How Google AI Overviews Are Hurting Traditional SEO

TL;DR: Google AI Overviews have cut organic click-through rates by as much as 61% for top-ranked pages. Your rankings may look fine while your actual website traffic and leads quietly drop. Businesses that adapt their strategy now will protect their lead flow while competitors lose ground.

How AI Affects Traditional SEO Rankings

Google AI Overviews hurt traditional SEO rankings by intercepting search traffic before users ever reach organic results, cutting click-through rates by up to 61% even for pages ranked in the top position. The fundamental promise of SEO, rank higher and get more traffic, is breaking down because Google now answers many questions directly inside the search results page. Your page still ranks. Google just answers the question for the user and keeps the visit.

AI Overviews launched in May 2024 and now appear on roughly 15 to 30% of all searches depending on the category. They sit at the very top of the results page, trained to give complete answers without sending users anywhere. That means traffic that used to flow to your website now stops at Google.

For small and mid-sized businesses in Asheville that depend on Google to generate calls and leads, this is the most significant shift in search in 20 years. If your digital marketing strategy still treats rankings as a reliable proxy for lead flow, the numbers below will explain why that logic no longer holds.

What Is the Impact of Google AI Overviews on Traditional SEO?

The impact of Google AI Overviews on traditional SEO is a sharp drop in organic click-through rates, a physical displacement of organic results further down the page, and a surge in zero-click searches that leave your website out of the conversation entirely. Ahrefs measured click-through rate drops of up to 58% across 300,000 keywords in early 2026. Seer Interactive tracked a 61% CTR drop for queries showing an AI Overview, falling from 1.76% to just 0.61% across more than 25 million impressions.

The ripple effect goes beyond click volume. When users get a full answer from Google’s AI box, 26% end their search session entirely without clicking any link at all, according to Pew Research data from July 2026 covering nearly 69,000 actual Google searches. Only 8% of users clicked any link when an AI summary appeared, compared to 15% without one.

This is not a future risk. Businesses with strong local SEO rankings are already watching their Google Search Console impressions climb while calls and form fills go flat or drop. The rankings are real. The traffic just is not following anymore.

Clicks Are Down Even for Number One Rankings

Earning the top organic ranking no longer guarantees meaningful traffic because AI Overviews absorb user attention before the first organic result is ever seen. Seer Interactive’s study of 3,119 queries across 42 organizations from June 2024 through September 2025 found organic CTR dropped 61% for queries showing an AI Overview. Even queries without AI Overviews saw a 41% CTR drop, which confirms that user behavior across all of search is changing.

Pew Research confirmed this behavioral shift by tracking nearly 69,000 actual Google searches from 900 U.S. adults in July 2026. When an AI summary appeared, only 8% of users clicked any link at all. Without one, 15% clicked. And 26% simply ended their session entirely after reading the AI answer.

For a plumbing company, HVAC contractor, or roofer in Asheville who spent years building first-page rankings, this is a gut punch. You are still ranking. You are just not getting the calls you used to. Understanding the full picture requires looking at your overall digital marketing strategy beyond rankings alone.

Your Results Are Being Pushed Below the Fold

Google AI Overview boxes physically push your organic listing so far down the page that many mobile users never see it at all, even if you rank number one. According to Advanced Web Ranking data, AI Overview boxes occupy roughly 1,345 pixels when expanded on a standard desktop screen. 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, AI Overviews take up 48% of the visible screen before a user scrolls at all.

That is a serious problem for service businesses. Most urgent home service searches happen on mobile. Someone’s basement floods at 9pm and they grab their phone. That top ranking you earned is invisible until they scroll past Google’s AI answer, and most users never do.

This is the hidden mechanism behind why businesses with strong AI Overview visibility hold their traffic while equally-ranked competitors see theirs erode. Visibility on the page now matters as much as position in the index.

The Zero-Click Problem Is Accelerating

Zero-click searches, searches that end without anyone visiting a website, now account for 58.5% of all U.S. Google searches according to SparkToro’s 2024 clickstream study, and AI Overviews are accelerating that trend fast. For every 1,000 searches, only 360 clicks reach the open web. And that data came before Google dramatically expanded AI Overview coverage in late 2024 and 2026.

The device breakdown makes this worse for local service businesses. 77% of mobile searches produce zero clicks, compared to 46.5% on desktop. Queries that trigger 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 is not a small difference.

A homeowner searches how much HVAC replacement costs on their phone, gets a ballpark number from Google’s AI box, and never visits your website. You never get a chance to show them your reviews, your guarantee, or your financing options. If you have been tracking your search engine marketing performance and noticed impressions rising while clicks fall, zero-click behavior driven by AI Overviews is likely the cause. You can also read more about this in our guide on zero-click SEO and AI Overviews.

Informational Content Is Hit Hardest

Informational content, the blog posts, FAQs, and educational articles that contractors use to attract homeowners early in the decision process, is the category most heavily targeted by AI Overviews. According to research from Ahrefs and seoClarity, informational queries originally triggered AI Overviews 91% of the time. Questions like how long does a roof last, what causes a circuit breaker to trip, or signs you need a new water heater are exactly the searches AI Overviews were built to answer completely without a click.

The painful irony is that contractors who invested the most in helpful educational content, the kind that builds trust and generates leads over time, are the ones most exposed to this traffic loss. That content still gets used. It feeds Google’s AI answer. Your expertise shows up. Your website gets nothing.

This is why AI SEO strategy now requires a fundamentally different approach to content than what worked even two years ago. Building content that earns citation inside AI Overviews rather than just ranking below them is the new goal. See how AI Overviews are changing SEO specifically for home service contractors to understand the shift in detail.

Featured Snippets Are Being Replaced

Featured snippets, the answer boxes that used to sit at the top of results with your website’s name attached, are being replaced by AI Overviews at a rapid rate. 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 2026.

Featured snippets used to deliver strong click-through rates even without a first-page ranking. That advantage is gone for queries where AI Overviews have taken over. Google uses your content to build the answer, your expertise appears in the results, and your website receives no traffic credit for it.

Knowing which of your pages have lost featured snippet positions to AI Overviews requires a proper SEO audit for your Asheville business, not just a rankings report.

The Local SEO Exception for Now

Pure local intent searches like plumber near me, HVAC repair in Asheville, or roofer in Asheville NC still trigger AI Overviews at very low rates, which means your Google Business Profile and local map pack visibility are largely working the way they always have for direct service searches. 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%.

But the top of your funnel is eroding even if the bottom is holding. The informational content that builds your local SEO authority, those blog posts, FAQs, and educational articles, is taking heavy hits from AI Overviews. Homeowners who would have found your site while researching a problem now get their answer from Google and never discover you exist.

There is also a newer threat. 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 at the same time. You can also use our local SEO guide for Asheville small businesses as a starting point.

Real Businesses Are Feeling It in Revenue

This is not just a metrics story. The traffic declines caused by AI Overviews translate directly into fewer calls, fewer form fills, and fewer paying customers for small and mid-sized businesses across every category.

If your business relies on informational content to bring in top-of-funnel leads, that pipeline is shrinking. If you invested in featured snippets as a traffic strategy, that real estate is being absorbed by AI Overviews. If your team is reporting that impressions look fine in Search Console but actual inquiries are down, you are experiencing exactly what the data predicts.

The businesses that will come out ahead are the ones that adapt their strategy now rather than waiting until the traffic loss becomes impossible to ignore. That means building content structured to earn citation inside AI Overviews, strengthening your Google Business Profile and local pack presence, running a competitive analysis to see where rivals are gaining ground, and rethinking your small business digital marketing strategy for an AI-first search environment.

Read our full breakdown of the state of AI search in 2026 to see the complete picture of how search behavior has shifted.

Quick Recap

• Google AI Overviews cut organic click-through rates by up to 61% for queries where they appear.
• Only 8% of users click any link when an AI Overview is present, versus 15% without one.
• AI Overview boxes push the first organic result to 1,686 pixels down the page, below the visible screen on most monitors.
• On mobile, AI Overviews occupy 48% of the visible screen before any scrolling happens.
• 58.5% of all U.S. Google searches end with zero clicks to any website.
• Queries with AI Overviews produce an 83% zero-click rate versus roughly 60% for traditional queries.
• Informational queries originally triggered AI Overviews 91% of the time, hitting educational content hardest.
• 80% of positions where AI Overviews now appear previously held featured snippets.
• Local intent searches still trigger AI Overviews only 15% of the time, but that protection is narrowing.
• AI-generated local packs now appear on about 8% of local searches and often show fewer businesses with no call button.
• Adapting your strategy now, not after the damage is done, is what separates businesses that grow from those that stall.