AI search and your website: what changes, and what does not

For a growing share of searches, Google now writes an answer at the top of the page, assembled by AI from several sites, before any blue link. Other AI tools answer questions directly and mention sites as sources, or do not. The headlines say search is over. The Search Console graphs we watch across the sites we look after say something more specific.

What actually changed

Clicks on informational searches fell. “How to fix a dripping tap”, “what is a security header”: the answer appears at the top, many people read it and leave. Sites built on that kind of traffic lost a large share of it through 2025 and 2026, and it is not coming back.

Clicks on business searches did not fall the same way. “Plumber near me”, “website security service”, “boiler repair Leeds”, “buy this product”: people still want a business, a price, a person, and an AI summary does not replace that. The map pack, the service pages and the business profile still get the click.

And a new kind of visit appeared: people arriving after an AI tool named the business. Small numbers, but from people who already trust the recommendation. Those convert well.

What this means for a business website

The advice from a few years ago, write lots of articles about general questions to bring traffic, then hope some of it converts, works worse every year. The traffic arrives less, and when it arrives it reads the AI answer instead.

What still works is narrower and more honest:

• Pages for the searches that mean someone wants to buy. Service pages, location pages, product pages, pricing pages. These are what the business search shows, and what AI tools cite when someone asks “who should I use for this”.
• Being the clear, specific answer. AI systems assemble their answers from pages that state things plainly: what it is, what it costs, how long it takes, where. A page that says “we do emergency callouts within four hours, fixed price quoted first” gets quoted. A page that says “solutions tailored to your needs” does not.
• Original information. Your own data, your own examples, your own numbers. An AI cannot summarise what only you have. Our scanner’s aggregate results are this for us; for a trade it might be real prices and real timescales; for a firm it might be a genuine case study with numbers.
• The business profile and reviews. For local businesses, more important than ever, because the map pack sits under the AI answer and still gets the calls.
• The brand. Searches for your name, direct visits, and people who ask an AI “is this company good” and get an answer assembled from your reviews and your site. Consistent name, address and description everywhere; real reviews; a site that says who you are.

What to stop doing

Publishing general how-to articles to attract traffic that no longer clicks. Writing for keyword volume rather than for the customer who would pay. Measuring SEO by visits rather than by enquiries.

What to keep doing

Everything technical still applies: a site Google can index, fast, with clear titles, structured data and one address per page. AI systems read the same pages Google indexes; a site that is invisible to Google is invisible to them too.

Our honest read

Search is not over. Informational traffic is worth less, and business intent is worth the same or more. A business site built around what it sells, saying it plainly, kept technically clean, with a live profile and real reviews, is in a better position than it was five years ago, because the sites that were competing for attention with volume are losing it. That is the site we build, and it is the site the scanner is designed to check.