AHREFS Study - Stunning New Report on AIO and AI Search Engines

Brett Tabkeon

Ahrefs has released a must read comprehensive study analyzing 55.8 million AI Overviews (AIOs) across 590 million Google searches. The stunning report includes some sobering statistics for SEO's. Lets start with the really bad news:

The top 50 domains account for 28.9% of all AIO mentions.

No, it is not your imagination, branded AIO Serps have skyrocketed. If 50% of the top brands are getting the majority of 8 billion daily searches, what is left for the rest of us?

An Ahrefs report of AI Overviews finds that the Top 50 domains get 30% of all AIO shoutouts, reflecting how Google’s system disproportionately surfaces big authorities – unsurprising given that Google’s ranking signals (like PageRank) still favor those major sites.

By search volume, AIOs are present in 54.61% of all Google searches.

This is much higher than is generally believed in SEO. Most were thinking we were somewhere around 25% at best.

AIOs appear in approximately 9.5% of all desktop keywords globally.

We knew it was slowly rolling out in other parts of the world.

35% decrease in the average click-through rate (CTR) for top-ranking pages

While depressing, seems like many people are reporting a higher decrease in click throughs (some as high as 75% decrease in traffic)

Types of Queries Affected

AIOs are more commonly displayed for:

  • Informational queries
  • Longer search queries
  • High-volume searches

Conversely, AIOs are less prevalent for:

  • Branded queries
  • Local searches
  • Shorter queries -  ambiguous or navigational
AHREFS Chart of Top Domains Google Pushes for AIO

Dominance of Top Domains

Notable domains frequently featured in AIOs include:

  • Wikipedia
  • Reddit
  • Quora
  • YouTube
  • Healthline
  • WebMD

Ahrefs' study underscores the transformative impact of AI-generated summaries on search behavior and website traffic. As AIOs become more prevalent, adapting SEO strategies to this evolving landscape is crucial. Emphasizing content quality, authority, and relevance will be key to navigating the challenges and leveraging the opportunities presented by AI Overviews.

For a more detailed analysis, you can read the full study here: Insights From 55.8M AI Overviews Across 590M Searches.

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