AI Overviews Now Capture 58% of Clicks from Top Google Rankings

Google just handed marketers a number they can't ignore. A new study from Ahrefs analyzed 300,000 keywords and found that Google's AI Overviews now result in a 58% lower average click-through rate for top-ranking pages. That figure was 34.5% just eight months ago.

The direction of travel is clear. Whatever was causing search traffic to slow, it is now accelerating.

The Whole First Page Is Paying the Price

The instinct is to assume this is a position-one problem. If you rank first and Google answers the question before anyone clicks, the top spot takes the hit. That is only partly true.

Google Organic Visibility Drops 18% as AI Abstracts Results

New data shows organic search visibility declining as AI-generated summaries capture what were once clicks to external sites.

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Ahrefs' research found the impact runs all the way down the results page. Pages ranking second lost roughly half their clicks. Even pages in position 10 saw drops of close to 20%. The entire first page of Google results is now generating meaningfully less traffic than the same rankings produced two years ago.

The study compared Google Search Console data from December 2023, before AI Overviews launched, to December 2025. Out of every 100 clicks that once went to top-ranking websites, Google now keeps 58.

What Google Is Saying vs. What the Data Shows

Google has maintained that links appearing inside AI Overviews get higher click-through rates than links appearing outside them. That may be true as a relative measure within the AI Overview box. But Ahrefs' data tells a different story at the aggregate level.

Google Delays AI Overviews Expansion to Rest of World

Google postpones global rollout of AI Overviews following advertiser backlash and publisher concerns over lost traffic.

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The presence of AI Overviews means fewer people click anything at all. Search is increasingly becoming zero-click, where a user gets their answer directly on the results page and leaves without visiting any external site.

Regardless of how you feel about AI Overviews, they're already taking the majority of clicks that used to go to top-ranking pages, said Ryan Law, Director of Content Marketing at Ahrefs. Businesses are definitely feeling the traffic loss. Search is becoming zero-click, which means people's questions are answered directly on Google's search results page, without a need to click any link.

The Ahrefs team continues to monitor other search result features, including discussion forums, People Also Ask, and video panels, for their additional impact on click behavior.

What This Means for Marketing Teams Tracking Search Performance

The practical implication is a measurement problem before it becomes a strategy problem. If a marketing team is still reporting on rankings as the primary signal of search health, they are measuring the wrong thing.

Why Zero-Click Search Is Reshaping Content Strategy

As search engines answer questions directly, marketers must rethink their organic strategy beyond traditional rankings.

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A page that holds its rank at position three is still losing traffic at a rate it could not have predicted two years ago. The ranking is stable. The clicks are not. These two numbers have decoupled.

Ahrefs' recommendation is consistent with what search-focused marketing teams are already starting to discover for themselves: tracking traditional search rankings is no longer enough. Brand visibility across AI-generated answers, industry platforms, and non-Google channels now matters in ways that a rank tracker cannot capture.

The jump from 34.5% click suppression to 58% in eight months is the pace of change to focus on. If the trend continues at anything close to this rate, the economics of organic search as a traffic channel will look fundamentally different by the end of 2026.