A question more and more brand owners are asking
“Google clicks are dropping, but revenue hasn’t dropped—some of my clients are actually doing better. Why?”
We’ve heard this question more than once in consulting sessions. The GSC numbers look like a disaster (see: The Great Decoupling), yet actual revenue hasn’t fallen in step—and for brands that pull strong volume from AI search, the conversion rate actually jumps up.
This isn’t an illusion, and it isn’t a GA4 configuration problem. In June 2025, Ahrefs published a set of its own data that quantifies the phenomenon very clearly.
1. The key numbers Ahrefs published
Ahrefs is one of the largest SEO tool vendors in the industry, with several million visitors a month—so the numbers they run on their own site are a high signal-to-noise sample.
In June 2025, Patrick Stox published a breakdown of ahrefs.com over the previous 30 days:
| Traffic source | Share of total traffic | Share of sign-ups | Per-visit conversion efficiency |
|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional organic search | ~99.5% | ~87.9% | 1× (baseline) |
| AI search (referral clicks from ChatGPT / Perplexity / AI Overviews, etc.) | 0.5% | 12.1% | 23× |
0.5% of traffic drove 12.1% of sign-ups—that’s the math behind the “23x conversion rate.”
Ahrefs also added three supporting details:
- AI visitors have a lower bounce rate (they don’t leave quickly)
- They view roughly 50% more pages than traditional visitors (they browse a few more pages)
- But their time on each visit is shorter
This maps to a reasonable interpretation: AI visitors have already done their comparison before they arrive. They’re not here to research—they’re here to quickly confirm a few key pages and then decide whether to pay. That’s why they browse a few more pages, stay briefly, don’t bounce, and finally pull the trigger.
2. Why are AI visitors so ready to buy?
The answer lies in where they are in the user’s search journey.
The entry point of the traditional SEO funnel sits near the top: a user types a keyword, sees 10 blue links, and may still be wondering “which vendors do I want to compare,” “let me learn a bit about this product,” or “I’ll just bookmark it for now.” Getting from there to sign-up means passing through several more gates.
The entry point of AI search sits near the bottom: the user types a question like “compare X and Y—which one suits me” or “help me pick a CRM that fits a small or medium business.” The AI does the comparison and recommendation for them, and by the time they click through to your link the comparison is already done. All that’s left is to “confirm this brand, then decide whether to pay.”
In other words: AI visitors aren’t top-of-funnel visitors—they’re bottom-of-funnel visitors. Few in number, but each one close to closing.
Another 2025 study from Ahrefs reports that AI referral traffic grew 9.7x over the past 12 months, with three clear jumps in August 2024, November 2024, and May 2025. This trend isn’t a single-engine event—it’s the behavior of the whole market shifting.
3. What it really means for brand strategy
Many brand owners’ first reaction to the data above is: “OK, I’ll add GEO on top, but keep doing SEO, since traffic is still the bulk of it anyway.”
That conclusion points in the right direction, but the framework needs to change.
In the SEO days, the metric you watched was Share of Clicks—of the 10 blue links, how many are yours. That metric still has value in 2026, but it’s no longer enough.
In the age of AI search, the metric to watch is Share of Decisions—at the very moment a user actually makes a purchase or sign-up decision, does the AI’s answer mention you?
The difference between the two metrics: - High Share of Clicks = lots of people come to look at you - High Share of Decisions = lots of people decide because of you
In the zero-click era, the former gets harder and harder to turn into revenue, while the latter converts straight into revenue.
For how to actually measure these 4 layers of metrics (visibility / citation / traffic / conversion) and assemble them into a dashboard that can persuade a CFO, we broke it down in another post: How Do You Measure the ROI of GEO?—4 Credible Metrics and a Monthly Dashboard Template.
4. Why this may matter especially for small and medium businesses
Big brands can absorb a traffic discount—they have brand search, direct visits, and email lists.
Small and medium businesses usually lose in traditional SEO competition; the budgets and backlink bases simply aren’t on equal footing. But in AI search, that disadvantage may be partly leveled out: whether an AI citation mentions you isn’t directly tied to how much traffic your site has—it’s about content structure, authority signals, and third-party discourse.
The post “Is GEO Actually Necessary for Small and Medium Businesses?” digs into the budget-allocation logic; the post “Which Brands Disappear First from the AI Recommendation List?” breaks down which industry types should move first.
5. So what should you do?
Short version: don’t just chase traffic—chase your “share in AI answers.” Concretely, it splits into two tracks:
- Quantify the current state—how many times are you cited by AI right now? Is the cited content correct? Before you’ve quantified it, any strategy is a guess.
- Optimize content for citation rate—this isn’t an SEO playbook (backlinks + keywords); it’s content structure + structured data + third-party consensus (see: How Do AI Search Engines Choose Their Citation Sources?).
👉 Free GEO health check — in 3 minutes, see a concrete score for your site’s readiness in AI search, including a 12-dimension assessment and prioritized improvement recommendations.
Once the health check surfaces the problems, “how to advance content, technical, and third-party authority on all three tracks at once” is where consulting comes in: [email protected]
Data sources: Ahrefs Does AI Search Traffic Convert Better Than Traditional Search? For Ahrefs, Yes (Patrick Stox, 2025-06); Ahrefs AI Traffic Has Increased 9.7x in the Past Year. The Ahrefs figures reflect its own website (B2B SaaS, the SEO tools industry); for sites with different industry profiles, AOVs, and funnel lengths, the actual multiple will vary—the point is the directional conclusion that “AI visitors skew toward the bottom of the funnel,” not the precise “23x” figure.