Diagnose it properly before you touch anything
Open Search Console, compare the last 3 months against the previous 3, and export queries with position, impressions, clicks and click-through rate. You are looking for one specific fingerprint: position steady, impressions steady, click-through rate down. If positions fell too, this is a different problem and this guide is not the fix.
Positions
- AI Overviews loss
- Stable or improving
- Ranking or update loss
- Falling across many pages
Impressions
- AI Overviews loss
- Flat or up
- Ranking or update loss
- Down with the positions
Click-through rate
- AI Overviews loss
- Down sharply
- Ranking or update loss
- Roughly unchanged
Affected queries
- AI Overviews loss
- Informational and question-shaped
- Ranking or update loss
- Whole site or whole sections
Timing
- AI Overviews loss
- Gradual, feature rollout led
- Ranking or update loss
- Sharp, dated to an update
The fix
- AI Overviews loss
- Be the cited source, shift intent mix
- Ranking or update loss
- Fix quality, technical and link issues
The three patterns we keep seeing
1. The definitional bloodbath
“What is X”, “X meaning”, “how does X work”. These lose the most, often 30 to 60% of clicks at unchanged position, because the answer is short and complete. Some of this traffic was never commercial. Losing it hurts the dashboard more than the P&L.
2. The comparison squeeze
“X vs Y” queries survive better, but the overview now summarises the trade-off, so only the pages with a genuine practitioner view still earn the click. Generic listicles get flattened.
3. The commercial hold
“X agency”, “X pricing”, “X near me”. Barely touched. The searcher has to pick a supplier, and no summary can do that for them. This is where your effort belongs.
Intent
The only useful way to segment the loss. Not page, not folder, not template
3 vs 3
The Search Console comparison window that shows the pattern most clearly
Commercial
The query class that holds up, and where the recovery work should sit
You did not lose rankings. You lost the traffic that was never going to buy, and you kept the traffic that does. Now stop writing for the first group.
Which pages to defend, in order
- Service and pricing pages: publish real numbers, terms and volumes. These are unanswerable without you.
- Local pages: genuine location relevance, not a template with the town name swapped.
- Case studies: named brands and real results. No model can synthesise your outcomes.
- Comparison pages written from experience, including where you are the wrong choice.
- Anything that earns an email address: tools, calculators, checklists, data.
How to rewrite an informational page for citation
Do not delete the article. Restructure it so it is the thing the overview quotes, and so the reader who does click has a reason to keep going.
- Lead with a 40 to 60 word direct answer under a question-shaped heading.
- Add something only you have: a price, a benchmark, a client number, a screenshot of real data.
- Cut the padded introduction. If the first 100 words say nothing, they are why nobody scrolls.
- Add FAQPage schema for the questions you genuinely answer on the page.
- Finish with one clear commercial route, not five competing links.
Where the demand actually went
Some of it went into the overview, some into assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, and some into places search never owned: social discovery, marketplaces, inboxes. That is the strategic point. If a single channel can be re-plumbed overnight by one product change, the answer is not to shout louder inside it.
In practice we rebalance three ways: keep organic focused on commercial and local intent, build email and SMS so repeat revenue is owned rather than rented, and use paid search deliberately on the terms where the margin is known.
A 90-day plan you can actually run
- Weeks 1 to 2: export and segment Search Console by intent. Confirm the fingerprint. Quantify the commercial loss, not the total loss.
- Weeks 3 to 6: harden the pages that still convert. Real prices, schema, internal links, faster templates.
- Weeks 5 to 8: rewrite the top ten informational pages into answer-first format with one commercial exit each.
- Weeks 7 to 10: stand up or fix lifecycle email and SMS so you own the second sale.
- Weeks 9 to 12: build a monthly prompt log across the assistants and report share of answer alongside rankings.
The prompt-log step is covered in more detail in the AI citation playbook.
Questions we get asked
Why are my impressions flat but my clicks falling?
That is the classic AI Overviews signature. You still rank, so impressions hold, but the answer now sits above you and satisfies the searcher before they scroll. Check Search Console for pages where average position is stable or improved while clicks and click-through rate fall together over the same period.
Is losing clicks to AI Overviews a Google penalty?
No. A penalty or core-update hit shows up as falling positions and impressions. AI Overviews loss shows up as stable positions with falling click-through rate, concentrated on informational and question-shaped queries. Different diagnosis, completely different fix.
Which keywords lose the most traffic to AI Overviews?
Definitional and how-to queries, simple comparisons, and anything with a single factual answer. Transactional queries, local intent, branded searches and complex commercial comparisons hold up far better because the searcher still needs to choose a provider.
Can I opt out of AI Overviews?
Only in a blunt way. The nosnippet and max-snippet robots directives limit what Google can show, but they also strip your normal snippets and usually cost more traffic than they save. For almost every business the better move is to earn the citation rather than remove yourself from it.
What should I write instead of informational blog posts?
Write the things an answer cannot replace: original data, priced service pages, case studies with real numbers, comparisons only a practitioner could make, and tools or calculators. Keep informational content, but write it to be cited and to lead somewhere commercial.
Where should the budget go now?
Towards intent that still converts through a click: local and service pages, lifecycle email and SMS so revenue is not rented from search, and paid search on the terms where you know the margin. Then keep a lean, citation-focused content programme rather than a volume one.
Written by
Sam, co-founder, growth and paid media
Runs growth and paid media at Mesmerise Marketing. Ten years of paid and organic campaigns for challenger brands across DTC, B2B services and hospitality.
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