Humanity seeks out information online - that is a behavior that has remained synonymous with search engines for more than two decades.
No matter which editorial resource you prefer to read in the search community, the conversation is overwhelmingly skewed towards strategies for maximizing AI visibility. Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, and even the Moz Blog have transformed in the past six months from purveyors of SEO wisdom to broadcasters of emerging AI visibility strategies. Just about every marketing agency that specialized in search, now specializes in GEO. Even Google released guidelines about optimizing your website for generative AI features on search.
AI has permeated the marketing and advertising industry in a manner which is irreparable and mildly disconcerting. And don’t get me wrong – this is where the world is headed. Humanity seeks out information online – that is a behavior that has remained synonymous with search engines for more than two decades. Though the mechanism of how that process takes place may change (as it always has), the use of digital tools to retrieve information resources has become a fundamental component of digitally integrated living. So long as the majority of humanity carries a smartphone, search will exist, in one form or another. Those businesses which adapt to the new paradigm now, by creating content that wins in ChatGPT, will stand a much better chance of succeeding in the economic era just beyond the horizon.
But I must tell you in confidence, there’s one aspect of this transition from SEO to…GEO, AEO, AI Visibility Optimization…or whatever we’re calling it…that bothers me each time I read a salient article about strategies to build visibility in AI search.
The numbers still don’t add up when it comes to how traffic is moving around the internet.
We are all well aware of the data-based reality of the current search ecosystem – organic click through rate is collapsing. 68% of searches end without a click. ChatGPT commands 92% of AI referral traffic (as of this writing). But there’s more to this story. Referral traffic from ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude is still abysmal compared to Google Organic traffic (at least for the three dozen or so GA4 profiles that I monitor on a weekly (sometimes daily) basis. What does that really mean? Is this all preparation for what is to come, rather than what is right now?
Ahrefs to the rescue on that subject.
If you haven’t discovered Chatgpt-vs-Google.com – you’re in for a treat. While part of me wishes the site adopted a more comedic perspective on this irreverent competition (shoutout to the now legendary searchenginerapbattle.com) – the AHrefs data set is, inarguably, spectacular.
AHrefs has compiled the monthly total traffic of 74,752 sites that joined Ahrefs Web Analytics by June 2025, tracking the same fixed cohort each month to show overall traffic changes over time. Why is that significant? Because it provides a mostly Infallible baseline for what’s happening in the search ecosystem, as traffic distribution shifts.
These are a few of the charts which I consider most important to monitor over time:
What does Absolute Traffic by Channel from AHrefs tell us? Well – plain and simple – aggregate organic traffic across the entirety of the sample set is eroding, and we have yet to see AI referral traffic increase substantially. This is confirmation that audiences simply are not moving from generated results to websites. That trend will intensify as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, and who knows what other platforms develop a symbiotic relationship with humanity’s need for digital information.
What can we learn from a comparison of traffic source volumes month over month? Well, for starters, we can see that Direct traffic and Search Traffic represent ~70% of all traffic to the websites in the sample set. That’s still an enormous number compared to any other source. This suggests that while organic traffic is eroding – it has not fully collapsed, and that humanity (and a growing number of agents) is still accessing websites via organic search (as of July 2026).
This might be my favorite of the charts that AHrefs provides – because it demonstrates that traffic decline from Google Organic is intensifying. Notice that drop around March of this year? That’s about the time most of the agencies I respect began to formally transition their core service offerings from “SEO” to “GEO”. It’s now all about “being discovered everywhere“
AHrefs does an incredible job of providing a summary of what this data, in totality, represents.
This is “bleak” picture – at best. But, (and that’s a big “but”, I cannot lie – you other brothers can’t deny…) I think Dr. Pete Myers really said it best in his latest article on Moz:
SEO. Still. Matters.
Even Google reiterated this in their “AI Optimization Guide”:
So…instead of traditional keyword research…we should be concerned with Query Fan Out. Instead of hyper focused on page optimization, we should be concerned with writing and structuring content for AI retrieval.
Does this mean you still need to hire an SEO?
Probably yes.
…Because there’s so much more to building visibility for a brand, or acquiring a specific audience, than ever before.
Your brand narrative matters. Becoming a genuine purveyor of information, resources, entertainment, and value for your audience is more crucial than its ever been.
Becoming an effective story teller…will make or break your brand.
Standing out in a crowd of competitors – with unique value propositions – is more crucial than its ever been.
Understanding the state of AI visibility is more crucial than ever before…and inevitably…businesses will need to learn how to leverage advertising products – such as Google Ads and Ads for ChatGPT – in order to stay relevant.
Because we all can’t be influencers…
Not every business can sustainably afford to pay influencers for a flash in the pan…
…and every business will still need to find opportunities to optimize for growth.
