organic traffic calculator
Enter search volume and select position, then click 'Calculate' to estimate organic traffic.
Search Organic Traffic in the AI Era
Why ranking #1 may no longer guarantee the clicks
With the rollout of Google AI Overviews (formerly part of the Search Generative Experience) Google now surfaces a synthesized summary of web content above traditional organic listings. These summaries draw from multiple sources and appear for many informational queries.
What this means for organic traffic?
When you’re ranking well (say position 1–3) but an AI Overview appears above your listing, you could see fewer clicks than expected despite your high ranking. In effect, you’re “losing share” of impressions that might have resulted in clicks before the AI Overview existed.
For a practical example: imagine a keyword with 10,000 searches per month, and you rank #1. Historically you might expect a CTR of, say, 30%. That yields around 3,000 visits. But with AI Overviews present, if CTR for #1 dips by ~30% (in line with the Ahrefs finding), your visits could drop to about 2,100. That difference matters for SEO strategy, traffic forecasting and client presentations.
WeDoSEO’s Organic Traffic Estimator for the AI Era
At WeDoSEO, we’ve been tracking the impact of AI Overviews on organic performance across multiple industries — from SaaS to eCommerce and content sites. Our data confirms what the market studies show: when Google’s AI Overview appears, organic clicks drop significantly even if rankings remain stable.
Across hundreds of monitored keywords, we observed that:
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The average CTR for position 1 falls by 35% when an AI Overview appears.
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Positions 2–5 see reductions between ~40%, depending on the query intent.
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Branded or transactional terms are less affected, while informational queries experience the largest declines.
To help clients forecast more realistically, we built the WeDoSEO Organic Traffic Calculator.
How the Calculator Works
Enter the following:
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Estimated monthly searches (E) for a keyword
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Your Google position (P) — choose between 1 and 10
Then click “Calculate” to see your estimated traffic with AI Overview.
CTR assumptions (pre-AI):
| Position | Avg CTR (No AI) | CTR w/ AI Overview (-37%) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 30% | 18% |
| 2 | 15% | 10% |
| 3 | 10% | 6.6% |
| 4 | 7% | 5% |
| 5 | 5% | 3.8% |
| 6–10 | 3% → 1% | 1.4% → 0.63% |
Summary
AI Overviews are reshaping the search landscape — and even top-ranking pages can lose up to 40% of their clicks when AI summaries appear. As WeDoSEO’s data shows, a keyword that once drove 3,000 visits may now bring only 1,890 — not because your rankings dropped, but because visibility shifted to AI.
Want to know how much traffic you’re really getting in the AI era?
👉 Use WeDoSEO’s AI Overview Traffic Calculator to estimate your true organic reach and uncover where your opportunities still lie.
