Solis: Google SEO CTR drops for AIO and Ads

Aktualisiert: 6. März

Key Takeaways:

Solis analyzed Similarweb data of Google SERPs for the 4 verticals headphones, jeans, online games and greeting cards/ecards in the US from November 2025 to January 2026 compared to the previous year
- CTR for Google Organic Results dropped by -10% to -23% (absolute, e.g. from 73% to 50% of SERP clicks going to Organic Results)
- AIO take a major part of the clicks, from 12% to 33% of the SERP clicks
- Ads CTR doubled (Text Ads as well as PLA) reaching 19% to 36% of SERP clicks
- Zero-click searches are high (43% to 65%) but quite stable
This is in line with the report from Seer Interactive in Nov 2025, however they also found decreasing CTR for Ads
Beus adds data from SISTRIX for Germany:
- Bei 20% der Keywords in Deutschland werden AI Overviews ausgespielt
  Die CTR auf Position 1 sinkt von 27% auf 11%. Ein Verlust von fast 60%.
  In Summe: 265 Millionen verlorene organische Klicks pro Monat
Concluding:
- Google is pushing Ads for Revenue and lost its user experience focus completely
- SEO is further becoming an investment for big brands as ROI declines - or rather Cost per Organic Click increases - thus ROI for Content Creation in general declines
- With the push of AI Max and further loss of campaign controls Google Ads becomes a money grab as it can further be optimized to meet Google's targets

Sources: