Google AI Overviews are reducing organic click-through rates by up to 58% for top-ranked pages. That’s not a forecast or a worst-case scenario — that’s what Ahrefs measured across 300,000 keywords in early 2026. If your home service business depends on Google traffic to generate calls and leads, this is the most consequential shift in search you’ve seen in 20 years.
AI Overviews (Google’s AI-generated answer boxes that appear at the top of search results) launched in May 2024 and have been expanding ever since. They now appear on roughly 15–30% of all searches depending on the category, and they’re trained to answer questions without sending users anywhere. Google keeps the traffic. Your website doesn’t get the visit.
Here’s what’s actually happening and why it matters to your business.
Clicks Are Down — Even for #1 Rankings
The old promise of SEO was simple: rank higher, get more traffic. That relationship is breaking down.
Seer Interactive tracked 3,119 queries across 42 organizations from June 2024 through September 2025, covering over 25 million impressions. Their findings: organic click-through rates for queries showing an AI Overview dropped 61%, falling from 1.76% to just 0.61%. That means for every 100 people who see your page in the results, fewer than one is clicking through.
What makes this especially difficult to swallow is that the same study found CTR dropped 41% even for queries without AI Overviews. Users are changing how they interact with search results across the board. Pew Research confirmed the behavioral shift in July 2025 by tracking nearly 69,000 actual Google searches from 900 U.S. adults. When an AI summary appeared, only 8% of users clicked any link at all, compared to 15% without one. And 26% simply ended their session entirely after reading the AI answer.
For a plumbing company, HVAC contractor, or roofer who spent years building up first-page rankings, this is a gut punch. You’re still ranking. You’re just not getting the calls you used to.
Understanding the full picture requires looking at your digital marketing strategy beyond just rankings alone.
Your Results Are Being Pushed Below the Fold
Beyond the click data, there’s a physical problem with how search pages are now laid out.
AI Overview boxes occupy roughly 1,345 pixels when expanded on a standard desktop screen, according to Advanced Web Ranking data. The first organic result now appears at an average of 1,686 pixels down the page — which exceeds the height of a standard 1080p monitor. On mobile, it’s worse: AI Overviews can take up 48% of the visible screen before a user scrolls at all.
That position-one ranking you’ve worked hard to earn? On a phone screen, a potential customer might never even see it without deliberately scrolling past Google’s AI answer. For home service searches that happen overwhelmingly on mobile — someone’s basement is flooding at 9pm and they grab their phone — this matters a lot.
This is why even businesses with strong local SEO rankings are seeing Search Console impressions climb while calls and form fills go flat or drop.
The Zero-Click Problem Is Accelerating
Zero-click searches — searches that end without anyone visiting a website — aren’t new. But AI Overviews are accelerating them dramatically.
SparkToro’s 2024 clickstream study found that 58.5% of U.S. Google searches now end with no click to any website. For every 1,000 searches, only 360 clicks reach the open web. And that was before Google dramatically expanded AI Overview coverage in late 2024 and 2025.
The device split is telling: 77% of mobile searches produce zero clicks, compared to 46.5% on desktop. Since most urgent home service searches happen on a phone, the zero-click problem hits contractors especially hard. A homeowner searches “how much does HVAC replacement cost” on their phone, gets a ballpark answer from Google’s AI box, and never visits your website. You never had a chance to show them your reviews, your guarantee, or your financing options.
Queries triggering AI Overviews show an average 83% zero-click rate compared to roughly 60% for traditional queries, according to research compiled by The Digital Bloom. That’s not a small difference.
If you’ve been tracking your search engine marketing performance and noticed impressions rising while clicks fall, this is likely the culprit.
Informational Content Is Hit Hardest — And That’s Where Contractors Live
Here’s where the pain gets specific to home service businesses.
AI Overviews show up most heavily for informational searches — questions like “how long does a roof last,” “what causes a circuit breaker to trip,” or “signs you need a new water heater.” These are exactly the top-of-funnel searches that contractors have long targeted with blog content to attract homeowners before they’re ready to call.
According to research from Ahrefs and seoClarity, informational queries originally triggered AI Overviews 91% of the time. The irony is that contractors who invested in helpful educational content — the kind of content that builds trust and generates leads over time — are the ones most exposed to this traffic loss.
AI SEO strategy now requires a different approach to content than what worked even two years ago.
Featured Snippets Are Being Replaced
If you’ve ever had a featured snippet — that box at the top of results that shows a direct answer with your website’s name — that real estate is disappearing.
Ahrefs analyzed one million SERPs and found that in 80% of cases where AI Overviews now appear, a featured snippet previously occupied that position. One SEO consultant documented a 57% drop in featured snippet appearances for a single website between September 2024 and March 2025.
Featured snippets used to be the goal because they drove strong CTR even without a first-page ranking. That advantage is gone for the queries where AI Overviews have taken over. The content still gets used — it feeds Google’s AI answer — but the traffic credit goes nowhere. Your expertise shows up in Google’s answer box, your website gets nothing.
Understanding which of your pages are affected requires a proper SEO audit for your business, not just a rankings report.
The Local SEO Exception — For Now
Here’s the part that might give you some relief, with an important caveat.
Pure local intent searches — “plumber near me,” “HVAC repair Charlotte,” “roofer in Asheville NC” — trigger AI Overviews at very low rates. Whitespark’s research across three U.S. cities found AI Overviews appeared for only 15% of local-intent queries, while local map packs appeared for 93%. Your Google Business Profile and local pack visibility are still largely working the way they always have for direct service searches.
But the caveat matters. The informational content that feeds your local SEO authority — the blog posts, FAQs, and educational articles that help you rank — is taking heavy hits from AI Overviews. The top of your funnel is eroding even if the bottom is holding.
There’s also a newer threat called AI Local Packs. Researcher Joy Hawkins documented in early 2026 that AI-generated local results now appear on about 8% of local searches, and they often show only one or two businesses instead of the traditional three — a 32% reduction in the number of businesses getting visibility. Many versions remove the phone call button entirely.
Protecting your local presence while adapting to AI search requires a local marketing framework built for both environments simultaneously.
Real Businesses Are Feeling It in Revenue
This isn’t just a metrics story. Businesses are losing real money.
HubSpot — one of the best-resourced content marketing operations on the internet — lost roughly 70% of its organic traffic between late 2024 and early 2025. CEO Yamini Rangan confirmed on an earnings call: “Organic search traffic is declining globally. AI overviews are giving answers, and fewer people are clicking through to websites.”
Smaller operations have been hit harder proportionally. One home improvement blog lost 70% of its traffic between March and May 2024, resulting in a 65% drop in ad revenue. Press Gazette documented that Google Search traffic to publishers fell 33% globally and 38% in the U.S. between November 2024 and November 2025 alone.
Gartner predicted in early 2024 that traditional search engine volume would drop 25% by 2026. A separate Gartner analyst put the organic traffic decline at 50% or more as AI search becomes the default.
Small home service contractors typically don’t have the brand recognition, email lists, or multi-channel marketing infrastructure that larger companies use to absorb this kind of hit. The small business digital marketing strategy that worked in 2022 needs a significant update.
Doing a proper competitive analysis can show you exactly where competitors are picking up ground in AI search while traditional rankings shift.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does an AI Overview reduce clicks to my website?
According to Ahrefs research published in early 2026, AI Overviews reduce clicks to the #1 ranked organic result by approximately 58%. Seer Interactive found organic CTR dropped 61% across their client base when AI Overviews appeared. The decline is consistent across multiple independent studies, ranging from 34% to over 60% depending on the query type and industry.
Do AI Overviews affect local searches for home service contractors?
Mostly no — right now. Whitespark found AI Overviews appeared on only 15% of pure local intent queries. However, informational content that supports your overall SEO strategy is heavily affected, and AI Local Packs are emerging as a newer threat to Google Business Profile visibility for a growing percentage of searches.
Why are my Google Search Console impressions going up but clicks going down?
This is a known pattern when AI Overviews are present. Google counts an impression each time your page appears in results, but AI Overviews sit above your listing and answer the question before users click. Your page is “seen” but not visited. This is sometimes called a zero-click impression, and it’s become the norm for many informational query types.
Does this mean SEO is dead for contractors?
No, but it does mean the old approach of ranking for informational queries and expecting traffic needs to change. Direct service queries — “emergency plumber near me,” “AC repair this weekend” — still drive clicks. The opportunity is in zero-click SEO strategies that build brand visibility across AI platforms, combined with protecting and growing local search presence.
What content is most protected from AI Overview impact?
Commercial and transactional queries — searches where someone is clearly trying to hire someone or buy something — remain less affected by AI Overviews than informational queries. Content that showcases real expertise, includes specific local service details, and answers questions that require judgment (not just factual answers) tends to perform better in this environment.
What This Means for Your Business
The shift is real, and it’s accelerating. But home service contractors aren’t in the same position as news publishers or national content sites. You have something they don’t: the need for a local, in-person service that can’t be delivered by an AI answer box.
A homeowner who reads an AI-generated answer about water damage restoration still has to call someone to restore their water-damaged home. The question is whether they call you or a competitor. That answer now depends less on who ranks #1 in traditional results and more on who shows up in AI-generated answers, who has the strongest reputation signals, and who maintains consistent visibility across search platforms.
The local SEO guide for small businesses is evolving. The contractors who start adapting now will have a real advantage over those who wait until traffic is already in freefall.
If you want to see exactly where your site stands and what the AI Overview landscape looks like for your specific service area and keywords, reach out for a free SEO consultation.
