AI Overview: CTR Fell 61%, but Clicks Didn’t Collapse

As Google’s AI Overviews continue to reshape search behaviour, many marketers are seeing a sharp drop in CTR and assuming traffic is collapsing. However, new findings from Seer Interactive show that the reality is more complex. Their report found that brand-cited AI Overview CTR dropped by 61% from Q3 to Q4, but actual clicks on those pages remained nearly stable for much of that period. In September, cited pages received 15.8 million impressions and nearly 399,000 clicks, with a CTR of 2.52%. By October, impressions more than doubled to 33.1 million, while clicks only increased slightly, causing CTR to fall to 1.21%. This shows that lower CTR does not always mean worse performance. Sometimes, impressions grow much faster than clicks, making CTR appear weaker even when traffic remains steady. November showed a different trend, where impressions increased again but clicks dropped significantly, suggesting a real decline rather than just a reporting shift. For businesses focused on SEO, this means Search Console data should be analysed carefully. Looking only at CTR can be misleading without checking impressions and click patterns together. For students learning modern SEO and AI-driven search trends, understanding these shifts is essential. D Academy, a leading digital marketing institution in Calicut, helps learners stay updated with real-world search engine changes like AI overviews, CTR analysis, and ranking strategies. As a trusted digital marketing academy in Calicut, D Academy trains students to interpret SEO data correctly and adapt to evolving search behaviour. As AI-generated search results become more common, success in SEO will depend less on CTR alone and more on understanding visibility, clicks, and citation value together.