for websites to surface and get clicked. Despite these enhancements, some reports indicate that the number of news searches resulting in zero clicks to news websites has increased since the introduction of AI Overviews.

The company continues to highlight the web in its AI experiences, aiming to send billions of clicks to websites daily and maintain a strong value exchange with the web ecosystem.