How Search Behaviour Is Changing Among Consumers

Remember when SEO was simple? You targeted keywords, created content, built some links and watched your rankings climb. Rank #1, capture 30% of clicks. Rank in the top 3, enjoy comfortable traffic. Those were the days.

Then Google went and ruined *coughs* everything with artificial intelligence. (We’re kidding. Sort of.)

AI Overviews now appear in over 13% of all searches, and that number continues climbing. Click-through rate reductions range from 34% to 46% when AI summaries appear. Zero-click searches increased from 56% to 69% between May 2024 and May 2025.

Translation: Half your potential traffic just vanished. Not because your content got worse or your competitors got better. Because Search engines decided to answer questions without sending people to websites. Your perfectly optimised content still ranks #1. People just aren’t clicking anymore.

For any new age brand that is working with an SEO company in Ahmedabad, trying to make sense of collapsing traffic numbers, welcome to the AI search revolution. It’s messy, it’s confusing and it’s permanent. Let’s decode what’s happening and how to adapt before you’re completely invisible.

Table of Contents:

1. The Death of the 10 Blue Links (They Had a Good Run)
   
2. What Are AI Overviews and Why Should You Care
   
3. How Consumer Search Behaviour Actually Changed
   
4. The Zero-Click Search Problem
   
5. What This Means for Your Traffic (Spoiler: Nothing Good)
   
6. How to Optimise Content for AI Search Results
   
7. The Future of Search (Brace Yourself)
   
8. Concluding Thoughts
   
9. FAQ’s

The Death of the 10 Blue Links (They Had a Good Run)

For 25 years, Google search worked basically the same way. You typed a query. Google showed 10 blue links. You clicked one (probably the first or second result). That website got your visit. Everyone was happy.

That model is dying. Fast.

Google launched AI Overviews last year and since then, there’s been a profound shift in how people use Google Search, with people coming to ask more complex, longer and multimodal questions. In the biggest markets like the US and India, AI Overviews drive over a 13% increase in usage of Google for types of queries that show AI Overviews.

The shift isn’t subtle. Open Google on your phone right now. Search for anything informational: “how to fix a leaky tap,” “best digital marketing agency in Ahmedabad” or “symptoms of vitamin D deficiency.” Chances are, you’ll see a big AI-generated summary at the top answering your question with sources cited below.

That AI summary pushes traditional organic results so far down the page that the first organic result often appears about 1,674px down the page once AI Overviews are expanded. On mobile, that’s several scrolls away. Most users never bother.

The 10 blue links didn’t disappear entirely. They just became irrelevant for most informational searches. And if your business relies on informational content driving traffic, this is your “we need to talk” moment.

What Are AI Overviews and Why Should You Care

AI Overviews (previously called Search Generative Experience or SGE during testing) are Google’s AI-generated summaries appearing at the top of search results for certain queries.

How They Work:

Google’s AI (powered by their Gemini model) analyses multiple web pages, synthesises information and generates a concise answer to your search query. It cites sources with clickable links to the pages it referenced. The AI attempts to provide complete answers without requiring users to visit multiple websites.

Why Google Did This:

Officially? To improve user experience by providing faster, more comprehensive answers. As people use AI Overviews, they’re happier with their results and search more often.

Unofficially? Competition. ChatGPT, Perplexity and other AI tools threatened Google’s search dominance by providing direct answers to questions. Google responded by integrating similar capabilities directly into search results. An Uno reverse with a small grin on their face.

Why You Should Care:

AI Overviews now appear for 30% of US desktop keywords as of September 2025, up from 10% in March 2025. On mobile, AI Overviews surged nearly 475% year-over-year. This isn’t experimental anymore. It’s mainstream search behaviour.

If your content marketing strategy depends on capturing informational search traffic, AI Overviews directly threaten your acquisition funnel. Understanding how to get cited in AI Overviews becomes as important as ranking #1 used to be.

How Consumer Search Behaviour Actually Changed

The fundamental shift isn’t just where answers appear. It’s how people search.

From Keywords to Conversations:

Users are increasingly comfortable posing long, complex and conversational questions to search engines, with users now asking “What are the best running shoes for a beginner with flat feet training for a 5k?” instead of typing “best running shoes”.

This conversational shift changes everything. Short, generic keywords matter less. Long, specific, question-based queries matter more. Your content needs to answer complete questions, not just target isolated keywords.

Multi-Step Reasoning:

With AI Overviews’ multi-step reasoning capabilities, users can ask complex questions with all nuances and caveats in one go rather than breaking questions into multiple searches.

Example: Instead of searching separately for “yoga studios Boston,” “yoga studio prices” and “new member discounts,” users now ask “find the best yoga or pilates studios in Boston and show me details on their intro offers.” AI Overviews handle this complexity, providing comprehensive answers from multiple sources in one response.

Reduced Patience for Clicking:

The “zero-click search” is more prevalent than ever with AI Overviews, weather widgets and knowledge panels allowing users to get what they need directly from the SERP. People are less willing to sift through multiple articles to piece together information.

This isn’t laziness. It’s efficiency. If AI provides a satisfactory answer, why click through? This behaviour fundamentally challenges the “rank and get traffic” model that agencies have sold for years.

Platform Diversification:

Users are likely seeking answers in other places before Google, like ChatGPT, Perplexity, social platforms or going directly to trusted brands. Google isn’t the only search starting point anymore.

Your “search strategy” now requires thinking beyond Google. Where else do your customers ask questions? Reddit? YouTube? ChatGPT? TikTok? Optimising only for Google means missing huge chunks of search behaviour.

The Zero-Click Search Problem

Zero-click searches are queries where users get answers directly from the search results page without clicking any links. Zero-click searches increased from 56% to 69% between May 2024 and May 2025.

Why This Matters:

If 69% of searches don’t result in clicks, traditional SEO’s core value proposition (drive traffic to your website) becomes significantly less valuable. You can rank #1 and still see traffic collapse because most users don’t need to click anymore.

When Zero-Click Is Actually Helpful:

For simple factual queries (“weather today,” “stock price for Reliance”), zero-click searches provide an excellent user experience. Nobody needs to visit a website to learn today’s temperature.

When Zero-Click Becomes Problematic:

For complex topics requiring depth, nuance and expertise, AI-generated summaries often oversimplify or miss important context. Yet users accept these simplified answers, never realising they’re missing critical information your content provides.

DMG Media, which owns MailOnline and Metro, reports nearly 90% declines for certain searches. Educational platform Chegg reported a 49% decline in their non-subscriber traffic between January 2024 and January 2025, coinciding with AI Overviews answering homework and study questions.

These aren’t minor adjustments. They’re existential threats to businesses built on search traffic.

What This Means for Your Traffic (Spoiler: Nothing Good)

Let’s be brutally honest: for most informational content, traffic is declining and will continue declining.

The One Exception:

If your content is cited in the AI Overview, click-through rates remain significantly higher than non-cited competitors. Being referenced in the AI summary becomes the new “ranking #1.” Get cited or get invisible.

For E-Commerce and Local Businesses:

Initially, AI Overviews did not appear for transactional-based keywords, but they’ve gradually risen to 12.54% as of September 2025. For local queries, AI Overviews appeared for just 0.01% of local keywords in September 2025.

Good news: if you’re selling products or serving local customers, AI Overviews (currently) impact you less. Bad news: that “currently” is doing a lot of work. Transactional AI Overviews are growing. Your immunity is temporary.

How to Optimise Content for AI Search Results

Complaining about AI Overviews is therapeutic but useless. Adapting is mandatory. Here’s how to optimise content for this new reality.

1. Create Comprehensive, Authoritative Content:

Over 99% of AI Overview sources come from the top 10 web results. You still need to rank well traditionally to be considered for AI citations. Depth, accuracy and authority matter more than ever.

Create content demonstrating genuine expertise. Include original research, specific examples and detailed explanations. Generic, surface-level content won’t be cited. AI models favour sources showing clear expertise and providing substantive information.

2. Structure Content for AI Extraction:

AI models scan for clear, direct answers. Structure content to make information extraction easy. Use clear heading hierarchies, include concise definitions at the beginning of sections, format key facts as bullet points or lists, answer questions directly before elaborating and incorporate FAQ sections addressing related queries.

Think of your content as feeding information to an AI system. The easier you make extraction, the more likely you’ll be cited.

3. Implement Structured Data:

Speakable structured data helps AI-powered assistants figure out what part of content to focus on when answering search queries, increasing chances of appearing in AI Overviews.

Implement schema markup for Article, FAQPage, HowTo and relevant structured data types. This gives AI clear signals about your content’s purpose and structure.

4. Target Long-Tail, Conversational Queries

Remember, users now ask complete questions. Optimise for these conversational queries, not just short keywords. Instead of targeting “digital marketing tips,” target “what digital marketing strategies work best for small businesses in India with limited budgets.”

Long-tail queries face less competition while better matching how people actually search in the AI era.

5. Build Topical Authority:

Brands that create consistent and expert-level content power AI answers with authority, not just ranking, but becoming the answer.

Don’t publish one article about a topic. Publish comprehensive coverage. If you’re a digital marketing agency in Ahmedabad, create extensive resources covering every digital marketing subtopic. AI models favour sources demonstrating depth across subjects.

6. Monitor and Adapt:

Use tools tracking AI Overview, with appearances and citations. SEO platforms like SEMrush, SEOClarity and Ahrefs now offer AI Overview tracking. Monitor which content gets cited, analyse why and replicate those patterns.

This isn’t “set and forget” SEO. AI search behaviour evolves constantly. Monthly monitoring and adaptation become mandatory.

7. Diversify Beyond Google:

Users seek answers in places beyond Google, like ChatGPT, Perplexity and social platforms. Optimise content for these platforms too.

Publish on platforms where your audience actually spends time. Create YouTube videos answering common questions. Engage on Reddit in relevant communities. Be present where search behaviour is shifting.

The Future of Search (Brace Yourself)

If you think things have changed dramatically already, you haven’t seen anything yet.

AI Mode and Deep Research:

Google launched AI Mode with more advanced reasoning and multimodality, with the ability to go deeper through follow-up questions. Deep Search can issue hundreds of searches, reason across disparate information and create expert-level, fully-cited reports in minutes.

This means AI won’t just summarise existing content. It will synthesise custom reports combining information from dozens of sources. Individual websites become ingredients in AI-generated research papers that users never leave Google to read.

Multimodal Search:

Search is expanding beyond text. Image search, voice search and video search all integrate with AI systems, understanding context across formats. Video is seeing the largest increase of mentions and inclusions in AI Overviews, with AI tech getting better at parsing videos for text.

Your content strategy needs video, images and text optimised for AI understanding across all formats.

The Pessimistic View:

Websites become content farms feeding AI systems that replace them. Traffic continues declining. Only massive publishers with diverse revenue streams survive whilst smaller content creators struggle.

The Optimistic View:

AI search creates new opportunities for businesses providing genuine expertise. Getting cited in AI responses becomes more valuable than ranking because citations carry implicit endorsement. Quality wins whilst generic content loses.

The truth likely falls somewhere between. Adaptation determines which businesses thrive and which become casualties.

Concluding Thoughts

Consumer search behaviour changed permanently. The “10 blue links” era is over. Yet people still have questions, need answers and make purchase decisions. The game shifted, but didn’t end.

Businesses succeeding now create genuinely valuable, comprehensive content that AI systems want to cite. They build topical authority across entire subject areas rather than targeting isolated keywords. They diversify beyond Google wherever audiences actually search.

If traffic is declining, recognise the entire search paradigm has shifted, not just algorithms. Working with an all-service SEO company in Ahmedabad to understand these shifts isn’t optional. It’s survival.

Start auditing which pages get cited in AI Overviews. Analyse why. Replicate patterns. Structure for AI extraction. Build comprehensive topical coverage. The search revolution happened. Will you adapt fast enough or fade into invisibility?

FAQ’s