On Election Day, Google Search sent news publishers eight times more clicks than usual. The data was published by Search Engine Land. The click-through rate (CTR) rose from 2.6% to 6.3% — more than doubling.
The reason for the surge was a change in the format of search results. Instead of AI Overviews — AI-generated summaries that appear at the top of the results page and often answer a query without a click through to a site — Google displayed blocks with live election results and a Top Stories section with links to media coverage.
The difference in the numbers is telling: when links to news publications occupy the top positions, users click through to them actively. When an AI summary forms the answer, a significant share of traffic stays inside the search engine. For publishers dependent on search traffic, that difference directly affects audience and advertising revenue.
The Election Day case shows how strongly the structure of search results determines the distribution of traffic between Google and news sites. During periods of heightened demand for current information — and elections are exactly such an event — the search engine prioritizes live data and links to primary sources over automatic summaries.
Whether this model will hold after the election cycle ends remains an open question. The data does show, however, that the presence of AI Overviews in results substantially reduces the number of clicks through to publishers' sites, while dropping them in favor of traditional news blocks brings the traffic back.
