The Impact Of AI Overviews & How Publishers Need To Adapt

Google rolled out AI Overviews to all U.S. users in May 2024. Since then, publishers have reported significant traffic losses, with some seeing click-through rates drop by as much as 89%. The question isn’t whether AI Overviews impact traffic, but how much damage they’re doing to specific content types.

Search (including Google Discover and traditional Google Search) consistently accounts for between 20% and 40% of referral traffic to most major publishers, making it their largest external traffic source. When DMG Media, which owns MailOnline and…