Top organic CTR down 32% post-AI Overviews, Google Trends API in alpha, Web Guide launches in Search Labs

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Search / SEO

• Top organic result CTR drops 32% since AI Overviews rollout

New data from GrowthSRC Media reveals a 32% decline in click-through rate for Google’s top organic search listing since AI Overviews became widespread. A study of more than 200,000 keywords shows CTR for the #1 result fell from 28% to 19%.

• Google unveils alpha access to its new Google Trends API

Google has launched the Google Trends API (alpha), enabling programmatic access to Trends data—a first for the platform. The API gives developers, marketers, researchers, and journalists direct access to search-interest data for roughly the past five years.

Key features:

• Consistently scaled data across requests, eliminating the rescaling issues common in the web interface
• Support for multiple aggregation intervals (daily, weekly, monthly, yearly) and geo breakdowns down to sub-region level
• A full historical window (~1,800 days) and removal of the web interface’s five-term comparison limit
• Limited alpha access via application—early testers will help shape the final version

SERP features / Interface

• (test) Search results “More” menu gets redesign

Google is testing a redesign under the search bar in which the usual More tab is replaced by More filters, Show more, or More options, depending on the variant. The new labels suggest a move toward more descriptive, actionable interface choices.

• Search-result snippets now include “See more” jump links and embedded topical links

Google is rolling out a feature that adds a See more link (often on hover) within result snippets, letting users jump directly to the relevant section of a page. Some snippets also show clickable words that link to other parts of the same page, guiding searchers to precise content faster.

• Web Guide now available via Search Labs 

A new Search Labs experiment, Web Guide, reorganizes results in the Web tab by using AI to group links by query-relevant aspects. Powered by a custom version of Gemini, Web Guide issues multiple related sub-queries and displays links under intuitive topic headers with brief summaries.

AIO / AI Mode

• AI Overviews reduce clicks significantly

A new Pew Research Center study tracking the March 2025 browsing activity of 900 U.S. adults shows that, when an AI Overview appears, only 8% of users click a traditional result—roughly half the 15% click-through rate on pages without AI Overviews. Links embedded in the summaries were clicked just 1% of the time.

E-commerce

• Virtual try-on and tailored price alerts now live in U.S. shopping results

Google has launched two AI-powered shopping features across U.S. search: virtual try-on for clothing and customizable price alerts. Shoppers can:

• Upload a full-length photo to virtually try on apparel from Google’s Shopping Graph, Google Shopping, and Google Images.
• Set conditions (size, color, and target price) and get notified when a product's price drops to their desired amount—via a new Track price button.

Tidbits

• ChatGPT appears to use Google’s search snippets for answers

Recent tests suggest that when content appears in Google’s index, ChatGPT can surface answers that match Google’s SERP snippets—sometimes before Bing or other sources catch up. In one experiment, a newly created page with a made-up term was indexed only by Google via Search Console. ChatGPT later provided the exact same snippet in response to queries, even though Bing had no listing for the page. Further testing by Aleyda Solis confirmed that ChatGPT consistently replicates Google’s snippet wording and metadata in its answers. This pattern raises the possibility that ChatGPT relies directly on Google’s index or retrieved snippet data—including structured snippet parameters—rather than sourcing content independently.