AI runs the most significant upgrade of the Google search experience ever. With AI listings and recently AI mode, people are able to ask questions they could never ask before. And the answer has been huge: Our data shows that people are happier with the experience and are looking for more than ever as they discover what the search can do now.
At the same time, we recently heard some questions about what it means for traffic to Google websites. So we wanted to share some insights about the data we see, as well as more about our approach with AI in search.
Traffic trends from Google Search
Overall, the total organic click volume from Google search to sites has been relatively stable years over years. In addition, the average click quality has risen, and we actually send a little more quality clicks to sites than a year ago (after quality click, we mean them where users do not quickly click back – typically a signal that a user is interested in the site). In contrast to third-party reports, this data is inaccurately suggesting dramatic decrease in overall traffic ofte based on defective methods, isolated examples or traffic changes that occurred before the roll out of AI functions in the search.
So what happens? With AI overviews, people are looking for more and asking new questions that are often longer and more complex. In addition, people with AI overviews see more links on the page than before. More queries and more links mean more options for websites to surface and be clicked. For some questions where people are looking for a quick answer, such as “when is the next full moon”, people can be satisfied with the original response and not click on. This has also been true for other response features we have added, such as the Knowledge Grafe or Sports Outlines. But for many other types of questions, people continue to click through as they will dig deeper into a topic, explore further, or make a purchase. This is why we see click quality increasing – an AI response may give the country’s layers, but people click to dive deeper and learn more, and when they do, these clicks are more valuable.
While overall traffic to places is relatively stable, the Internet is huge and user trends change traffic to different places, resulting in reduced traffic to some places and increased traffic to others. People are increasingly searching and clicking sites with forums, videos, podcasts and posts where they can hear authentic voices and first -hand perspectives. People are also more likely to click on web content that helps them learn more-such as an in-depth review, an original post, a unique perspective or a thoughtful first-person analysis. Sites that meet these developing user needs, benefit from this shift and generally see an increase in traffic.
Building AI in search to highlight the Internet
As a search company, we are passionate about – perhaps more than any other company – about the health of the web ecosystem. We continue to send billions of clicks to sites every day and believe that the search’s value exchange with the Internet remains strong.
We take a clear approach to how we build our AI experiences: They are built to highlight the Internet. In other words it’s not the internet or AI – It’s both. We have trained our models to deeply understand the Internet and when and how to link to the most relevant places. And our AI response has prominent links, visible quote of sources and in-line attribution. This is not only useful for sites; It also helps users learn where information comes from and how they can explore further. And sites always have control over how content is highlighted or included in searching with open web protocols that we respect and follow. We are required to highlight high quality content on the web and we will continue to refine how we do it.
The Internet has been around for over three decades, and we believe we are going into its most exciting era yet. Technological shifts bring change, but they also bring extraordinary possibilities. We believe that AI will be one of the most expansionary moments for the Internet, giving us all the opportunity to ask much more questions and creators to reach more deeply engaged audience. We will continue to help companies, creators and sites to seize these opportunities as we build this future together.