This week’s Pulse covers how AI Overviews have an effect on click on habits, what unbiased analysis reveals, and what earnings stories from Google and Microsoft reveal about search income.
Right here’s what issues for you and your work.
Reid Repeats “Bounce Clicks” Argument On Bloomberg
Google’s head of Search, Liz Reid, instructed Bloomberg’s Odd Heaps podcast that AI Overviews are decreasing “bounce clicks” from writer pages. She has made variations of this argument in public appearances since final yr.
Key info: Reid described bounce clicks as visits the place customers rapidly click on a web page, get a reality, and go away, noting AI Overviews take away such visits moderately than deeper ones. Google hasn’t supplied information to confirm this, and third-party analyses present decrease click-through charges when AI Overviews are current.
Why This Issues
Reid’s clarification has stayed constant throughout no less than three public appearances over the previous yr. The argument is that misplaced clicks have been low-value to start with, so publishers aren’t dropping the visits that matter. The issue is that Google nonetheless hasn’t shared the info behind that declare.
Till Google publishes site visitors or engagement metrics that separate bounce clicks from deeper visits, the reason is a story, not a discovering.
Learn our full protection: Google Pushes “Bounce Clicks” Rationalization For AI Overview Visitors Loss
Subject Experiment Finds AI Overviews Reduce Natural Clicks 38%
Researchers on the Indian College of Enterprise and Carnegie Mellon College revealed a working paper, which assessments the results of AI Overviews on consumer habits in a randomized discipline experiment.
Key info: The research used a Chrome extension to assign 1,065 U.S. contributors to 3 teams: regular Search, Search with out AI Overviews, and AI Mode. When AI Overviews appeared, natural clicks dropped 38%, and zero-clicks rose 33%. Eradicating AI Overviews didn’t have an effect on satisfaction, perceived high quality, or ease of discovering info.
Why This Issues
The authors describe their work as the primary randomized experiment to isolate the causal impact of AI Overviews on clicks. Prior research from Seer, Chartbeat, and Pew have been observational or correlational. The randomized design permits the researchers to say that AI Overviews induced the press discount, not simply that the 2 appeared collectively.
The satisfaction discovering places stress on Reid’s argument. If eradicating AI Overviews doesn’t scale back consumer satisfaction, it’s tougher to argue that the misplaced clicks have been primarily low-value visits.
Learn our full protection: Google’s AI Overviews Reduce Clicks With out Satisfaction Achieve: Report
Google Search Income Grew 19% In Q1
Alphabet reported Q1 2026 income of $109.9 billion. Google Search income hit $60.4 billion, up 19% yr over yr, accelerating from 17% progress in This autumn 2025.
Key info: CEO Sundar Pichai stated queries are at an all-time excessive and that AI experiences are tied to elevated Search utilization. Google Cloud crossed the $20 billion quarterly income mark, up 63%. Pichai instructed analysts that extra details about Search will come at Google I/O in Could.
Why This Issues
The income progress doesn’t settle the click-impact query. Google reported larger Search income and extra queries, however these numbers describe the advert enterprise, not the writer site visitors aspect. Increased income is in step with each “clicks are positive” and “clicks are down, however advert yield per question is up.”
Google’s AI options could also be creating new advert alternatives, however the earnings information doesn’t present whether or not your pages are getting extra or fewer clicks from AI-influenced outcomes.
What Folks Are Saying
Matthew Scott Goldstein, Unbiased Analyst/Advisor/Advisor at .msg, wrote on LinkedIn:
“That is what extraction at scale seems to be like dressed up as innovation. The identical content material fueling AI Overviews, Gemini solutions, and enterprise token quantity is the content material publishers have sued over, misplaced referral site visitors over, and watched get re-monetized inside a closed product.”
Learn our full protection: Google Search Income Grew 19% In Q1, Pichai Cites AI
Microsoft Says Bing Reached 1 Billion Month-to-month Energetic Customers
Microsoft introduced throughout its Q3 FY2026 earnings name that Bing has reached 1 billion month-to-month lively customers for the primary time. CEO Satya Nadella revealed the determine alongside an 18% general income enhance to $82.9 billion.
Key info: Search advert income, excluding site visitors acquisition prices, grew 12% yr over yr. Edge maintained browser market share beneficial properties for the twentieth straight quarter. The section that features Bing was down 1% general at $13.2 billion.
Why This Issues
The 1 billion MAU milestone is notable, however Bing’s world search share sits at about 5% per StatCounter’s March 2026 information. That hole suggests the MAU determine wants context. Microsoft hasn’t outlined frequency, overlap, or how AI-related Bing utilization is counted.
On the AI search measurement aspect, Microsoft previewed Quotation Share and three different Bing Webmaster Instruments options at web optimization Week earlier this month. When these ship, they might give Bing Webmaster Instruments customers a clearer technique to evaluate AI quotation visibility in opposition to rivals on Bing.
Learn our full protection: Microsoft Says Bing Reached 1B Month-to-month Energetic Customers
Theme Of The Week: Everybody Is Measuring A Totally different Half Of Search
Each story this week is about the identical query requested from a unique angle: What’s AI doing to look site visitors?
Reid says the misplaced clicks have been low-value. The sphere experiment reveals that the misplaced clicks got here with none trade-off in consumer satisfaction. Google’s earnings say income is up 19%. Microsoft’s earnings say Bing hit a consumer milestone, however it nonetheless holds a 5% share. Each measures one thing actual, and none of them measure the identical factor.
The hole between what platforms report and what publishers expertise doesn’t seem like closing. The general public information wanted to reply the press query immediately nonetheless isn’t obtainable. Per-query click on habits segmented by AI characteristic presence isn’t in any instrument that Google or Microsoft has shipped.
High Tales Of The Week:
Extra Assets:
Featured Picture: PeopleImages/Shutterstock; Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal
