Here’s a highly noticeable pattern in SEO these days: Organic traffic goes down. Rankings look fine in the tools, but nothing obvious changes on the back-end.
But the clicks? They aren’t coming the way they used to.
I’ve been writing content since 2019, and I’ve watched the SERPs get more crowded every single year: new ad formats, featured snippets, and the People Also Ask box.
Each one took a small piece of SERP real estate and pushed organic results a little further down the page. But AI Overviews are a different kind of shift.
Google isn’t just adding a new element to the results page. It tries to answer questions, so the user doesn’t need to click at all, at least for informational-type search queries.
The good news? There’s a way to fight back: Get your content cited inside those overviews.
Let’s talk about how AI Overviews might be stealing your valuable clicks and what you can actually do about it.
What Are AI Overviews and Why Do They Matter?
AI Overviews are AI-generated answer boxes that appear at the very top of search results. Google pulls this information from multiple sources, writes a summary, and presents it before any traditional organic links appear.
The problem? When someone gets a complete answer to their question at the top of the page, there’s no reason for them to scroll down and click your link.
Here’s an example:
As you can see in the screenshot, the AI Overview is at the top, answering the question in a few lines. And the “Show more” option lets users read more on the page without clicking any links.
How Much Traffic Are AI Overviews Actually Taking?
Ahrefs recently ran a study comparing click-through rates before and after AI Overviews rolled out.
Here’s what they found: The CTR (Click-through rate) dropped by a staggering 58% for pages ranking number one on queries that trigger an AI Overview.
What that means is: A page that was easily earning clicks from the top spot is now getting less than half of them. And it’s not just the top result; every organic result under that AI Overview takes a hit.
Now, here’s what makes this harder to spot: Your impressions often stay the same or even go up. Your page is still shown for that query. But users aren’t clicking it. So, if your Google Search Console shows consistent impressions but declining clicks, that’s the pattern.
The Good News: Getting Cited Inside the Overview Is a Real Opportunity
Here’s where it gets more interesting: While AI Overview citations won’t recover every click you’ve lost, generally, brands that appear in AI Overviews get more clicks than those that don’t show up at all.
So, being in the overview changes the dynamic; your link, instead of sitting below an answer that already satisfied the user, becomes part of that answer.
You don’t even need to rank in the top 10 to get in AI Overviews. What gets you there? How directly you answer the question, your topical authority, and the structure of your content are all important factors.
What’s even more interesting is that, although I think it’s less likely, some of your pages can get AI citations even when they rank below the top 10 traditional results.
Why Informational Content Gets Hit the Hardest
This doesn’t affect all types of content equally. If you publish how-to guides, explainers, definitions, or answers to common questions, your site is in the high-risk category.
Think about it from a user’s perspective; if someone searches “What is a backlink,” they want a quick definition. And AI can offer that in two sentences at the top. There’s no reason to click.
Another example would be when someone searches for something like “What’s the best time to post on LinkedIn,” or “How long should a blog post be,” or “What does conversion optimization mean.” AI can easily answer these queries.
It’s worth noting that even for these searches, AI Overviews may not be enough when a searcher wants a deep dive into the topic or wants to learn from a real person.
On the flip side, transactional content, such as product pages, services pages, and pricing pages, is less likely to trigger AI answers, at least for now. Informational-intent keywords are where most click drops are happening.
Here’s an example: Transactional-intent search queries, like “Buy Coffee Machine,” don’t trigger Google AI Overviews.
What Kind of Content Gets Cited in AI Overviews?
If you pay close attention to this, you’ll notice that some pages and content formats get picked up by AI answers more than others.
Direct Answers Near the Top
AI systems tend to pull information from pages that get to the point quickly. If your answer to the main question is buried 5 paragraphs after the intro, it’s less likely to be used by AI.
Here’s what to do: Try to open each section with a clear answer, then expand on it.
Good Structure Throughout
This mostly means structuring your content with clear H2 and H3 headings, using bulleted lists wherever they make sense, and writing short paragraphs. A wall of text is generally harder to cite from than a well-organized page.
Good structure also makes the content easier to scan and skim.
FAQ Sections
The purpose of AI Overviews is to answer questions. And pages that include clear, well-structured Q&A content already have answers that an AI platform can use.
But here’s something worth clarifying: FAQ sections don’t trigger rich results in Google search anymore. Google dropped FAQ rich results from search, so don’t add them expecting an expanded snippet in the SERPs.
What they’re still great for is helping AI platforms understand the questions your page addresses.
I still use Q&As, not as an SEO tactic, but because it naturally helps visitors get a more comprehensive answer to a topic. Plus, they mirror how people search online.
How do I find the right questions? Mainly from Google’s “People Also Ask” box. If I’m writing about “how to write a blog post,” I’ll search the phrase, scroll down to the PAA box, and pull the most relevant questions from there.
Click the dropdown on any question, and Google shows you even more related ones.
Conversational, Longer-tail Keywords
Short, broad keywords are brutally hard to rank for. AI Overviews increasingly dominate these searches.
Longer-tail, specific queries, such as “How to write product descriptions for an e-commerce store,” are more targeted and attract readers with clearer intent.
Fresh Content
Search engines and AI systems favor up-to-date content. Updating older posts with new information, better structure, and current examples is a quick way to improve your chances of getting cited.
What I’ve Changed in My Own Content Process
I help brands with content and SEO. A B2C ecommerce client I worked with was getting almost no traffic from search.
After several months of posting consistent, well-structured blog content targeting the right queries, their organic clicks grew steadily.
We weren’t doing anything exotic. Just solid, well-organized content targeting the right audience.
Today, I’d approach the same project differently in one specific way: I’d create each piece of content not just for organic rankings but also for AI citations.
This means:
- Opening each blog post with a direct answer
- Having an FAQ section at the end
- Targeting longer-tail, high-intent questions
- And structuring the page so that each section is easily discoverable by AI platforms
A Quick Checklist: Is Your Content AI-Overview-Ready?
Before you publish your next piece of content, run it through this checklist:
- Does it answer the main question within the first 100 words?
- Are the H2 and H3 headings clear, specific, and searchable?
- Does it have bulleted lists or numbered lists where they’re genuinely useful?
- Is the content fresh, recent, or up to date?
- Is it targeting long-tail keywords rather than short, broad ones?
- Does the author’s bio show real credentials and experience?
Read More: Google Says AI Search Optimization Is Still SEO
The Query Post view
I’ve been watching search evolve for several years, and the pattern is familiar: every major SERP change creates a short window where early movers can gain an edge. Featured snippets did that. Video results did that. AI Overviews are doing it now.
The difference is that this shift is more aggressive. Google is not just changing how results look. It is answering more queries directly, which means even strong rankings may not bring the same clicks they used to.
Our take: Waiting it out is not a strategy. If you want to pull ahead, make your content easier to trust, understand, and cite; provide clear answers, a better structure, and real examples. The core principle hasn’t changed. The only difference now is that your content also needs to be formatted in a way that AI can clearly understand and reference.
