Google AI Overviews and Website Traffic: Has Google Changed the Deal With Businesses?

Google AI Overviews website traffic has become a much bigger concern for businesses as Google increasingly moves from helping people find answers to providing those answers itself.

I recently watched a video from Neil Patel discussing how Google’s relationship with businesses and publishers is changing as AI becomes a much bigger part of search.

One point in particular stuck with me.

For years, there was an unwritten deal between Google and the businesses creating content for the web.

Businesses created the information.

Google organised it and helped people find it.

In return, businesses received something incredibly valuable: website traffic.

That traffic could become enquiries, leads, sales and customers.

It was a simple exchange of value, and it worked extraordinarily well.

Neil’s video made me think about something I have increasingly felt myself:

Has Google now changed that deal?

Because Google is no longer simply helping people find the answer.

Increasingly, Google wants to provide the answer itself.

And much of the information it uses to do that has been created by the very businesses that once relied on Google to send them visitors.

The Original Google Deal Worked for Everyone

For most of the last 20 years, the relationship was easy to understand.

Someone searched Google for something.

Google displayed a selection of websites that might contain the answer.

The user chose one.

They visited the website.

If the business had done a good job, that visitor might then read more content, browse its services, join a mailing list, make an enquiry or eventually become a customer.

Everyone received something from the arrangement.

The searcher found information.

Google provided a useful service.

And the business that created the information received exposure and potentially a valuable visitor.

That last part is important.

Traffic was effectively part of the reward for creating useful information.

Without that potential return, businesses would have had far less incentive to spend money producing content in the first place.

Google Spent Years Encouraging Businesses to Create Better Content

Anyone involved in SEO will recognise the message Google has been giving businesses for years.

Create useful content.

Answer people’s questions.

Demonstrate expertise.

Publish original information.

Improve your FAQs.

Create detailed guides.

Make your website genuinely useful.

Businesses responded.

Companies invested huge amounts of money into SEO, content marketing, writers, designers, developers, research and subject matter experts.

We essentially spent years making the internet easier for Google to understand.

And there was nothing particularly wrong with that.

There was an exchange of value.

Businesses provided the information.

Google provided the audience.

Neil Patel’s Point Got Me Thinking About What Happens Next

The part of Neil Patel’s discussion that interested me most was the idea that the relationship has now fundamentally shifted.

Google is increasingly moving from being a search engine that helps you find information towards an engine that can provide the information directly.

AI Overviews are perhaps the clearest example.

You ask a question.

Rather than simply receiving links to several websites, you can receive an AI-generated answer at the top of the search results.

That answer may draw upon information that originally appeared across multiple websites.

But the searcher may never need to visit those websites.

From the user’s perspective, that can be brilliant.

It’s fast.

It’s convenient.

It can summarise complicated subjects.

I use AI myself, so I completely understand why people like it.

But from the business owner’s perspective, there is another question.

If We Provide the Information, What Do We Receive in Return?

This is the question I keep coming back to.

If a business provides the information that enables Google to answer a question, what does that business receive in return?

Historically, the answer was traffic.

That was the trade.

Create something useful enough and Google might reward you by sending people to your website.

Those people could then become customers.

But what happens when Google can use the information to satisfy the search without the user needing to visit the source?

The value exchange starts to look very different.

Google still receives the information it needs to provide a useful service.

The searcher still receives the answer.

But does the business that created the original information still receive enough value in return?

I think that is one of the biggest questions facing search marketing over the next few years.

Google Is Becoming the Destination

Traditionally, Google was the gateway.

People went to Google so Google could send them somewhere else.

That was the whole point.

You searched for information and Google helped you discover the website containing it.

AI has the potential to change that behaviour.

Now the journey can increasingly happen inside the search engine itself.

You ask a question.

Google answers.

You ask a follow-up.

Google answers again.

You refine your query.

Another answer appears.

The need to visit the original websites can become smaller and smaller.

That is a significant change.

Google is no longer simply organising the web.

It is increasingly becoming an interface through which the web’s information is consumed.

There Is a Strange Irony for Businesses

This is where I think things become particularly interesting.

Businesses are still being encouraged to create high-quality content.

We’re told to demonstrate genuine experience.

Show expertise.

Answer questions thoroughly.

Publish original insights.

Make content helpful.

Build authority.

Again, none of that is bad advice.

But there is now an obvious irony.

The better we become at explaining something online, the easier we potentially make it for an AI system to understand that subject and answer the user’s question without us.

That doesn’t mean we should stop creating content.

I certainly don’t intend to.

But I do think we need to reconsider what we expect that content to achieve.

SEO Can No Longer Be Just About Getting the Click

Traditional SEO has always revolved heavily around rankings and traffic.

Where do we rank?

How many impressions are we getting?

What is our click-through rate?

How much organic traffic is arriving?

Those things still matter.

But I think another layer is being added.

Businesses increasingly need to ask:

Does Google understand who we are?

Does Google understand what we specialise in?

Are we recognised as an authority on the subjects we talk about?

Does AI associate our business and our people with the areas in which we actually have expertise?

When an AI system generates an answer, could we be one of the businesses it references?

That is a very different way of thinking about search.

The goal may no longer simply be ranking first.

Increasingly, the goal could be becoming one of the recognised entities behind the answer.

Perhaps the Citation Becomes More Valuable

I don’t think website traffic is going to disappear.

If someone wants a quotation, wants to investigate a supplier, make a purchase or speak directly to a company, they still need to visit websites.

But informational searches are different.

If Google can answer those queries satisfactorily itself, fewer clicks may be necessary.

That potentially makes brand mentions, citations and recommendations much more valuable.

For example, consider a search such as:

Who are the best B2B data suppliers in the UK?

Traditionally, my objective would have been to get Results Driven Marketing ranking as highly as possible for that query.

That still matters.

But I now have another objective.

I want Google, ChatGPT and other AI systems to understand what Results Driven Marketing is.

I want them to understand what we specialise in.

I want them to find consistent information about the company across the web.

I want them to see third-party references, reviews, commentary and evidence that helps establish what the business does and where its expertise lies.

That is not quite the same thing as traditional SEO.

This Is Why Entity Building Is Becoming So Important

One area I have become increasingly interested in is how search engines and large language models understand businesses as entities.

For years, much of SEO has focused on keywords.

Keywords are still important.

But I think businesses now need to think much more carefully about the overall picture they are creating.

Who are you?

What does your company do?

Who are the people behind it?

What subjects are they knowledgeable about?

What services do you provide?

Where else does that information appear online?

Are third parties talking about you?

Are you publishing information that other websites might reference?

Are your people clearly connected with your company’s areas of expertise?

That is why I think things such as digital PR, structured data, expert commentary, original research, external mentions, author profiles and consistent brand information will become increasingly important.

The aim isn’t simply to rank a page.

It is to make your business easy for machines to understand.

There Is a Bigger Problem for the Web

There is also a wider issue that I don’t think has received enough attention.

What happens if businesses eventually decide there isn’t enough incentive to keep publishing detailed information?

Creating genuinely useful content costs money.

Someone has to research it.

Someone has to write it.

Someone has to collect the data.

Someone has to employ the expert.

Someone has to maintain the website.

Historically, businesses accepted those costs partly because content could generate traffic.

Traffic could generate revenue.

But imagine that relationship shifts significantly.

If AI platforms increasingly consume the information while sending fewer visitors to the original source, at what point do publishers and businesses start questioning the investment?

And if businesses start producing less original information, what happens to the systems that rely upon that information?

AI still needs source material.

It needs experts.

It needs original research.

It needs publishers.

It needs businesses sharing what they know.

There has to be some incentive for those sources to continue producing it.

I Don’t Think Google Is Doing Anything Unexpected

I don’t think the answer is simply to blame Google.

Google is responding to technological change.

ChatGPT and other AI platforms have shown that people like asking questions and receiving direct answers.

If Google ignored that behaviour and continued offering exactly the same search experience it had ten years ago, users could eventually move elsewhere.

So I understand why Google is changing.

The technology is useful.

The customer experience can be excellent.

My point is not that Google should stop innovating.

My point is that the commercial relationship between Google and the businesses supplying much of the web’s information is changing as a consequence.

Businesses need to recognise that.

What Should Businesses Do?

I don’t think businesses should abandon SEO.

And I certainly don’t think they should stop producing useful content.

If anything, the quality of that content may become even more important.

But I think we need to broaden the objective.

Rather than simply asking:

How do I get this page to rank?

We should also be asking:

How do I become recognised as a credible source on this subject?

That means publishing things worth referencing.

It means putting genuine expertise behind your content.

It means building strong company and personal entities.

It means earning mentions elsewhere on the web.

It means providing original commentary rather than simply rewriting what already exists.

And it means being extremely consistent about who your company is and what it actually does.

Has Google Changed the Deal?

Neil Patel’s video prompted me to think about all of this more seriously.

And the more I think about it, the more I believe the answer is yes.

Perhaps not completely.

And perhaps not intentionally.

But the value exchange is changing.

The old model looked something like this:

Businesses create information.

Google organises it.

Google sends users to the businesses providing it.

The emerging model could increasingly look like this:

Businesses create information.

Google understands it.

Google combines it with other information.

Google provides the answer.

The original sources may receive a citation or a click.

That is a very different deal.

And whether businesses ultimately receive enough value from that new arrangement remains to be seen.

But I think one thing is already clear.

The future of search is not just going to be about rankings.

It won’t even be entirely about clicks.

The next battle may be about becoming one of the trusted sources behind the answer.

About the Author

Iain Irvin is Director of Results Driven Marketing (RD Marketing), a UK B2B data and lead generation company. He has worked in B2B sales and marketing for more than 15 years and is currently exploring how AI search, large language models and changing search behaviour are affecting the way businesses are discovered online.