Google admits AI Mode earns less. Opting out costs clicks too

Google told investors that AI Mode makes less money per search, then Reddit said Google's AI answers are eating its referrals and lost a third of its value. The first opt-out study put AI Overview clicks at under 1%, and sites that opted out lost regular clicks as well. Google, Microsoft and OpenAI agreed on one robots.txt line for AI training. And Google's spam policy now covers pages your users generate with tools.

1. Google says AI Mode earns less per search. Reddit paid for it first

TL;DR Google's Q3 call confirmed AI Mode monetizes below classic search while query growth is the highest in five years. Reddit blamed falling search referrals on AI Overviews and AI Mode, announced a login test, and its stock fell 29%.

Why it matters The two numbers Google celebrates, more queries and more AI usage, are the numbers that cost publishers clicks. Reddit was Google's favoured source for two years and still got squeezed. If it can happen to Reddit, your referral line is not safe either.

What people are saying

• Philipp Schindler said ads in AI Mode earn less than traditional search ads. Glenn Gabe adds the context: search revenue growth slowed to 12% from 19% in Q1, and Google plans more ads inside AI Overviews and AI Mode.
• Reddit's CEO tied the search referral drop to AI Overviews and AI Mode. Glenn's recipe for the drop: AI translations hit by updates, AIOs eating clicks, and forced logins.
• Reddit also said on the call that it is "skeptical of GEO" and won't help advertisers with it.
• Cyrus Shepard's summary: Reddit, Google and your traffic are all down because of AI answers. Kevin Indig is not sure AI Mode is the culprit; fewer people may be searching.

Do this Split your reporting into platform usage and clicks you received. Kevin's point from SparkToro's data: AI tools are 1.8% of US desktop visits and search is 6x larger, but visit share says nothing about what reaches your site.

2. Opting out of AI Overviews cost up to 20% of clicks

TL;DR Cyrus Shepard's small opt-out study found AI features carry about a 0.9% click rate, and sites that opted out lost regular organic clicks too. Kevin Indig's Similarweb analysis puts organic search down 13% in the US over two years, 41% for publishers.

Why it matters Blocking AI Overviews was the one lever publishers thought they had. The study says it zeroes AI impressions and then takes a bite out of the blue links as well. The squeeze is structural: more searches, fewer results, fewer clicks.

What people are saying

• Cyrus: AI links had a 0.9% click rate, opting out also dropped regular organic clicks, and AI answers keep pushing organic down. Barry Schwartz has the write-up.
• Kevin Indig, 10,000 domains over three years: organic fell 13.2% in the US and 24.4% in France, publishing lost 41.5%. Not all of it is AI; paid grew and updates still swing rankings.
• Aleyda's fourth SERP Squeeze Monday, "coffee tumbler": 38% more searches, 8% fewer organic clicks, 41% fewer paid clicks. Ten blue links became five.

Do this Don't opt out to make a point. Instead, pull the AI impressions filter in Search Console for your top 20 queries and compare clicks per impression with the classic results. That's the number to show your boss, not the 0.9%.

3. One robots.txt line for AI training, and Bing splits training from grounding

TL;DR Google will honour a shared AI training control in robots.txt from the IETF's AIPREF work, with Microsoft and OpenAI saying they'll do the same. Bing's new controls let you block training but stay available for grounding and search.

Why it matters Until now each provider had its own token and its own rules. A shared line means one decision for all of them. The Bing split is the useful part: you can refuse training and still be the source AI answers quote.

What people are saying

• Google Search Central: a shared AI training control in robots.txt, building on Google-Extended. Search Engine Journal notes the three companies are handling it differently.
• Microsoft: choose training, grounding, or both, while staying eligible for Bing results.
• Marie Haynes found, with Vanessa Fox's crawl tester, that WP Engine was rate-limiting ClaudeBot without her knowing.

Do this Run Vanessa Fox's tool against your site today. If your host throttles AI bots, your GEO work is invisible before it starts. Then write down your answer to one question: training no, grounding yes, or both.

4. Google's spam policy now covers pages your users generate with tools

TL;DR Google updated its spam guidance to warn sites that let users publish "shareable pages, generated outputs, or interactive tools", and added advice to index only content meant for Search. John Mueller says the systems will catch AI listicle tricks eventually.

Why it matters If your product has a "share this" page, a generated-output URL or a public gallery, Google now says that's your spam to manage. Lily Ray read it as a pointer at Claude artifacts, ChatGPT pages and similar tools. Combine it with Reddit's GEO comment and the message is the same: manufactured mentions are on borrowed time.

What people are saying

• Lily Ray: another clue about what Google will target next. SEJ's weekly pulse covers the indexing advice for pages made for sharing.
• John Mueller: don't use the cheap, fast tactics; eventually the systems catch them.
• Lily on AI-written industry comments everywhere: "Stop. Just stop. It's not working." And a self-promotional listicle that got cited first and lost to a competitor.

Do this If users can publish pages on your domain, set them to noindex by default and whitelist the ones worth indexing. Cancel any AI comment campaign running under your brand.

5. Measurement keeps breaking: Semrush drops Copilot, Gemini drops UTMs, citations churn weekly

TL;DR Semrush will stop Copilot visibility tracking on 9 November because Microsoft blocks it. Gemini quietly stopped adding UTM parameters. Ahrefs tracked 37,500 citations and found volatility is built in, and Sistrix says 20 to 55% of a brand's mentions change every week.

Why it matters Checking one prompt on one day tells you nothing. The tools that promise a daily AI rank are measuring noise, and their data sources can be cut off by the platforms overnight.

What people are saying

• Glenn Gabe: Semrush emailed customers that Copilot tracking ends 11/9. Barry: Gemini stopped appending UTM parameters around 28 September.
• Ahrefs: treat citation volatility as normal; aim to appear more often over time.
• Sistrix via Glenn: one brand appeared on 12 of 28 days with no pattern; net mentions move only 4 to 10% a week. Breadth beats repetition.
• Aleyda: 7 brand marketing methods to measure AI search impact beyond referrals. Search Engine Land on Cloudflare's $20 AEO dashboard, and the open-source GEOInflow for AI crawler and referral logs on your own server.

Do this Track 30 or more buyer questions weekly, report net mention and citation share, and never a single day's answer.

6. Half of ChatGPT messages are Google-style queries, and Google wants your app inside AI Mode

TL;DR OpenAI's updated usage data shows 48% of messages are classic search questions, up from 43%. Google opened a Connected Apps preview so developers can put apps inside AI Mode and Gemini.

Why it matters The search behaviour is moving, not disappearing. And Google just gave product teams a direct seat in the answer: an MCP server that AI Mode can call.

What people are saying

• Kevin Indig went through every file: 48% of messages are Google-style, 20% simple searches and 28% practical guidance; product and price research at work grew 75%.
• Aleyda: information seeking is 20.2% of messages, 25% in Spain and France, 15% in India. Validate AI search demand per market.
• SEJ: Connected Apps preview for AI Mode and Gemini, with a policy against misleading descriptions. Lily's earnings call notes: apps built with MCP can run inside Search and Gemini.

Do this Pages for the 48%: product facts, prices, how-to, written as direct answers. If you run a SaaS, wrap one core function as an MCP server and apply for the preview.

By the numbers

From SeekWinners' US shopping-search sample: 3,477 category terms across 12 categories. This is our data.

• 62% of shopping terms show an AI Overview, flat for the third week. Highest: Health and Beauty at 82% and Electronics at 79%. Lowest: Furniture at 37%.
• YouTube is the top cited host in 12 of 12 categories, with 21% of 8,925 citations. Wikipedia takes another 9%.
• Shopify stores range from 22% of citations in Toys and Games and 19% in Apparel down to 4% in Electronics and Vehicles and Parts.

Rising skills this week

The fastest-growing SEO, GEO and writing skill packs for Claude Code and other agents, ranked by install growth over 7 days on OpenSkills. This is our data. Security audits come from skills.sh.

1. Yomiyasu (nanaism): 16,110 installs, +13.8%, second week at #1. Edits AI-written Japanese so it reads naturally. Japanese only. Audit: pass. npx skills add nanaism/yomiyasu
2. Google Ads API Quickstart (google): 13,717 installs, +9.0%. Google's own pack: credentials, client libraries and a first campaign query. Audit: pass.
3. Better Writing (jakubkrehel): 31,377 installs, +8.5%. Improves interface copy in a codebase: clear labels, consistent terms, actionable errors. Audit: pass. npx skills add jakubkrehel/skills

Also rising: Humanizer (+8.3%, third week) and Vercel Writing Guidelines (+7.0%, now 113,851 installs). How we rank: whole packs, not single skills, with at least 200 new installs in 7 days.

Worth a click

• Links (vet every one): Borja's 69 backlink tactics ranked by tier; a dofollow listing from an EmDash plugin or a Make integration; search operators for blogs, resource pages and guest-post pages; Jesper's SomePoster adds Gist, GitHub Pages and Gamma; a Grok bot sent to submit backlinks; SEJ's link building graveyard.
• Local and EMDs: Aspen Dental's new-office page, built to rank from day one; Cody's exact-match-domain directory from Maps data and AEO is SEO on three engines; Mila's 30 to 135 clicks a day on an affiliate EMD; Connor on hyperlocal pSEO; Paul's tier list for a new site's first 1,000 clicks.
• Scouting: watch what tool sites submit to directories to see which words they chase; Semrush's 88% commercial AIO figure next to Chartbeat's search share falling from 21% to 12%.
• Agents doing SEO: Paul's one agent, five departments and Nicholas's ecom SEO plus GEO playbook, both selling a tool; Josh Pigford running his AI SEO system on five outside sites; Keval's 5-step process and agency notes; daluoseo's first moves for Connected Apps.
• Tools: num=100 may be coming back; "Try without personalization" is the new incognito; OpenAI's Aura can block your site silently; Aleyda's Claude skill for prioritizing third-party citations; Google's bot impersonation got worse with AI.
• Reading: big brands dominate AI search but leave openings; a Google Ads buyer on why search revenue growth looks artificial.

From CiteCycle

Theme 5 is the case for breadth: one prompt on one day is noise, many questions every week is a signal. CiteCycle asks ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Google AI Overviews your buyers' questions each week and records mentions and citations separately, so you see the net share move, not the daily churn.