AI cites the deep pages but sends humans to the homepage — most sites are built backward
AI Summary
AI-generated summaries are significantly reducing user engagement with traditional search results, with click rates dropping to just 8% when AI summaries are displayed. Publishers are experiencing substantial traffic declines as users are increasingly drawn to surface-level AI responses rather than deeper web content.
From the source
If your business depends on people clicking through to web pages, the last two years have been brutal. Pew Research Center tracked the browsing behavior of 900 U.S. adults and found that when Google shows an AI summary, users click a traditional result just 8% of the time, roughly half the 15% rate when no summary appears. Links cited inside the AI answers themselves fare worse: users click on them only about 1% of the time. This has had a huge impact on publishers. Chartbeat data reported by Ax
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