SISTRIX analyzed more than 100 million German keywords and found that Google AI Reviews reduce the click-through rate of the first position from 27% to 11%. The impact varies depending on the industry.
Google AI Overviews reduce the click-through rate of the first organic position in Germany by 59%, according to SISTRIX analysis of more than 100 millions of keywords.
The data published by founder Johannes Beus quantifies a phenomenon that has already been documented in various studies in different markets. This dataset stands out for its size and the fact that it provides detailed information by category in Germany.
- What the data shows
- The impact depends on the site category
- The greatest loss of organic traffic
- Comparison with other markets
- Why this is important for SEO
- What’s next
What the data shows
SISTRIX found that AI responses appear in about 20% of all keywords in German search results. This is close to the Ahrefs study, which recorded about 21% in the U.S. market in November, although the data sets cover different markets and use different methodologies.
When AI Overviews are present, the click-through rate (CTR) in the first position drops from 27% to 11%. In all positions, a regular search leads to an organic click in 57% of cases without an AI response. With the AI response, this figure drops to 33%.
About 79% of Google AI Overviews in German results appear above organic search results. The rest are placed below, after the first few organic results.
SISTRIX estimates a total loss of 265 million organic clicks per month across the German market. On average, for all keywords, including those with no AI responses, this amounts to a loss of 6.6% of clicks.
The impact depends on the site category
SISTRIX analyzed the data by category, and the difference between the most and least affected categories turned out to be significant.
Parenting websites and parenting content lost over 24% of their organic clicks. Categories related to health and home renovation also showed losses well above average.
On the other hand, recipe sites like Chefkoch lost about 1% of clicks. News and media sites lost 7.37%, which is below the average. Shopping and travel booking sites were minimally affected.
According to SISTRIX’s Beus, information requests have been the most affected. Transactional searches, where the user needs to perform an action that cannot be replaced with a short AI response, are mostly unaffected.
The greatest loss of organic traffic
Wikipedia is the leader in absolute numbers — it is estimated that it lost 31.6 million clicks per month in Germany, which is about 5% of its traffic from Google in this region. This is followed by DocCheck (4.8 million), AOK (4 million), ADAC (3.1 million) and Pons (3.1 million).
In percentage terms, specialized medical portals suffered the most. According to SISTRIX, lumedis.de lost 30% of organic clicks, ratgeber-herzinsuffizienz.de — 29%, herzstiftung.de is also 29%.
Sites with minimal losses include wetter.com (0.18%), Booking.com (0.46%), Idealo (0.85%) and Amazon (1.73%).
Comparison with other markets
Data for Germany correspond to trends in other regions, but comparisons are limited due to differences in methods and keywords used.
A Pew Research Center study on search queries in the United States showed that users click on links in 8% of cases when AIO is present, compared with 15% without it. This is a relative decrease of 47%. The GrowthSRC analysis revealed a 32% drop in click-through rate for the top position in the United States.
In Germany, this is a drop (59% for the first position) even higher. Current data does not allow us to say definitively whether this is due to real differences between markets or to differences in measurement methods.
Why this is important for SEO
The most useful part of this data when managing organic search in European markets is the categorization. An average loss of clicks of 6% may seem uncritical, but a loss of 24% in your particular niche is a different situation.
According to SISTRIX, the search volume alone no longer allows you to accurately predict traffic if AIOs are active in the output. Now, when analyzing keywords, it is important to consider whether AIO appears in your category and whether it affects CTR.
What’s next
In August last year, SISTRIX reported a 17% share of AIO in Germany, now it is already 20%. Growth has slowed, but the presence of this feature in German search results continues to increase.
SISTRIX is a commercial SEO analytics provider. All the data in this analysis is based on their own keyword database.