Did you know Google's AI Overviews Impact Clickthrough Rates, Decreasing Desktop CTR for Informational Queries in Q4 2024

 

According to a new study by Advanced Web Ranking, AI Overviews appear in 42.51% search results in Q4 2024, which is an increase of 8.83% from the prior quarter. This means that clickthrough-rate on informational queries dropped a lot. Websites which appeared in the top four positions for searches with what, where, how and when saw a 7.31% decrease in desktop clickthrough rates. The author of the study, Dan Popa, says that AI Overviews are impacting organic clicks a lot because AI-generated summaries are dominating informational queries.  

The study also talked about how success in SEO varies industry by industry, like websites related to law and politics saw a 38.45% CTR while websites related to science saw a 19.06% CTR within the same rankings. There was a 7.39% increase in CTR on law and politics sites, while a 6% CTR increase on education sites. There was a decline of 6.03% CTR on science-related while 1.39% CTR dropped on shopping sites on desktop and 1.96% on mobile.

This report talked about different patterns on mobile and desktop. Even though there was a decline in CTR for informational sites on desktop, it increased 1.81% on mobile. Similarly, there was a 2.28% increase of CTR on mobile for arts and entertainment, while a 1.01% drop in CTR on desktop sites. Queries with single words got a 2% increase in CRT on mobile while queries with four or more Keyes saw a CTR decline on desktop.