In a new report from the Pew Research Center, the company announced that “Google users who encounter an AI summary are less likely to click on links to other websites than users who do not see one.” According to the study, only 8% of users clicked on a website’s link when AI Overviews were featured on the page vs. 15% when an AI Overview was not featured on the page. As for the CTR when a website link was included in AI Overviews? Less than 1%.
What Else Did Pew’s Research Find?
- “Google users are more likely to end their browsing session entirely after visiting a search page with an AI summary than on pages without a summary.”
- “The most frequently cited sources in both Google AI summaries and standard search results are Wikipedia, YouTube and Reddit.”
- “Google searches that contain more words, ask questions, or use full sentences tend to produce AI summaries more often.”
Why Does The Study Matter?
Google AI Overviews aren’t just hurting your CTR; they are also hurting your organic traffic. If Google users are ending their searches after reading the AI Overviews section, you can say goodbye to a portion of your unique website traffic visitors.
What You Can Do to Improve Your Website’s Click Through Rate:
- Use original keywords that don’t prompt an AI Overviews feature. As we reported earlier this year, Google’s AI Overviews don’t appear at the top of “results at least 12.4% of the time.” Take advantage of this, and make sure your website is ranking above the AI Overviews.
- Continue to try and improve your website’s search rankings the “old fashioned” way.
- Create page titles that are hard to avoid. If Google’s AI Overviews are causing attention spans to drop, make sure your website is as eye-catching as possible.
- Try to rank on other AI search-powered engines. In a new LinkedIn post, Kitty Bushell, an SEO writer, found that “ChatGPT’s click through rates are currently 2.3x higher than Google’s.”
Need More Help Improving Your Website’s Click-Through Rate? Contact Boston Web Marketing, New England’s Largest Independent Digital Marketing Company, Today!
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