With the rise and increase of the AI ​​overviews and the early AI mode, Site owners deal with an unprecedented situation from the search for the search. Impressions in the search can be stable or even gain, but clicks may drop. And this is often due to the fact that AI overviews are classified in the SERPs for important queries that typically wore a lot of traffic downstream. We know that Aios can negatively influence the click rate from the search results, so that the decline is not shocking at all.
Here is an example of what some call “the big decoupling” of clicks and impressions. I believe Darwin Santos Was the first to use the expression.
Note that Aios can definitely pull clicks down, some drops for websites more about being hammered by large algorithm updates. For example, I shared this after an article by Wall Street Journal reported the great decline in search traffic for some important news publisher (see tweet below). They have completely returned these Aios if some of these websites were hit hard by broad core updates. The drop was therefore not completely due to AI overviews. They could see large drops in visibility of searches with several wide core updates.
Anyway, back to websites that are legitimate If impressions are stable, you will see a decline in the clicks. There may be other search areas for these locations that can often be overlooked but can still have a good amount of traffic. And these areas are not Influenced by AI overviews (at least still). I refer to the image search, the video mode in the search and the Nachrichten tab in the search. In addition, there is Google News and discoveries that are not (at least) affected by Aios, but I will concentrate on the first three tabs for this post.
The forgotten coupling – pictures, video and the “News” tab can still drive consistent traffic (at least for the time being).
When checking the trend over time, the great decoupling of impressions and clicks will not take place for the image search, the video search (also known as video mode) and the “News” tab. Aios are at least not there yet. For these search verticals, the large decoupling is more of the forgotten coupling.
This offers Site owners the opportunity to promote more visibility and clicks via these additional search modes. I will cover some tips for Site owners later in this post, but I will show you what I refer to via screenshots below.
Here you will find GSC screenshots from the performance reporting, which shows the stability for the image search (change the addiction type from web to picture):
And here you will find some examples from GSC of stability on the news tab on the search:
As you can see, these search verticals were initially immune to AI overviews. And that leaves a great opportunity for location owners. As the saying says: “It’s gold in them, Thar Hills!” Sure, it’s not the same traffic level as web search, but Aios are not there to inhibit the click results. In the following I will cover some tips for site owners who want to drive more clicks via the search, but outside of the web search.
Tips and recommendations for Site owners for forgotten coupling:
- Get your picture situation in order from a technical SEO perspective. For example, I only helped a large publisher to fix a large image search problem, and clicks are like crazy. This can help compensate for the decline in traffic on the basis of AI overviews.
- If you concentrate on messages, check the news tab in the search. It can actually lead a lot of traffic for some news publishers. However, it really depends on your focus. I have found that publishers that focus on B2B can recognize a lot of traffic from the Messages tab (which can be based on a lot of desktop traffic from your audience).
- If you produce high-quality video content, you should think about creating what Google calls “video watch pages”. With the changes that Google pressed in April And December From 2023 to video miniature views and video mode, your videos must be viewed as the main content of the page in order to maintain a video miniature approach and to manage the SERPs in video mode. It is also worth noting that YouTube (at least) is not affected by AI overviews. Therefore, building a strong video strategy on several levels can help beyond the web search. In the following you will find information from Google about the changes to the video mode.
- Do not forget what effects important algorithm updates can have on visibility via surfaces and search modes. Broad Core updates can affect the visibility of the AI ​​overview, the ranking in the image search, the video search, the “News” tab, the Google messages and the discovery. Do not miss the forest for the trees by concentrating on Aios and not paying attention to the quality of the website. As I treated in my articles about broad core updates, I would maintain a high level of “quality indexing”, offer a strong user experience, users do not offer aggressive and disruptive ads, always offer unique and informative content and have a strong technical SEO foundation. You may now worry about the effects of AI overviews, but if you are hit by a wide core update, you may lose the ranking in these Aios … and if this happens, your decline in traffic could become exponentially worse (since you don’t even appear in Aios due to the algorithm update title).
Summary: Do not overlook the forgotten clutch.
In view of the focus on Aios and decreasing clicks, I just wanted to point out that other search verticals in the SERPs are currently (at least) not affected by AI overviews. So in any case, make sure that you look at these other areas of the search how to appear there, etc.
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