Google has talked about AI search clicks in a number of different ways since the launch of the AI Overview. This week, the company added new link locations instead of new click data. This article tracks how Google’s public language about clicks has changed, what each section revealed, and what this week’s five new links add to the conversation.
“No Data to Share”
When Google launched AI Overviews in the US in May 2024, complaints from publishers started almost immediately. By May 2025, the Pew Research Center had tracked 68,000 search queries to more than 900 adults and put the numbers behind them. Users clicked on results 8% of the time the AI Overview appeared, compared to 15% without it, and only 1% clicked on a link within the AI Overview itself.
Google’s first public response came at Google Marketing Live in May 2025. Executives called clicks from AI-enhanced search “highly qualified.” When asked for supporting data, a representative said the company “does not have any data to share.”
That gap between the claim and the evidence set the pattern for the next two years.
“Remaining Clicks Are High Quality”
By the end of 2025, publisher data had grown too difficult to digest. DMG Media reported to the UK Competition and Markets Authority that click-through rates fell by up to 89% on certain queries with an AI overview. AI Overview Publisher Impact Analysis Next Digital Content measured an average year-over-year decline of 10% among 19 member publishers. A Reuters Institute survey found that publishers expect search traffic to drop by more than 40%.
Google’s language changed from having no data to arguing that the remaining clicks were worth more. Lost traffic, this version went, it had a low price anyway. Users who clicked from AI responses were more engaged and more likely to convert.
There is no data to support that claim.
“Bounce Clicks”
Google’s VP of Search Liz Reid addressed the controversy in an October 2025 interview with the Wall Street Journal. Some of the clicks AI Overview converted to ‘bounce clicks,’ he said, are users who visited a page and quickly returned to search without engaging. Removing those visits from the count, the argument went, made the traffic look healthy.
Reid repeated the explanation to Bloomberg, each time without providing supporting data.
While Google is refining its language, independent data keeps coming. Penske Media Corporation filed a federal court memorandum in February 2026 opposing Google’s motion to dismiss its antitrust lawsuit, arguing that Google had “breached a longstanding agreement” between publishers and the search engine.
Chartbeat data shared by Axios in March showed that search referral traffic dropped 60% for small publishers, 47% for medium publishers, and 22% for large publishers over two years. An Ahrefs analysis of 300,000 keywords measured a 58% lower click-through rate on top-ranking pages when AI Overview appeared.
Then a random field test examines the location of the jump click directly. When the researchers removed AI Overview from a subset of questions, organic clicks increased by 38% while user satisfaction remained unchanged. The findings complicate Google’s click-through conflict. If AI Overview was primarily removing low-value visits, you would expect a measurable user experience trade-off when it was removed. The study did not find it.
“Here Are More Links”
This week Google emphasized link visibility. Hema Budaraju, VP of Search Product Management, announced five updates to how links appear across Google Search AI’s productive features.
Two of the five features deal directly with click location. Inline links now sit next to the text they support instead of at the bottom of the answer. Proximity between a claim and its source link may increase click-through intent, although it doesn’t change the zero-click rate on questions that the AI answers fully satisfy. A new “Explore new angles” section suggests related articles at the end of many AI answers, creating a clickable area for unquoted pages in the answer body.
Two features increase the content within the AI response itself. Insights from discussions are quotes from Reddit, forums, social media, and what Google calls “other sources of insight,” with the creators’ names and community links next to them. Desktop navigation previews show the site name or page title when a user hovers over an inline link, although desktop represents a smaller share of search behavior than mobile, which may limit the impact.
The fifth element creates a new integration layer. Subscription labels are issued through AI Mode and AI Overview, which mark links from publications that the user has already paid for. Google reported that users in early testing were “more likely” to click on the labeled links but did not share the numbers. Subscription labels also create new dependencies, as publishers need to integrate with Google through a submission form for labels to appear. Google becomes a part of how subscribers encounter their paid content in search results.
Amanda Silberling at TechCrunch pointed out that the AI Overview that provides selected forum citations with links is starting to look like the results page that Google has provided since 1998. Whether the comment section increases the click zone or expands the zero click zone depends on whether users click on social links or read excerpts and continue. A user who gets enough of a forum quote from an AI response may have little reason to visit the forum itself. A feature can drive clicks to a social thread, or it can reduce the need to click when the quote itself answers a question.
What Hasn’t Changed
Throughout Google’s social messaging category, one thing hasn’t changed.
Search Console does not yet separate clicks from AI Overview, AI Mode, and regular search. None of the five features announced this week add to that coverage. A publisher can integrate subscriptions with Google, but still cannot see in GSC that the “Subscription” label has delivered additional clicks, A/B subscription test integration, or distinguish that in-line links generate more clicks than the citation aggregated below. Client reporting on AI search performance remains highly targeted.
For publishers exploring subscription integration, the tradeoff is clear. The “Subscription” label on links in AI responses is a potential plus. A new dependency of the integration with the platform that controls the search experience are those labels that appear in the cost. Ecommerce seems to be less affected by these specific factors, as previous data from Ahrefs and SE Ranking showed AI Overview triggers about 4% of product inquiries.
Alphabet reported Search revenue of $60.4 billion in Q1, up 19%, and the highest query volume per CEO Sundar Pichai. There is no metric that tells publishers whether their pages are getting more or fewer clicks from AI-influenced queries. Network revenue, which includes AdSense, fell 4% to $6.97 billion in the same quarter, down from $7 billion in the revised period.
Looking Forward
Google I/O is scheduled for May 19-20, and Photosi pointed to it during Alphabet’s Q1 earnings comments, making it a possible site for an AI product update. Whether that includes clicks or traffic data for AI features is an open question.
The PMC antitrust case is ongoing, the EU is investigating under the DMA, and the UK CMA’s consultation is ongoing. Administrators will review these features and traffic data that publishers track on dashboards to check that Google has made sufficient concessions for the web ecosystem.
Google’s language about AI search clicks has changed four times. The data needed to check that those clicks are coming hasn’t changed once.
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