France Joins the Zero-Click Trend as AI Overviews Slash Click-Through Rates

On July 22, 2026, France became the latest major search market to experience the widespread integration of AI Overviews. This rollout provided a unique opportunity to observe the immediate impact of this new search feature on website traffic, unlike previous implementations where the introduction of AI Overviews was often masked by broader algorithm updates. A comprehensive study by Ahrefs tracked 963 domains in Google Search Console for 28 days prior to and nine days following the launch in France. The findings, analyzed by data scientist Xibeijia Guan, reveal a significant and immediate decline in click-through rates (CTR) for French websites directly impacted by AI Overviews.

The study found that domains most exposed to AI Overviews experienced a substantial drop in their click-through rates, losing over a fifth of their traffic within just nine days. In stark contrast, domains with minimal exposure to AI Overviews saw negligible changes in their CTR, strongly indicating that the observed decline is a direct consequence of AI Overviews rather than a general algorithm update or seasonal fluctuation.

Key Findings from the French Market Analysis:

Across the studied panel of French domains, the overall median click-through rate fell by 3.4% in the nine days following the AI Overview launch. However, for those domains most exposed to AI Overviews, the CTR plummeted by a staggering 23.1%, which is six times the overall market average. This impact was not isolated to a few outliers; 82.2% of highly exposed domains reported a loss in CTR, suggesting that avoiding negative consequences has become the exception rather than the rule for heavily impacted sites.

The relationship between AI Overview exposure and CTR loss appears to be linear. For every percentage point increase in AI Overview exposure across all 963 domains studied, there was a corresponding approximate one-point decrease in click-through rate. This correlation suggests that if a website’s queries trigger an AI Overview for 15% of searches, it can anticipate a loss of roughly 15% in its CTR. This provides a quantifiable metric for estimating potential traffic loss, allowing website owners to assess their risk based on their exposure rate derived from tools like Ahrefs’ Site Explorer.

Impressions Remain Stable, Clicks Decline:

A significant observation is that the introduction of AI Overviews has not led to a widespread loss of rankings. Websites continue to appear in search results with the same or even increased frequency (impressions). The core issue is that these increased impressions are not translating into clicks. This phenomenon mirrors patterns observed in previous Ahrefs studies, including a global analysis conducted in late 2025 and the broader trend referred to as "the great decoupling." AI Overviews, rather than removing content from search engine results pages (SERPs), render it redundant within the SERP itself. In extreme cases, some French websites experienced a dramatic increase in impressions (up to +183%) coupled with a sharp decrease in clicks (up to -1.9%), effectively dividing their CTR by more than three.

Market-Wide Impact and Distribution:

While the 23.1% CTR drop represents the experience of the most exposed sites, the overall market median decline for CTR was 5.7%, and for clicks, it was 8.8%. However, this median figure masks a more concerning distribution of impact. Nearly half of the websites studied experienced a click loss exceeding 10% within the nine-day period, and one in twenty lost as much as 50% of their clicks.

Furthermore, the exposure to AI Overviews is expected to continue its upward trajectory. Currently, the median AI Overview rate among the studied French domains stands at 5.4%, with 29% already exceeding 10%. These figures have consistently trended upwards in all markets where AI Overviews have been implemented since 2024. Notably, .fr domains within the Ahrefs panel lost 12.3% of their clicks at the median, indicating that French websites are more susceptible to the impact of AI Overviews than international competitors operating within the same market.

Sector-Specific Vulnerability: Health Dominates:

The health sector emerged as the most severely affected. Health-related queries exhibit the highest AI Overview rate in the study, at 22.2%, and consequently, this sector saw a 20.4% decline in click-through rate. This heightened vulnerability is attributed to the nature of health queries, which are typically informational, often have concise answers, and do not inherently lead to immediate transactional outcomes. Such queries are perfectly suited for absorption by AI Overviews, where the answer is provided directly within the search interface, satisfying the user’s immediate need without requiring a click-through.

The determining factor for a website’s fate is not its industry vertical but the intent behind the queries it ranks for. Queries that can be answered with a single paragraph are at high risk of being lost to AI Overviews. Conversely, queries requiring tools, account logins, price comparisons, purchases, or human opinions tend to hold up better against the impact of AI Overviews.

Future Outlook: Worsening Trends Expected:

The observed impact of -23.1% is likely not the peak of the decline. Global research conducted by Ahrefs has tracked a similar effect over two years, showing a progression in the impact of AI Overviews on position 1 click-through rates from -34.5% in spring 2025 to -58% by the end of 2025. This trend indicates that the impact of AI Overviews intensifies over time, as they are triggered on an increasing number of queries and users become more accustomed to receiving answers directly from the search interface. There is no indication that France will deviate from this trajectory, and further analysis is planned to monitor the long-term evolution of these trends.

Methodology and Final Considerations:

The reported -23.1% median CTR figure represents the raw observed change for highly exposed groups. When adjusted for a control group whose CTR actually rose by 2.3% during the same period, the true effect of AI Overviews on highly exposed sites is estimated to be -24.8%.

In conclusion, two weeks after the introduction of AI Overviews in France, the most exposed websites experienced a significant reduction in their click-through rates, while less exposed sites remained largely unaffected. The linear relationship between exposure and CTR loss provides a measurable risk assessment tool for website owners. The data underscores the critical importance of focusing on click-through rate as the key performance indicator, rather than impressions, which have not seen a decline. The observed magnitudes of these declines align with findings from other industry analyses, reinforcing the ongoing shift towards a "zero-click" search environment, a trend that France has now firmly joined. Website owners are urged to utilize available tools to measure their AI Overview exposure and proactively strategize to mitigate potential traffic losses.