“Our traffic’s down. Something’s wrong.”
We’ve had this conversation with a lot of business owners this year. Then we look at the numbers together. Visits are down, sometimes sharply. Enquiries, bookings or sales are flat. Occasionally they’re up.
So what’s going on, and should you worry?
People are getting answers without clicking
Google now shows AI-generated summaries, called AI Overviews, at the top of many searches. They answer the question on the results page, using information from several websites. For research-type searches, plenty of people read the summary and stop there.
The numbers are stark. Pew Research found that when an AI summary appeared, people clicked a normal search result in about 8% of visits, compared with about 15% when there wasn’t one. Roughly half the clicks.
Add Google’s AI Mode, and everyone now asking ChatGPT instead of searching, and it’s no surprise many websites are getting fewer visits.
Why enquiries can hold steady anyway
Think about who used to land on your site: someone curious about what causes lower back pain, a student looking up a definition, a person comparing options with no plan to buy yet. Many of those visitors now get their answer from the summary and never arrive.
The people ready to act still click. The person searching “physio near me open Saturday” still wants a phone number. Someone an AI tool has just recommended you to still visits your site, and arrives better informed. Adobe’s data this year suggested visitors coming from AI tools convert noticeably better than average.
Fewer visitors, then, but a bigger share of the right ones.
When a drop is a real problem
Some drops do need attention. Look harder if enquiries or sales are falling too, if traffic to your service or product pages is down (not just your blog), if fewer people are searching for your business by name, or if the drop was sudden and steep. A sharp overnight fall usually points to something technical, a Google penalty or a site change that broke something, not to AI.
What to watch instead
Enquiries, properly tracked. Forms, calls, WhatsApp clicks, bookings and sales, all set up as conversions in Google Analytics 4. If you’re only tracking page views, you can’t tell a harmless drop from a harmful one.
Conversion rate. If visits fall 20% and enquiries stay flat, your conversion rate has gone up. Your traffic is getting better, not worse.
Service pages versus blog posts. Split your traffic by page type. A dip in blog traffic matters far less than a dip on the pages that sell.
Search Console impressions. If impressions are steady but clicks are down, that’s the AI Overview effect. You’re still being seen. People just aren’t clicking as often.
AI referrals and branded searches. Visits from ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini show up as referral traffic in GA4. They’re usually small but growing. More people searching your business name is another sign that AI tools and word of mouth are sending people your way.
What to do about it
Don’t chase old traffic numbers for their own sake. Put the effort into the pages that sell: make every service or product page clear, fast and easy to act on, because those still get clicked by people who are ready to buy.
Make your content the source AI summaries quote, with direct answers, specific facts and clear structure. We’ve written about how to do that. Keep building your reputation beyond your website, through reviews, listings and mentions. And if you can’t say how many enquiries your website brought in last month, fix the tracking before anything else.
Not sure what your numbers are telling you?
Our guide to the three numbers to ask for is a good place to start. If you’d rather someone went through your Analytics and Search Console with you, get in touch.
