{"id":1221,"slug":"pew-research-ai-overview-click-through-jul-22-2025-8pct-vs-15pct","title":"Pew Research (July 22, 2025) — real-browsing field study of 900 US adults / 68,879 March 2025 searches: clicks to traditional results 8% with an AI summary vs 15% without; only 1% clicked a link inside the AI summary","kind":"reference","scope":"business","status":"current","audiences":["kevin","smb-owner","candid-team"],"topics":["ai-search-citations","ai-mode"],"reference_body":"**Claim:** **Pew Research Center**, published **July 22, 2025**, analysed real browsing data from **900 US adults across 68,879 searches in March 2025**.\n\n**Quote (verbatim):** \"Users who encountered an AI summary clicked on a traditional search result link in **8%** of all visits. Those who did not encounter an AI summary clicked on a search result nearly twice as often (**15%** of visits)... This occurred in just **1%** of all visits to pages with such a summary\" (referring to clicks on a source link inside the AI summary).\n\n**Source:** Pew Research Center, July 22, 2025. Google publicly disputed the methodology as \"not representative.\"\n\n**Confidence:** Verified (highest-quality field-based dataset on this question). Pew has no commercial incentive to spin.\n\n**Why this matters for Candid:** The most defensible single statistic for the \"AI Overviews are halving clicks on the queries they appear on\" claim. Use Pew first, vendor studies ([[seer-interactive-ai-overview-ctr-drop-sep-2025-61pct-organic-68pct-paid]], [[ahrefs-ai-overview-click-loss-dec-2025-58pct-feb-2026-publication]]) second.","rationale_body":null,"metadata":null,"links":{"outgoing":[{"slug":"ai-overview-citation-patterns","title":"AI Overview citation patterns (GEO/AEO)","kind":"reference","scope":"marketing-site","link_type":"relates-to"}],"incoming":[{"slug":"research-brief-businesses-found-on-web-google-smb-june-2026","title":"Research brief: How businesses got found on the web — a then→now timeline (Google-focused, SMB lens, June 2026)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"seer-interactive-ai-overview-ctr-drop-sep-2025-61pct-organic-68pct-paid","title":"Seer Interactive (September 2025) — 3,119 informational queries across 42 organisations / 25.1M organic impressions (June 2024 → Sep 2025): organic CTR fell 61% (1.76% → 0.61%), paid CTR fell 68% (19.7% → 6.34%)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"ahrefs-ai-overview-click-loss-dec-2025-58pct-feb-2026-publication","title":"Ahrefs December 2025 re-run (published February 4, 2026) — for every 100 clicks you could historically earn for a top-ranking page, Google now keeps 58 (up from 34.5% click loss in April 2025)","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"},{"slug":"rule-answer-customer-questions-in-first-100-150-words-for-ai-citation","title":"Rule: Restructure top service and FAQ pages to answer the customer's question directly in the first 100–150 words, with specific local detail","kind":"rule","scope":"business","link_type":"depends-on"},{"slug":"caveats-google-history-smb-brief-cost-coercion-vendor-data","title":"Caveats for the June 2026 Google-history SMB brief — cost/causation claims are weak; \"now\" data is mostly US/global not Canada-specific; vendor sources were used skeptically; rollout state is moving fast","kind":"reference","scope":"business","link_type":"relates-to"}]},"created_at":"2026-06-18T00:10:55.856Z","updated_at":"2026-06-18T00:10:55.856Z"}