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Search visibility is not the same as traffic.
Everyone is chasing AI Overviews like they are the new position one, but the data tells a different story.
Across thousands of queries and dozens of tested SERPs, AI Overview citations rarely drive the clicks we expect.
They are visibility tokens, not traffic engines.
If you want real leads, you still need to win the top 3 organic blue links and adopt a broader SearchSync 360 Visibility Framework that covers Google, AI, voice, social, and video discovery.
Across more than 20,000 search queries from industries like:
…AI Overview citations rarely outperform even the lower blue links on the page.
Then, I drilled into over 100 AI Overview-specific SERPs between February and July 2025. I compared:
And to avoid bloated numbers, I only counted the first appearance of a site in the Overview. No duplicates. No inflated CTRs.
Here’s what came out of that exercise:
| Placement Type | Expected Click Behavior |
| Top 3 Blue Links | Still unmatched. Still, the real money. |
| Position 4-6 Blue Links | Moderate, predictable decay but still real clicks. |
| AI Overview Rank 1 | Roughly equivalent to Position 6 in blue links. |
| AI Overview Rank 3+ | Almost invisible. CTR falls off a cliff. |
Let that sink in.
Your “featured citation” in an AI Overview often performs worse than a link halfway down the page.
So the whole “win AI Overviews = win the SERP” narrative?
It looks like a myth to me for now, or at least for the next few years, until this becomes a norm for the audience to accept it as a legitimate search result answer.
However, I see many agencies trying to repackage old SEO work with a new label. They need to focus on a search everywhere strategy.
It’s not just low CTR. It’s structural. The problem is baked into the UI.
Let me break it down.
We’ve been fighting zero-click searches for years. Featured Snippets. People Also Ask. Instant Answers. AI Overviews are just another layer of Google saying:
“Thanks for your content. We’ll answer the user directly from it so they don’t have to leave.”
Most users are unaware that citations appear below the generated text. They read the AI summary and move on. They're satisfied. Or at least satisfied enough not to click.
In a blue link, your title is a headline. Your meta description is a pitch. Your name has presence.
In AI Overviews? Your brand is a grey hyperlink buried beneath AI text. You’re a source reference, not a destination. A citation is not a CTA.
If you’re counting on brand recall from that tiny mention, good luck.
Calling something “Position 1” inside an AI Overview is misleading. It doesn’t carry the same authority as Position 1 in organic blue links.
Why? Because before users even reach your citation, they scroll past:
In other words, AI Overviews are not “top of the SERP.” They’re just somewhere near the top, competing for oxygen in an overcrowded landing zone.
Let me be very clear. In traditional blue links, users scan several results before clicking. Positions 1-5 still receive decent click distributions.
In AI Overviews, that curve doesn’t slope. It drops.
By the time a citation hits the fourth or fifth spot in the Overview, the link might as well be invisible. Users aren’t scrolling horizontally. They aren’t expanding those accordions. They’re not exploring. They’re glancing, reading, and bouncing.
If you’re thinking, “Well, at least I’m in there,” you’re already losing.
Let’s be fair. There is some value in being cited.
It signals credibility. It supports long-term brand familiarity. It may even feed future LLM bias when models decide which domains to consider “trusted sources.”
So yes, AI Overviews are visibility assets. They are not traffic generators.
And that distinction is where most SEOs get it wrong.
I’m already seeing teams report AI Overview placements as “Position 1 Wins.” They slap screenshots into decks. They celebrate visibility spikes. They imply that traffic has increased because search presence has increased.
That’s dangerous. It sets false expectations.
If your CFO sees “Position 1” next to your domain, they’re thinking:
“Where’s the spike in revenue?”
And if you don’t have an answer beyond “Well, technically it’s more of an upper-funnel awareness mechanism…”, you’ve already lost credibility.
Visibility ≠ Traffic
Authority ≠ ROI
Position ≠ Intent
If you don’t internalize that now, you’ll get squeezed later.
Let’s not overreact. AI Overviews are not evil. They’re not useless. They’re not going away.
But they cannot replace traditional rankings. And they shouldn’t be prioritized like they can.
I have recently coined a search strategy called the SearchSync360 Visibility Framework™, which involves searching everywhere.
Here’s how I see it:
If you’re building dashboards that put AI Overview citations on the same level as organic rankings, you’re misleading your stakeholders, or yourself.
From my own testing across multiple industries, here’s what works best:
The same tactics that worked for Featured Snippets and People Also Ask still apply — but with more discipline.
Think of it like writing a micro-meta-description inside your article. Something quotable. Clean. Self-contained.
Not everything needs a schema. But FAQ, How-To, Product, Medical, Local Business, these are still signals that help AI classify your content.
You won’t believe it, but I have been saying this and implementing this for the last decade for all my client projects, and it hasn’t let me down yet. Most AI Overview citations come from clear writing, not keyword stuffing. If your language is robotic or overly SEO’d, you’ll lose. AI doesn’t pick awkward sentences.
Write like a human. Then optimize.
After all this research, I landed on the simplest possible conclusion:
If you want real traffic, aim to rank in the Top 3 organic search results.
Every algorithm shift. Every new UI. Every distraction Google adds to the SERP. It all leads back to human behavior.
Users still scroll past the noise until they hit trusted, established, clickable links.
They don’t fully trust AI-generated summaries yet. They don’t always trust ads. They still trust real websites.
I’ve seen AI Overview Rank 1 citations deliver 10% the clicks of an organic Rank 2.
That’s not a coincidence.
It’s intent at work.
Stop thinking of AI Overviews as replacements for organic ranking.
Think of them as billboards. Nice if they’re there. But not the destination.
And if you're going to brag about visibility, be ready to justify why visibility didn’t turn into measurable action.
This is where my SearchSync360 Visibility Framework™ comes in!
One Framework. Every Search. Real Growth.
You need to focus on a unified strategy that connects your brand’s visibility across Search Engines, AI Tools, Social Platforms, Video, and Voice, ensuring you’re found everywhere your audience looks.
Framework Highlights:
The smart move for you, and for me as your AI strategist, is to establish a presence before everyone else does, and ensure we build that presence everywhere via a SearchSync360 Visibility Framework.
Here’s why:
User Behavior Evolves Gradually
When Featured Snippets first launched, many ignored them. Now, many users start reading Google’s answer box before scanning links.
Over time, trust shifts from blue links to synthesized answers. The same shift can happen with AI Overviews.
As audiences grow more comfortable, they may click them more often.
Early Brand Seeding Matters
Being cited now, even with low CTR, means you get “impression credits” in AI’s memory. As models learn from which citations get referenced over time (or get clicked occasionally), your domain has more “weight” when future summaries are generated.
Position vs. Preparedness
You can’t wait until the format becomes dominant. You need to prepare your brand, content architecture, and SEO muscle so when AI Overviews and other synthetic SERP features dominate, you already have recognized, trustworthy citations.
The Trust Transition
Initially, users will click blue links more. Later, as the AI mode becomes more polished and transparent, people will click within the AI result more or use AI summaries as navigational anchors. At that moment, the brands already cited will win disproportionately.
So yes, your skepticism is valid today. But your optimism is justified for tomorrow.
Because AI Overviews aren’t traffic engines yet, you need new lenses for ROI. Here’s how:
| Metric | Short-Term (First 6–12 months) | Medium-Term (12–24 months) | Long-Term (24+ months) |
| Citations / Mentions | Baseline count of times your domain is cited in AI Overviews | Growth rate of citations month to month | Dominance over competitors in your niche |
| Share of Voice in AI Summaries | % of AI Overviews in your topics citing you | Compare vs peers & track decline/growth | Leadership position in AI answer space |
| Assisted Brand Queries | Increase in branded searches after AI visibility | Track patterns of users who click later on the brand name | Channel attribution shift – organic, direct, branded |
| CTR Trend in AI Context | Initial CTR per citation spot | Monitor upward drift over time | Compare with organic CTR — when parity begins |
| Voice / Semantic Footprint | Topics and entities you're tied to | Expand into adjacent topic areas as AI cites you | Authority surface used by AI across multiple verticals |
| Engagement After Click | Pages visited, session depth after AI-driven clicks | Monitor bounce vs qualified traffic from AI clicks | Ideal: AI citations driving loyal visits & conversions |
Use these as your dashboard. Don’t drop them for vanity metrics like “# of AI wins this week.”
Here’s a blueprint of how I’d execute this as your AI Strategist (and why Primotech is uniquely positioned to do it globally):
You might ask, “Why come to you for this, instead of an SEO agency?” Here’s how I’d frame it:
Technical & AI Expertise in Our DNA
Proven experience leading marketing and SEO strategy for enterprise and startup brands. My current company, Primotech, is already a leader in AI/ML, software, and cloud solutions. We understand the underlying technology stack, data pipelines, and architecture. That gives us an edge in aligning SEO with the logic of AI models.
I have large partner network of SEO and content specialists that delivers full-service execution.
Marketing Strategy + Execution Bridge
Many SEO firms can tinker with meta tags. Few can integrate search strategy with branding, demand generation, and funnel design. I bring both sides: marketing + AI SEO.
Global Reach + Local Sensitivity
We’ve operated in multiple geos. We understand nuance: how query behavior differs across regions, how AI maturity differs by market, how cultural language shifts matter.
Data-Driven, Experiment First
We don’t preach, we test. We implement small pilots, measure, iterate. We don’t bet the farm on hype.
My Personal Involvement
I’ll personally oversee your audit, your roadmap. Not handed off to juniors. You’ll get access, transparency, and a strategist backed with CMO experience, not just a “manager.”
Here’s what I propose as the first steps, low risk, high insight:
You get a tangible audit + roadmap, not just a deck of promises.
It’s not just about AI positioning anymore. It’s about building an SS360 Visibility framework that connects every surface where discovery happens.
Search isn’t a straight line anymore. It’s a loop that moves between AI chat tools, social feeds, voice queries, video recommendations, and the web itself. The brands that win will be the ones that are consistently visible across all of them, in a relevant and contextual manner.
You asked, “Don’t you think the AI mode might eventually work and people will click it?”
I don’t just think it will. I expect it.
Not because of luck, but because of how people evolve in what they trust, how they search, and how they decide.
As an AI Strategist, your job is to bridge that shift. To protect visibility today while building influence for tomorrow. To stay discoverable wherever intent begins. To already be in the race before it becomes a sprint.
So yes. Be optimistic. Be prepared. Be deliberate.
With over 15 years at the forefront of strategic business growth, Sanjay Bhattacharya collaborates with CEOs and founders to reshape market positioning and drive sustainable success. Throughout his journey, he has worn many hats—from Fractional CMO for fast-growing startups to serving as Head of Marketing & Business Strategy at PRIMOTECH. He has been Featured in Under30CEO, American Marketing Association, CMO Times, CTOsync, DesignRush, Earned, HubSpot, MarketerInterview, and more.
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11 Oct 2025