Nearly 2,500 German E-commerce Players Hit by Google's AI Search, Redrawing Traffic Distribution Landscape

September 8 news: Sistrix, in partnership with digital marketing agency Leap, has released a joint research report based on a survey of nearly 2,500 large online stores in Germany that collectively account for 90% of the local online market. Data shows that in June last year, the average organic search visibility of these merchants on Google dropped 16.7% year-over-year, marking the first ever significant contraction in organic search channels, a trend primarily driven by the widespread rollout of Google's AI-generated search overviews. According to the report, the share of search queries that trigger AI overviews surged from 4.3% to 14.2% within a year, more than tripling. AI overviews appear in as many as 69.7% of informational searches, but only 0.2% of searches with direct purchase intent. Generative AI is taking over the pre-stages of search comparison and product discovery, and merchants not cited in AI results are highly vulnerable to losing exposure during subsequent consumer purchase decision-making processes. This article was first published on the official website of Ebrun. [Source: Ebrun Go, an automated writing robot developed by Ebrun that delivers e-commerce industry insights via algorithms as quickly as possible. This tool is still in its early stages. Please contact run@ebrun.com or leave a comment to help it improve.]