Publishers report ‘negligible’ traffic impact of Google AI Overviews

Two giant publishers – Dotdash Meredith and Ziff Davis – say Google AI Overviews haven’t considerably impacted their visitors.

What Dotdash Meredith is saying. Right here’s what the IAC (proprietor of Dotash) wrote its Q2 2024 shareholder letter:

• “Google started to roll out AI Overviews in mid-Might, the influence on our visitors has been negligible. Referrals from Google search queries produce lower than half of our visitors, and primarily based on our evaluation, AI-generated solutions are being served on roughly 15% of searches throughout our classes, with the very best frequency in Well being, Expertise, and Finance. Click on-through fee differentials between pages with and with out AI Overviews are minor up to now, however it’s nonetheless early and merchandise change rapidly, so the previous isn’t prologue.”

What Ziff Davis is saying. Right here’s what Ziff Davis CEO Vivek Shah mentioned on the corporate’s earnings name:

• “I do know there continues to be investor curiosity within the impacts of AI on search. …Now that the AI Overview expertise is in full circulation, we wished to revisit the evaluation we did in Q3 of 2023 regarding the frequency of AI overviews being introduced to customers.
• “We analyzed 1000’s of queries throughout our key domains that generate the lion’s share of our natural search referrals and the share of instances that an AI Overview appeared. It fell to eight%, that means 92% of the time the search engine outcomes web page didn’t embody an AI Overview for the queries that matter to us most. Evaluation by different business consultants point out the same proportion of total searches leading to AI Overviews.
• “At this level, we don’t see it as a major change to the search expertise.”

However. Whereas this all is sensible, it’s vital to keep in mind that the rollout of Google AI Overviews has been pretty restricted and unstable up to now. Total, AI Overviews appeared for 7% of queries, as of the top of July, in response to BrightEdge analysis. The presence of AI Overviews peaked at 15% in May.

Whereas Ziff Davis could not see AI Overviews as a “vital change” to Google’s search expertise, I’d add the phrase “but” to the top of that sentence. As a result of Google has clearly said search is evolving toward AI Overviews.

Why we care. Generative AI has simply begun reshaping search and AI will proceed to take action over the subsequent decade. Granted, these two reviews kind a line, not a development. However AI Overviews (and Search Generative Expertise earlier than it) precipitated a variety of nervousness for SEOs, publishers and content material creators. So it’s useful to get some perception into how publishers are being impacted in these early days of AI Overviews.