Impressions up, clicks down: what AI Overviews changed and what still works in 2026

If you open Google Search Console this year and feel confused, you are not alone. A common post on r/SEO right now reads something like: "600+ keywords, tons of impressions, almost no clicks." Rankings look fine. The graph of people seeing your site goes up. The graph of people visiting it does not.

The main reason is that Google now answers a lot of searches itself. Here is what the numbers actually say, which of the new tactics are worth your time, and what we would do if we ran a small service business or startup website today.

What the data says#

A few studies are worth knowing, because they are large and recent:

• Ahrefs compared 300,000 keywords and found that when an AI Overview appears, the top-ranking page gets about 58% fewer clicks than it would without one (published February 2026).
• Seer Interactive tracked 2.4 billion impressions across 53 brands. Click-through rate on searches with an AI Overview fell as low as 1.3% in December 2025, then recovered to about 2.4% by February 2026. Pages that were cited inside the Overview got roughly twice the clicks of pages that were not.
• Semrush found AI Overviews on 88% of the commercial keywords it tracked in August 2026, up from under half in September 2025. That is a small, US-only desktop sample, but the direction is clear.
• Google says AI Mode passed 1 billion monthly users and that people type questions about three times longer there than in normal search.

So the clicks are not coming back to where they were. But two details matter more than the headline drop.

First, the losses hit "what is" and "how to" searches hardest. Searches from people ready to buy, book or compare still click through. One r/SEO commenter put it bluntly: top of funnel is dead in a ditch, bottom of funnel still converts fine.

Second, being cited inside the AI answer is now worth real traffic. That is the part you can work on.

The GEO tactics that are mostly hype#

"GEO" (generative engine optimisation) and "AEO" (answer engine optimisation) are the new names for getting picked up by AI answers. Some of the advice sold under those labels does not hold up.

llms.txt#

The idea is a text file that tells AI models what your site is about. Ahrefs looked at 137,000 domains and found that 97% of llms.txt files got zero requests in May 2026. A separate ten-site test found no measurable change on eight of them. Adding the file costs nothing, but nobody should charge you for it.

Schema markup as a citation trick#

Structured data still helps search engines understand your business, prices and FAQs, and it can earn rich results. But when Ahrefs tracked 1,885 pages that added schema, it found no significant lift in AI citations. Do it because it is good hygiene, not because it will get you into ChatGPT.

Mass-produced AI articles#

On 1 October 2026 Google added to its guidance that it is "critical to manually factcheck and review all AI-generated content", including titles, meta descriptions, structured data and image alt text. Publishing fifty generic posts a month is a quick way to have a large site that nobody, human or machine, wants to quote.

What actually helps you get cited#

AI answers are assembled from pages that state something clearly, specifically and credibly. In practice that means:

1. Answer the question in the first two sentences#

If someone asks "how much does a physiotherapy session cost in Pune", the page that says "A session costs ₹800 to ₹1,500, depending on..." in its opening lines is easier to quote than one that starts with the history of physiotherapy. Put the answer first, then the detail.

2. Publish things only you know#

Real prices, real timelines, real numbers from your own work, photos of your actual premises, named people with real experience. AI tools summarise what is already common knowledge without needing you. They cite you for what is not.

3. Make your pages readable without JavaScript#

Many AI crawlers fetch the raw HTML and do not run JavaScript. If your site is a single-page app that shows a blank page until the scripts load, those crawlers see nothing. Server-rendered or static pages, with a unique title and description each, fix this.

4. Be mentioned in places AI tools read#

Your own site is one source. Reviews, directory listings, industry publications, comparison posts and community discussions are others. For local businesses, a complete Google Business Profile with recent reviews still does a lot of the work.

5. Build for the searches that still click#

Service pages, pricing pages, location pages, comparisons and case studies attract people who are ready to act. These are also exactly the pages AI answers point to when someone asks "who should I hire for...". We covered how to structure them in SEO for service businesses.

How to measure it without paying for a new tool#

Search Console does not tell you how often ChatGPT recommends you. Until the tools mature, a simple manual method works:

1. Write down 20 to 30 questions a real buyer would ask, such as "best web design agency for clinics in Bangalore" or "how much does an MVP cost".
2. Once a month, ask them in ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini and Perplexity.
3. Record whether you are mentioned, whether you are linked, and which competitors appear instead.

Alongside that, watch the numbers that connect to revenue: enquiries from organic search, conversions on your service pages, and branded searches for your business name. If people are hearing about you inside AI answers, branded searches usually rise first.

The short version#

AI Overviews have taken the easy informational clicks, and they are not giving them back. What still works is clear answers, specific information only you can provide, pages crawlers can read, and a site built around the searches people make when they are ready to buy. Skip the llms.txt upsells and spend the effort on pages worth quoting.

If you want a second pair of eyes on which of your pages are losing clicks and which could be cited, book a free strategy call. We will look at your Search Console data with you.