Google AI Overviews Are Eating Your Website Traffic. Fight Back

Google AI summaries compile information from multiple sites, present a direct answer at the top of search results, and show the sources used with links. This format gives users immediate results without needing to visit additional pages. Informational searches often serve as the entry point into a sales funnel for small businesses, where prospects may read content and then move to service pages, testimonials, and contact forms. When answers appear before users reach websites, that pathway can end earlier. The impact can be significant for service-based businesses, since users may find guidance directly from AI for topics like accounting practices without visiting an accounting firm’s site.

"Google's AI summaries pull from various sites, provide a summary of the material, and place the answer to your question at the top of your search results. This way you can get an instant answer without having to go through another step. Google will also show where it pulled its info from as well as providing a link to the source at the bottom."

"For informational searchers on Google, it is logical that they are getting their information sooner rather than later. When a user searches "how to file a business tax extension", in place of finding multiple different sites with possible answers, the searcher finds an answer right off the bat. However for many small businesses, these informational searches were typically the entry (top) of the sales funnel."

"A potential customer that had seen an article on tax extensions written by your accounting firm may have also viewed your services section, read your testimonials and then contacted your office. This journey ends once Google provides an answer before the searcher can get to your website."

"The effect of this change will likely affect service-based businesses as much or even more so than product based businesses. In addition to finding the right shoe at the local retailer (e.g., "running shoes"), customers will also be able to find answers directly from Google's artificial intelligence about other areas of their lives that they may not need to visit a service provider."

Read at Forbes