Surely, in recent times, you have heard or read more than once that “AI has put an end to SEO”. However, this strong assertion is not accurate. This has been demonstrated by the agency Graphite in collaboration with the AI-powered digital data analytics platform Similarweb, after analyzing organic search traffic trends from more than 40,000 of the largest websites in the United States, as well as data from Google and other major search engines.
The analysis published by Graphite focuses on debunking four key myths that form the basis of the idea that SEO is dying.
The first myth tackled by Graphite and Similarweb is: “SEO traffic has declined by -25% and could soon decline by -50%”. For this, they analyzed the 40,000 largest websites in the U.S. and compared their visit data from the period February 2024 to December 2024 with the period January 2025 to November 2025.
The study reveals that organic traffic from Google to websites has decreased slightly (-2.5% year-over-year), but not drastically. In addition, the decline in SEO traffic was primarily concentrated among mid-sized websites (those ranking from 100th to 10,000th among those analyzed). In contrast, the smallest and largest websites saw their number of visits increase.
Source: Graphite and Similarweb
Overall, the top 10 websites increased their organic traffic by nearly 2%, with Wikipedia.org (-3%), Amazon.com (-1%), Quora.com (-45%), and Yahoo.com (-1%) being the only ones in this group that saw their organic visits decrease. Meanwhile, Instagram.com experienced the most significant growth, with an increase of +21%.
If we focus on the category-specific data, we find that the only categories that increased their organic traffic were “shopping portals” (+12%), “clothing” (+8%), “marketplaces” (+8%), “coupons and rebates” (+6%), “social networks” (+4%), and “international news and media” (+4%).
Conclusion: While it is true that organic traffic from Google to websites has declined (-2.5%), this change has not occurred alarmingly. This outcome aligns with the statements made by Google in August 2025, in which it affirmed that: “Overall, the total volume of organic clicks from Google Search to websites has remained relatively stable year over year.”
The second myth examined was: “The spectacular growth of LLMs has caused people to use them instead of searches. More than 60% of people now use LLMs instead of search engines, and visits to Google are quickly declining.”
However, according to this research, global web traffic increased in 2025 both for Google (+0.8%) and for the major search engines (+0.4%). Looking at the historical trend, traffic to search engines grew by 6.9% from 2019 to 2020, increased by 3.4% in 2021, declined by -1.5% in 2022, and has achieved a degree of stability since 2023 (-1%).
The study also compiles data regarding visits to Google Search worldwide, concluding that duplicate visitors (individuals using various devices, such as mobile phones or desktop computers, to access the web) decreased slightly between 2024 and 2025 (-0.3%). Nevertheless, if we compare only the data from the fourth quarter of 2024 with the same period in 2025, there is a 1.4% increase.
Conclusion: Search engines remain relevant and we continue to rely on them. In 2025, traffic increased slightly for both Google (+0.8%) and the main search engines (+0.4%). And, while visits to Google saw a small dip for all of 2025 (-0.3%), in the last quarter these numbers proved strong (1.4%).
The analysis also debunks the idea that “AI Overviews have led to a drastic reduction in click-through rates, causing SEO traffic to fall dramatically.”
Indeed, AI Overviews have resulted in a -34.5% drop in CTR, according to a study by Ahrefs published in April 2025. However, when addressing this myth, it is necessary to consider certain nuances, since these AI views are displayed only 30% of the time, according to another Ahrefs report released in July 2025.
AI Overviews tend to appear more frequently for informational queries, while commercial or transactional keywords are less likely to generate these AI views. Graphite and Similarweb argue that, in this way, the most valuable keywords are hardly affected. Of course, this may be debatable if you are, for example, a media outlet that primarily targets informational keywords.
On another note, AI Overviews are generated for 25% of non-branded keywords and for 13% of branded keywords.
Conclusion: AI Overviews have replaced Featured Snippets, which previously appeared 20% of the time. However, these AI-generated views are only shown 30% of the time, resulting in a -35% drop in CTR when they appear.
The last myth addressed in the analysis is as follows: “Google is ‘stealing clicks’ by increasingly diverting clicks from organic results to ads”.
After examining the data from more than 40,000 of the highest-traffic websites in the United States, it was determined that, on Google, the ratio of organic clicks to ad clicks has declined by 7%. Nonetheless, if we look at the broader picture, we realize that 90% of all clicks on Google are for organic results, with paid results accounting for only 10%.
Conclusion: There has indeed been an increase in ad clicks, but organic clicks continue to account for the vast majority (90%).
Photo: Depositphotos
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