AI Searches Stealing Ad Clicks and Web Traffic

If your website has experienced a decline in traffic and your pay-for-click ads are in the doldrums, it may be because of generative AI searches. For example, when someone searches in Google and a response pops up (albeit with links to sources) from Google’s AI Overviews (AIO), that dampens further inquiry. It’s been reported that: “Publishers, typically a tight-lipped crowd, have been surprisingly candid about losing 20%, 30% and in some cases even as much as 90% of their traffic and revenue over the past year.” Will click-through rates (CTRs) ever recover? Last summer, Pew reported that only 1% of users click on the links presented by AIO. #IdeaoftheDay