08/07/2025
Google’s latest post—claiming that “AI in Search is driving more queries and higher quality clicks”—reads less like a data-backed explanation and more like a gaslight job on the SEO and publishing industries. (Thanks Brett Tabke for bringing this up!)
Let’s be honest: what’s really happening is Google is rewriting history to fit its narrative.
They say traffic is “relatively stable” and click quality is up. But thousands of publishers, marketers, and webmasters are seeing sharp traffic drops that conveniently started right around the launch of AI Overviews. Saying people are clicking more links in AI answers doesn’t square with the lived experience of site owners watching their impressions and traffic evaporate.
What Google calls “users satisfied with the answer” is actually Google satisfying the user without sending any traffic to the source. AI Overviews are designed to be the destination. The fact that some users might click deeper links doesn’t make up for the systemic decline in exposure to many legitimate sites. And burying links in an AI summary is not the same as prioritizing the open web.
Then there’s the sleight-of-hand with language like “AI is helping people search more.” Sure, people may be typing more words—but when the answer is given directly by AI, they’re not visiting websites. That’s not a healthy web—that’s enclosure.
Saying “we send billions of clicks” while the distribution model changes in ways that kneecap small publishers is like saying “we still sell books” after building a monopoly and putting half the bookstores out of business.
Bottom line: Google is telling site owners that everything is fine—while pulling the rug out from under them.
And those of us who’ve been watching for years? We know this isn’t an evolution. It’s a controlled demolition disguised as innovation.
We continue to send billions of clicks to the web every day and are committed to prioritizing the web in our AI experiences in Search.
