This question reaches me most weeks. And the honest answer - before looking at any numbers - is that it's half right and half panic. AI Overviews are real and they do take clicks. But most of the traffic drops I'm asked to investigate turn out to be a ranking problem wearing an AI costume: the page slipped to page two of Google, where almost nobody clicks regardless, and AI got the blame.
You don't need to guess. The data's already in your Google Search Console account, free, and you can work through it in fifteen minutes - including how to separate a genuine AI effect from the more common problem it gets mistaken for.
What "AI ate my traffic" actually means
When you search Google now, you'll often see a block of AI-written text above the normal blue links, summarising the answer and citing a few sources - an AI Overview. Plenty of searchers read it, nod, and never click anything. The query happened, an answer was delivered, no website was visited. Zero-click.
This matters more in Australia than in most places. AI Overviews now appear in an estimated 39% of Australian searches - among the highest prevalence outside the US. And when an Overview answers the question up front, click-through rates on non-cited pages drop to a fraction of normal. The mechanism is genuinely shifting.
When an AI Overview steps in, Google still shows your page - so impressions hold up - but the click never comes, because the answer was right there on screen. That gap between steady impressions and falling clicks is what you're looking for. If you see it, keep going.
The 15-minute check, step by step
1. Open the Performance report and turn on both lines (2 minutes)
In Google Search Console, open Performance → Search results. At the top you'll see four metric tiles: Total clicks, Total impressions, Average CTR, Average position. Click the first two so both clicks and impressions are plotted on the graph together. Set the date range to the last 6 months, and tick "Compare to previous period" so you can see the trend rather than a single snapshot.
2. Read the shape of the two lines (3 minutes)
You're looking at the relationship between the two lines, not their absolute height. A few shapes matter:
- Both lines rising together. Healthy growth. Nothing to see here.
- Impressions flat or up, clicks drifting down. This is the fingerprint. People are seeing you and not clicking. Worth investigating.
- Both lines falling. That's usually a ranking or indexing problem, not an AI one - you're being shown less, full stop.
If you've got the middle shape, keep going. The next two steps tell you whether AI is the cause or just the prime suspect.
3. Drill into queries and check your position (5 minutes)
Below the graph, click the Queries tab and sort by impressions, highest first. For each of your top few queries, look across to the Position column. Most people skip straight past this. Don't.
Why? Because a page at position 11 or worse gets almost no clicks whether or not AI exists - hardly anyone scrolls to page two. If your low-click queries are sitting at position 15 or 30, that's a ranking problem, not an AI one. AI Overviews bite hardest on queries where you already rank near the top, because that's where clicks were actually available to lose.
4. Run the incognito test (5 minutes)
Take one query where you rank in the top 10 and impressions are high. Search it on your phone - that's where most searching happens and where AI Overviews are most prevalent. Look at what sits above the normal blue links. Is there an AI Overview answering the question before anyone needs to scroll? If yes, and that query's clicks have been sliding while impressions held, you've found a genuine AI effect. If there's no Overview, AI isn't your culprit for that query, and you can stop blaming it.
A worked example - including the trap
One of my posts went from 385 impressions one quarter to 10,453 the next as it aged and Google started trusting it. That same quarter it earned 38 clicks - a click-through rate of about 0.36%. If I were the panicky type, I'd look at that number and conclude AI had stripped me bare. Microscopic CTR, surely the robot ate my lunch.
But that would be wrong, and the Position column is how I know. That post sits at an average position of around 16 - the top of page two. Page two barely gets clicked at the best of times. You can't lose a click you were never in line to receive. So my tiny click-through rate isn't an AI story at all - it's a ranking story. I'm being shown to a lot of people, I'm just not ranking well enough to earn the click. Plain SEO work. Not an AI rescue mission.
A scary-looking CTR feels like proof of AI cannibalisation, but until you've checked position and confirmed an Overview is actually present, you're guessing. Most "AI ate my traffic" stories I'm shown dissolve the moment we look at the Position column together.
The three suspects behind a low-click page
When impressions are high and clicks are low, three things could be happening. The check is just how you work out which.
| What you see | Likely cause | What it really is | The fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| High impressions, almost no clicks, position 11 or worse | You're stuck on page two | A ranking problem | SEO - earn your way onto page one |
| Steady impressions, clicks sliding, position 1-10, AI Overview present | The Overview answers before anyone clicks | A genuine AI effect | AEO - become a cited source, defend transactional queries |
| High impressions, low clicks, but the query isn't really your customer | Google is matching you to the wrong intent | Not a problem at all | Nothing - let it go and watch the queries that matter |
What to do about each
If it's a ranking problem - and it usually is. This is the most fixable of the three, and oddly the best news, because page-two pages are often a few improvements away from page one. Strengthen the page's depth and structure, tighten internal links pointing at it, make sure it actually answers the query better than the pages above it. This is ordinary SEO work, and moving from position 11 to position 8 can triple your click share.
If it's a genuine AI effect. You can't switch the Overview off, but you can fight to be one of the sources it cites - which keeps your brand on the screen and wins back a slice of the clicks. About 38% of AI Overview citations still go to pages ranking in the traditional top 10, so solid SEO remains the most reliable route in. Lean into the query types Overviews affect least too: local "near me" searches and transactional pages, where people still want to click through and act. I've written the full playbook in my guide to AEO, GEO and SEO.
If it's wrong-intent traffic. Leave it alone - focus on the queries that bring buyers, not impressions you never wanted.
Where this leaves you
If the check turns up something you'd rather not sit with alone - or you'd simply rather hand your Search Console to someone and get a plain reading of it - that's the work I do. Get in touch and I'll tell you what I see.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about AI Overviews and your search traffic.
Open Google Search Console, go to the Performance report, and look at impressions and clicks together over the last six months. The AI Overview fingerprint is impressions holding steady or rising while clicks fall on the same queries. Then take a query where you rank in the top 10 and search it in an incognito window: if an AI Overview is sitting above the blue links answering the question, that is where your click went. Impressions up, clicks down, AI Overview present, decent ranking - that combination is the real signal.
It means Google is still showing your page to people - your impressions prove that - but fewer of them are clicking through. On a query that now triggers an AI Overview, this usually means the searcher got their answer inside the Overview and never needed to click. But the same pattern can also appear when your ranking slips onto page two, where almost nobody clicks regardless of AI. The pattern is a starting point for diagnosis, not a verdict on its own.
No, and this is the most common misdiagnosis. A page sitting at position 11 or beyond - page two of Google - will have a tiny click-through rate whether or not AI exists, simply because hardly anyone scrolls to page two. Before blaming AI Overviews, check your average position for the query. If you are outside the top 10, you are most likely looking at a ranking problem, which is an SEO job, not an AI one. AI Overviews bite hardest on queries where you already rank well.
Search the query yourself in an incognito or private browser window, ideally on a mobile phone since that is where most searches happen. If an AI-generated answer block appears above the normal list of links - often labelled "AI Overview" with a set of cited sources - then that query triggers one. Roughly 39% of Australian searches now show an AI Overview, so for informational queries it is increasingly the default rather than the exception.
Partly. You cannot remove the AI Overview, but you can work to be one of the sources it cites, which keeps your brand visible and recovers some clicks - around 38% of AI Overview citations still come from pages ranking in the traditional top 10, so strong SEO remains the most reliable route in. You can also shift effort toward queries and content types that AI Overviews affect less, such as local "near me" searches and transactional pages. The realistic goal is adapting to the new layout, not restoring the old click-through rate exactly.
No. Everything this check needs is in Google Search Console, which is free, plus an incognito window to confirm whether a query shows an AI Overview. The data is already yours. A paid audit can be worth it once you have found a problem and want a clear plan and someone to implement it, but you should never need to pay just to find out whether AI is affecting your traffic. Run the free check first.
