-
How can content-based websites combat AI Overviews?
Posted by on January 14, 2026 at 3:22 pmI work for a fairly large content website. Like many other content websites, we’ve seen our traffic get decimated over the past few months due to AI Overview (approaching -40%).
I’ve been in the game for 10 years and for the first time, I feel like it’s time to exit. This is the first time I’m starting to feel like the “SEO is dead” rhetoric may actually be correct.
It’s frustrating. We’re #1 for our target search terms. Our data and content is high-quality enough that the AIO is constantly referring to us when giving answers. But we’re not getting the clicks, because why click when AIO is already giving you our content?
The thing is – how is this sustainable? If having a data-based website is no longer viable because you can’t get clicks, the websites won’t exist. Where will AI get its data? Why would people pay for Google Ads when Google has created a zero-click environment making it tough to get leads through ads? What is Google’s end-game here?
I’m just feeling frustrated. I left my client-based SEO job for this one because I’m passionate about the content this site produces. But it’s simply not sustainable to not get clicks, and it’s frustrating that there’s basically nothing we can do to combat the AIO without fundamentally changing the entire business (which is outside my power).
Any other SEOs dealing with this existential crisis? SEOs for content-based websites – any recommendations to try?
-
1 Reply
-
There isn’t much you can do, if you block AI crawlers, that won’t stop Google doing AI snippets. The future of SEO is very bleak right now, especially for content/data websites.
-
>The thing is – how is this sustainable? If having a data-based website is no longer viable because you can’t get clicks, the websites won’t exist.
Do you mean some websites won’t exist?
Have you tried other keywords?
-
I’m pivoting a little. I have a few sites ie travel blog, rooftop bars, markets etc. pays the bills. Wife posts to Facebook a lot for these and those pages got monetised. Lo and behold social traffic is beating seo some days. So now I wrote two kinds of articles: seo optimised and social/flipboard/discover style. Flipboard is new and I am still figuring it out, same for discover. But it has its benefits…I now have more interesting articles to funnel readers to when they find my seo optimised content. And vice versa, etc. moving from WordPress to react has helped keep pace too. Not a silver bullet, but it’s helping. Maybe I ditch seo entirely and focus on social, would be nice to hey back to just writing
-
[removed]
-
[removed]
-
Build a captive audience.
-
We need to move with the metrics and look bigger than just the website performance – clicks and traffic are getting replaced by citations and mentions. This is actually an exciting time for SEO as it can put content at the heart of wider marketing strategies
Syndicate content across the web and on multiple platforms, aim to grow your share of voice for relevant prompts and keywords – gaining mentions and citations
My clients website is heavily content focused and in our AI/LLM audits we are seeing ourselves vastly outpace competitors for citations. Mentions lag a little but that is where we can unlock conversations about offsite tactics.
As for how much a citation, mention or general visibility is worth in the new space… well, how do businesses generally quantify brand awareness or media “reach”? Its a bit ethereal at times, but unless your website is D2C or looking for leads, this was always the case beforehand
-
[removed]
-
Having “only” lost 40% you’re doing well compared to a lot of sites as many have lost 60-100% of their organic Google search traffic.
Search clicks are down 40-90% across the board, AI Chatbots do everything in their power to make it close to impossible for anyone to click anywhere, social media supresses links and operates a walled garden approach, more people than ever use video and short form content for their informational searches and the average person who’s doomscrolling on TikTok mindlessly watching a video isn’t going to come out of the App to go click a link and head over to a content website to READ information.
It really doesn’t leave many useful traffic sources for the traditional content site now.
Some people manage to find a way with Pinterest and Facebook Pages but that depends on the niche / site type and at some point they’ll clamp back down on that / change the algo. Facebook has been up and down for years in terms of how good it is for publishers and how much traffic it sends but always eventually throttles links again) and Pinterest has become flooded with low quality AI slop and spam.
I hear some people are still doing OK with Flipboard but I’ve not explored that site for years now.
Really we either need to accept this is the new search landscape and AI Answers are going to be the way it is going forward and probably will expand over time as Google does everything to keep people in their own ecosystem or to a select few publishers that they can benefit from in some way so there’s just going to be a LOT less clicks or we move to new publishing models that have a multichannel approach of a blog, social media content, and video content.
Pivoting to an email newsletter is also an option and using audience swaps and paid ads to grow your existing audience further.
Keep in mind also that many of the social platforms now have ways to monetize – Facebook Parter & Bonus Programs, Google Adsense with Youtube, TikTok Partner Program & TikTok shop etc so there can potentially be a direct reward from publishing on these platforms too rather than just sharing your content.
But its definitely going to be harder than ever IMO for anyone starting from scratch to build an audience via a blog and a struggle for existing bloggers to keep growing their audience unless we really adapt and are williing to change focus and grow audience individually on seperate platforms.
-
[removed]
-
[removed]
-
You can’t. I’m pivoting mostly to youtube now. Sure, there is still some traffic to be had from google search, but ai just gobbles up all the clicks so the extra effort isn’t really worth it.
-
Could be HCU core update
-
You can wait for the AI bubble to burst. Google is a horrible company and a monopoly. There is no end-game, jsut short-term profit. They are just riding the AI hype train and adding AI to every app and service they have to see their stock go up.
About time we all collectively ditch Google.
-
Maybe lean on direct traffic channels that bypass search entirely? Email lists, social communities, partnerships with complementary sites. Any channel that reduces dependence on Google for traffic.
Or pivoting some resources toward tools, or interactive content that AI can’t replicate in a text box. People still need to do things, not just read about them.
Also worth testing whether you can optimize for being featured in those AI overviews with suitable structured data. Might as well try to be the content Google’s scraping.
Log in to reply.