There’s been a lot of chatter lately about AI wrecking publisher traffic—sites losing views left and right because people just aren’t clicking anymore.
But Google? They’re not buying it. In a new blog post, they basically said: “Relax, everything’s fine.”
According to Google:
Clicks from Search have stayed “relatively stable” year-over-year.
In fact, click quality is up—because when people do click, they’re sticking around longer.
And nope, AI Overviews aren’t stealing your traffic—they’re supposedly giving people more links to click… It's just that users are clicking different kinds of links now.
Sounds nice, right? Except… it’s giving full-on PR damage control.
Throughout the blog post, Google doesn’t offer any real data to back this up. No charts, no graphs—just vibes. Meanwhile, multiple third-party reports (with actual numbers) are painting a different picture:👉 AI is definitely eating into clicks—especially for news sites.
And Google kinda admits it: User trends are shifting traffic to different sites. Translation? Some sites are up, others are bleeding traffic. But who’s gaining? Who’s losing? 🤷♀️ They’re not saying.
Also, don’t forget:
People aren’t always starting searches on Google anymore.
A huge chunk of Gen Z now uses TikTok or Reddit as their go-to search engine for everything from “what’s that weird thing?” to “what to eat in Dubai. (Remember when a Google exec casually dropped that stat about 40% of young people using TikTok to find lunch spots? Yeah. That still haunts them.)
Meanwhile, AI isn’t making up for the lost traffic. According to Similarweb, zero-click news searches jumped from 56% to 69% since AI Overviews rolled out. That my friends, is a lot of people reading… and not clicking.
And now? Google’s trying to flip the narrative: Instead of talking about how many clicks you get, they want publishers to care about click quality. As in “Sure you’re getting fewer clicks, but hey—they’re good clicks!”
Now let’s be real : When you have to write a whole blog post convincing people AI isn’t wrecking your ecosystem…It kinda sounds like AI is wrecking your ecosystem. Or at the very least? Flipping the whole game on its head.
Final Takeaway?
The old-school search engine playbook is falling apart. People want faster, more personal, straight-to-the-point answers—and those answers aren’t always coming from a classic Google search.
Publishers are getting squeezed. Google’s trying to reframe “fewer clicks” as a feature. And while they won’t say search is dying…
Let’s be real—It’s definitely not looking alive and well.
You’ve got to read the full report on this.
