SEO traffic will drop by 25 percent – ​​because of AI

SEO traffic via search engines such as Google will plummet for website operators in the future. The reason: AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Co. Analysts are currently predicting a decline of around 25 percent by 2026.

Search engines such as Google and Bing provide a large portion of the traffic for many website operators. Due to a market share of over 90 percent (Google 82 percent, Bing 10 percent), alternative search engines such as Ecosia or DuckDuckGo hardly have a chance of keeping up.

But Google and Bing as well as many website operators will also have to accept a loss of traffic in the future. The reason: More and more people are outsourcing their search queries. Instead of classic search engines, they are increasingly using AI tools such as ChatGPT to start search queries.

Because of AI: SEO traffic will drop significantly

As part of a current analysis, the market research company Gartner warns of a collapse in SEO traffic due to AI. According to this, search volume is expected to fall by around 25 percent by 2026.

Correctly means: It's not just search engines like Google and Co. that will lose users. Many website operators will also see fewer clicks from SEO traffic as a result of this decline.

Admittedly, these forecasts do not come as a complete surprise. For around a year now, it has been observed that more and more users are outsourcing their search queries to AI tools such as ChatGPT. But the extent of the drop in traffic is becoming more and more noticeable.

Gartner principal analyst Alan Antin said: “This will force companies to rethink their marketing channel strategy.” His advice: “Businesses need to focus on producing unique content that is useful to customers and potential customers.”

AI spam: Google is getting worse

Another problem: Google currently has a massive problem with AI spam. Fraudsters trick the search engine by creating copies of articles or having an AI write deliberately inferior and incorrect content in order to rise in the rankings and generate clicks.

Google regularly makes algorithm adjustments to downgrade bad content. However, such measures only have a temporary positive effect and seem to be more of a stopgap solution. Because spam websites are always finding new opportunities and ways to climb back up in the rankings and outsmart Google.

Since the end of 2023 at the latest, Google has had several updates in a row and is also lacking in diversity. Individual providers such as Reddit and Quora dominate the SERP results for “discussions and forums”.

The problem is that many comments in these forums contain thematically inappropriate content that was obviously formulated by an AI. The creators are mainly concerned with benefiting from Google rankings by including advertising links and capturing clicks.

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