Terakeet Case Study: How Are AI Overviews Impacting Organic Traffic?

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AI Overviews (AIO) now occupy prime real estate at the top of Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs), reshaping how consumers interact with information and navigate the SERP.

This shift is redefining click-through behaviors and challenging brands to adapt their visibility strategies.

This study aims to better understand how AIOs are impacting click-through rates and traffic. By uncovering the data, our research equips brands with the insights needed to refine their search strategies and ultimately maintain visibility.

Purpose: What did we aim to discover?

The goal of this research was to understand how the presence of an AIO affects organic traffic if your website ranks in the top 10 Google Search results and how traffic changes if your website is cited within the AIO.

To find out, we measured click-through rates of thousands of queries based on three different scenarios: 

• No AIO – The web page ranked in the top 10 results and there was no AIO included in the SERP.
• Included web pages – An AIO was included in the SERP, the web page ranked in the top 10 results, and was featured in the AIO.
• Excluded web pages – An AIO was included in the SERP and the web page ranked in the top 10 results but was not featured in the AIO.

By assessing the clicks in each scenario, we’re able to compare them to each other. This analysis helps quantify the effect of AIOs on consumer behavior, revealing whether inclusion drives more visibility or if exclusion leads to a decline in click-through rates.

Further segmentation: Informational vs transactional queries

We further classified the queries as informational or transactional. 

Informational queries represent searches where consumers seek knowledge, answers, or insights without immediate intent to take action or make a purchase. For example, researching a product or learning about a service.

Transactional queries, on the other hand, indicate a stronger intent to take action, such as making a purchase, signing up for a service, or requesting a quote. 

By distinguishing between these query types, we can better analyze how the presence of AIOs influences consumer behavior at different stages of intent in the customer journey.

The results: AIO inclusion drives more traffic

While there are several takeaways from this study, one conclusion shines through — when an AIO is present, web pages included in that AIO get more clicks.

This result underscores the importance of being included in an AIO when there is one present. Ensuring that web pages are structured, authoritative, and relevant to AI-generated responses will be critical to maintaining search visibility and maximizing traffic in an evolving SERP landscape.

Let’s take a closer look at the takeaways.

No AIO present vs AIO present and web page included

First, we set out to compare how AIOs affect website traffic when compared to traditional search results without an AIO. Could websites expect traffic to change at all if suddenly their SERP had an AIO?

The answer: Yes. 

In most cases, when the web page was included in an AIO, it received more clicks than when it was in a SERP with no AIO.

• For transactional searches, web pages included in an AIO received 1.4x more clicks than high-ranking web pages when there was no AIO present.
• For informational searches, web pages included in the AIO received 2x more clicks than lower-ranking web pages in a SERP with no AIO. 
• For transactional searches, web pages included in the AIO received 3.6x more clicks than lower-ranking web pages in a SERP with no AIO.

The exception was for informational searches where high-ranking no-AIO web pages got 1.4x more clicks than those included in an AIO.

No AIO present vs AIO present and web page excluded

Similarly, we compared web pages in traditional SERPs without an AIO to SERPs that had an AIO but did not include the web page.

The biggest difference in this data set came from comparing higher-ranking pages in positions 1–3 to lower-ranking pages in positions 4–10.

• For informational searches, web pages in SERPs without AIOs received 2x more clicks than high-ranking excluded web pages in SERPs with AIOs. 
• For transactional searches, web pages in SERPs without AIOs had 2.3x more clicks than high-ranking excluded web pages.
• For informational searches,  lower-ranking web pages excluded from AIOs received 1.8x more clicks than web pages in no-AIO SERPs. 
• For transactional searches, lower-ranking web pages excluded from AIOs received 3x more clicks than web pages in no-AIO SERPs.

This could indicate AIOs redistribute traffic to lower-ranking pages, even when they aren’t included in the AI Overview, making it more critical for brands to optimize content beyond just achieving a top-three ranking.

Web pages included in the AIO vs Excluded web pages

Lastly, we analyzed how the presence of an AIO affected web pages, comparing the traffic of those included to those excluded.

For high-ranking web pages (positions 1–3):

• Informational queries: Web pages in the AIO received 1.5x more clicks than high-ranking excluded web pages
• Transactional queries: Web pages in the AIO received 3.2x more clicks than high-ranking excluded web pages

For lower-ranking web pages (positions 4–10):

• Informational queries: Web pages in the AIO received 1.1x more clicks than lower-ranking excluded web pages
• Transactional queries: Web pages in the AIO received 1.2x more clicks than lower-ranking excluded web pages

This data reinforces the importance of being included in an AIO when there is one present.

Transactional vs Informational takeaways

For informational queries, AIOs reduced traffic to top-ranking web pages but increased traffic to lower-ranking ones, regardless of whether or not they were included in the AIO.

One theory for this is that consumers at the information-seeking stage may rely more on AIOs, reducing their need to click on top-ranking web pages. 

However, the increased traffic to lower-ranking pages could mean AIOs encourage deeper exploration beyond the top results, possibly due to expanded exposure or AI-driven recommendations surfacing less prominent sources.

For transactional queries, being included in an AIO drove more traffic to web pages across all SERP positions.

This may be because when an AIO includes a web page, it reinforces credibility and entices consumers to click on that web page in the organic search results, regardless of ranking position. This may also suggest being included in an AIO accelerates purchase decisions at this stage.

Why brands should prioritize AIO optimization

This study shows the clear and measurable impact of AIO inclusion and exclusion on web traffic. Google Search has changed and so has consumer behavior.

Being excluded from an AIO reduces clicks, highlighting the risks for webpages that fail to appear in Google’s AI-generated summaries. Being included or cited in an AIO provides a distinct advantage, increasing visibility, traffic, and engagement.

As AI-driven search experiences evolve, brands should adapt their strategies to optimize for generative AI platforms in addition to organic rankings. Emerging strategies like generative engine optimization (GEO) are ensuring brands can maintain and grow their digital presence within these new technologies.

Methodology: How did we go about our research?

This study was conducted by members of Terakeet’s expert data science team, led by Senior Data Scientist Adi Srikanth. 

The data was collected from thousands of web pages and AI Overviews and a Causal Inference Framework was used to execute the study. The Causal Inference approach allows us to make causal claims by holding constant other variables. 

Read more details about how this study was conducted on our engineering blog, Exploring the Impact of AIOs on Web Traffic.