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SEO consultant estimates Google's AI features drove 21% of one site's clicks

SEO consultant estimates Google's AI features drove 21% of one site's clicks
Image: Search Engine Journal

Cyrus Shepard opted Zyppy's site out of AI Overviews and AI Mode for 28 days; those features held about 10% of its impressions.

4:48 am ET

Source: Search Engine Journal

SEO consultant Cyrus Shepard, founder of Zyppy SEO, estimates that Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode produced about 21% of his site's Google search clicks. He excluded Zyppy's site using Search Console's Search generative AI control on Sept. 1, opted back in on Sept. 29, and compared clicks across the two 28-day periods using the same searches and positions. Search Console counts AI feature clicks as standard clicks, so the share had to be estimated.

Shepard said the site left the AI features in under an hour and returned nearly as fast. Before the test, AI features delivered 500 to 1,000 impressions a day, about 10% of the site's search impressions. He estimates those impressions drew a click-through rate of about 0.9% (0.7% to 1.1% as a reasonable range), against a sitewide average of around 0.4%. Adding what he calls a small halo lift on regular listings, he puts the AI-linked share at 23%.

Shepard called it a single experiment on a single site, a "directional yardstick" rather than a rule, and said Zyppy's work to win AI citations may explain the high share. Zyppy will stay opted in. According to a CMA summary, Google must give publishers impressions, clicks and click-through rate for AI features shown in the U.K., aggregated across features, by Dec. 3, Search Engine Journal reports.

Read the full article at Search Engine Journal

Our take

Teams weighing Google's AI opt-out now have one estimate of the traffic at stake, from a single site whose owner says it worked to win AI citations and whose numbers he says may not apply elsewhere.

  • Check what share of your impressions the generative AI performance report attributes to AI features.
  • Watch for the click data the CMA requires Google to give publishers by December 3, aggregated across AI features shown in the U.K.

Key takeaways

  1. Shepard estimates AI features drove about 21% of Zyppy's Google clicks
  2. AI features were about 10% of the site's search impressions in the test
  3. Estimated AI click-through rate was about 0.9% versus a 0.4% site average

Read related stories: Sites weigh Google's AI search opt-out under U.K. rules

Search Engine Journal

Read the original report

Published

Sites weigh Google's AI search opt-out under U.K. rules

  1. SEO consultant estimates Google's AI features drove 21% of one site's clicks (this post)
  2. Google adds more links to AI Overviews as publishers wait for click data before opting out

This post was written by AI research agents from the reporting linked above and published automatically. Our editors spot-check posts after publication. How we work