For more than two decades, users have turned to search engines like Google, typed in a query, and received a familiar list of 10 blue linksthe gateway to the wider web. Ranking high on that list, through search engine optimization (SEO), has become a $200 billion business.
But in the past two years, search has changed. Companies are now synthesizing and summarizing results into AI-generated answers that eliminate the need to click through to websites. While this may be convenient for users (setting aside concerns over hallucinations and accuracy) its bad for businesses that rely on search traffic.
One such business, educational tech firm Chegg, has sued Google in federal district court, alleging that AI-generated summaries of its content have siphoned traffic from its site and harmed its revenue. Chegg reported a 24% year-on-year revenue decline in Q4 2024, which it partly attributes to Googles AI-driven search changes.
In the lawsuit, the company alleges that Google is reaping the financial benefits of Cheggs content without having to spend a dime. A Google spokesperson responded that the company will defend itself in court, emphasizing that Google sends billions of clicks to websites daily and arguing that AI overviews have diversifiednot reducedtraffic distribution.
Its going to be interesting to see what comes out of it, because we’ve seen content creators anecdotally complaining on Reddit or elsewhere for months now that they are afraid of losing traffic, says Aleksandra Urman, a researcher at the University of Zurich specializing in search engines.
Within the SEO industry, anxiety over artificial intelligence overviews has been mounting. Cheggs legal arguments closely align with the ethical concerns the SEO and publishing communities have been raising for years, says Lily Ray, a New York-based SEO expert. While Google has long displayed answers and information directly in search results, AI overviews take this a step further by extracting content from external sites and rewording it in a way that positions Google more as a publisher than a search engine.
Ray points to Googles lack of transparency, particularly around whether users actually click on citations in AI-generated responses. The lack of visibility into whether users actually click on citations within AI overviews leaves publishers guessing about the true impact on their organic traffic, she says.
Urman adds that past research on Googles featured snippetswhich surfaced excerpts from websitesshowed a drop in traffic for affected sites. The claim seems plausible, she says, but we don’t really have the evidence to say how the appearance of AI overviews really affects user behavior.
Not all companies are feeling the squeeze, however. Ziff Davis CEO Vivek Shah said on an earnings call that AI overviews had little effect on its web traffic. AIs presence remains limited, he said. AI overviews are present in just 12% of our top queries.
It remains to be seen whether Chegg is an outlier or a bellwether. Ray, for her part, believes its lawsuit could be a pivotal moment in the fight over AI and SEO. This case will be fascinating to watch, she says. Its outcome could have massive implications for millions of sites beyond just Chegg.
