For over two decades, the standard approach to online search has been the same: users input a query, and search engines like Google present a list of ten blue links, acting as gateways to the wider web. Achieving a high ranking within these search results, through a process known as search engine optimization (SEO), has become a $200 billion industry.
However, the search landscape began to transform over the past couple of years. Companies are now synthesizing and summarizing search results, generating AI-driven answers that often eliminate the need for users to click through to individual websites. While this may offer convenience for users, (disregarding any concerns about accuracy or potential hallucinations) it poses a significant challenge to businesses that depend on search traffic.
One such business, the educational technology firm Chegg, has recently filed a lawsuit against Google in federal district court. Chegg alleges that Google’s AI-generated summaries of its content have diverted traffic from its site and negatively affected its revenue stream. The company reported a 24% year-on-year revenue decline in the fourth quarter of 2024, attributing a portion of this downturn to the changes Google has made to its AI-driven search functionalities.
In its lawsuit, Chegg argues that Google is essentially “reaping the financial benefits of Chegg’s content without having to spend a dime.” A Google spokesperson issued a response, stating that the company would defend itself in court. They emphasized that Google directs “billions of clicks” to websites every day and suggested that its AI overviews have broadened, rather than restricted, the distribution of traffic.
“It’s going to be interesting to see what comes out of it, because we’ve seen content creators anecdotally complaining on Reddit or elsewhere for months now that they are afraid of losing traffic,” commented Aleksandra Urman, a researcher at the University of Zurich specializing in search engines.
Within the SEO field, the level of concern regarding artificial intelligence overviews has been escalating over time. “Chegg’s legal arguments closely align with the ethical concerns the SEO and publishing communities have been raising for years,” noted Lily Ray, a New York-based SEO expert. “While Google has long displayed answers and information directly in search results, AI overviews take this a step further by extracting content from external sites and rewording it in a way that positions Google more as a publisher than a search engine.”
Ray also highlighted a lack of transparency from Google, pointing to uncertainty around whether users actually click on the citations found within AI-generated responses. “The lack of visibility into whether users actually click on citations within AI overviews leaves publishers guessing about the true impact on their organic traffic,” she stated.
Urman added, based on past research on Google’s featured snippets (which displayed excerpts from websites), that affected sites could see a decrease in traffic. “The claim seems plausible,” she said, “but we don’t really have the evidence to say how the appearance of AI overviews really affects user behavior.”
However, the impact of these changes hasn’t been uniformly felt. Ziff Davis CEO Vivek Shah reported on an earnings call that AI overviews had only a minor effect on its web traffic. “AI’s presence remains limited,” he said. “AI overviews are present in just 12% of our top queries.”
Whether Chegg’s situation is an isolated case or a sign of a broader trend remains to be seen. Ray believes Chegg’s lawsuit could be a pivotal moment in the ongoing discussion about AI and SEO. “This case will be fascinating to watch,” she said. “Its outcome could have massive implications for millions of sites beyond just Chegg.”
