Did AI Overviews kill my search traffic? An Audit of my plugin shop
My business has been getting lower organic search clicks recently, and like many of you, I've been a bit worried about the current industry landscape. I kept wondering if what people are saying is true: did Google's AI Overviews eat my search clicks, or are my products simply not performing well enough? To find out, I spent the last week diving deep through my archives as part of an recovery process.
For those who don't know me yet, I'm Ngan Le, creator of Beyondspace Studio. I run a Squarespace plugin shop where my day-to-day work involves providing custom development and selling ready-made web extension solutions to help Squarespace users strengthen their online presence.
My shop uses Squarespace as the main storefront combined with Shopify Buy Buttons for commerce. I love this setup because it gives me the best of both worlds - a flexible Squarespace site with robust Shopify checkout. It’s a popular choice among Squarespace creators; for instance, Omari at Sqspthemes uses SendOwl on top of Squarespace in a similar way.
To pull this analysis together, I combined data from three main sources:
Google Analytics 4: Landing page reports and session traffic acquisition.
Google Search Console: Search performance reports (reaching back 16 months—the maximum GSC stores. My first mistake was not backing this up automatically earlier!).
Shopify Order History: Complete sales data from my backend.
For obvious privacy reasons, I am masking absolute dollar amounts and exact unit sales figures. Instead, I am focusing on conversion rates, traffic percentages, and indexed order metrics to share honest insights without oversharing sensitive numbers.
1. Traffic acquisition & Referral channel breakdown
Here is how visitors found Beyondspace Studio between January 2024 and August 2026:
| Traffic Group / Source | Sessions | Share (%) | Engaged Sessions | Engagement Rate | Key Events (Conversions) | Conversion Rate % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Direct Traffic | 67,113 | 39.18% | 27,570 | 41.08% | 2,823 | 4.21% |
| 2. Organic Search Engines (Total) | 57,247 | 33.42% | 34,181 | 59.71% | 1,221 | 2.13% |
| 3. Email Campaigns | 1,685 | 0.98% | 817 | 48.49% | 40 | 2.37% |
| 4. AI Assistants & AI Search (Total) | 1,939 | 1.13% | 1,066 | 54.98% | 67 | 3.46% |
| 5. SQS Dev Partners & Ecosystem (Total) | 2,227 | 1.30% | 1,392 | 62.50% | 80 | 3.59% |
| 6. Social & Discussion (Reddit/YT/FB) | 10,214 | 5.96% | 5,751 | 56.31% | 189 | 1.85% |
| 7. Ground Control Plugin Menu | 817 | 0.48% | 415 | 50.80% | 9 | 1.10% |
| 8. Squarespace Official Forum | 23,146 | 13.51% | 13,777 | 59.52% | 214 | 0.92% |
| 9. Spam & Low-Quality Referrals | 544 | 0.32% | 235 | 43.20% | 0 | 0.00% |
| 10. Other Referral Traffic | 6,381 | 3.73% | 3,880 | 60.81% | 279 | 4.37% |
| TOTALS | 171,293 | 100% | 89,977 | 52.53% | 4,922 | 2.87% |
AI Search & Assistants breakdown below
| AI Platform / Source | Sessions | Share (%) | Engaged Sessions | Engagement Rate | Key Events (Conversions) | Conversion Rate % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
ChatGPT (chatgpt.com) |
1,251 | 0.73% | 697 | 55.72% | 42 | 3.36% |
Perplexity AI (perplexity.ai) |
321 | 0.19% | 187 | 58.26% | 6 | 1.87% |
Google Gemini (gemini.google.com) |
155 | 0.09% | 69 | 44.52% | 10 | 6.45% |
DocsBot AI (docsbot.ai) |
82 | 0.05% | 34 | 41.46% | 0 | 0.00% |
Claude AI (claude.ai) |
72 | 0.04% | 39 | 54.17% | 7 | 9.72% |
Microsoft Copilot (copilot.microsoft.com) |
27 | 0.02% | 19 | 70.37% | 2 | 7.41% |
| Other AI (Kagi, DuckDuckGo NoAI) | 31 | 0.02% | 21 | 67.74% | 0 | 0.00% |
| AI TOTAL | 1,939 | 1.13% | 1,066 | 54.98% | 67 | 3.46% |
What these numbers tell:
AI Referral Traffic is still small, but converts higher: AI platforms currently account for just 1.13% of total sessions, but their overall conversion rate is 3.46% - significantly higher than standard Google Search (2.17%). Referrals from Claude AI (9.72%) and Google Gemini (6.45%) show incredible buyer intent, though it is hard to tell since the volume is really low now.
Direct Traffic Concerns: One thing that still bothers me is that direct traffic remains high; perhaps my cross-platform tracking (Squarespace - Shopify) is not working quite as well as it should.
Search remains a pillar: Search still contributes a large portion of sales to Beyondspace, accounting for over 33% of total traffic share.
Ecosystem & referrals: A big shout out to fellow designers like Sqspthemes, SparkPlugin, MadeByDave and Monocle, who contribute a portion of my traffic. Referral traffic from the Squarespace forum, where I invest much of my time and effort, still pays off, contributing 13.51% of traffic, though the conversion rate is not quite as impressive.
2. Month-by-Month Search & Order Performance (Jan 2024 – Jul 2026)
To look at sales trends over time, I benchmarked my monthly order volume against January 2024 (set as 100%):
| Month | Order Volume Index (Jan 2024 = 100%) | GSC Search Clicks | GSC Impressions | GSC Avg CTR | GSC Position | On-Site Order-to-Click Ratio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-01 | 100% | - | - | - | - | - |
| 2024-02 | 117% | - | - | - | - | - |
| 2024-03 | 130% | - | - | - | - | - |
| 2024-04 | 126% | - | - | - | - | - |
| 2024-05 | 196% | - | - | - | - | - |
| 2024-06 | 157% | - | - | - | - | - |
| 2024-07 | 148% | - | - | - | - | - |
| 2024-08 | 313% | - | - | - | - | - |
| 2024-09 | 217% | - | - | - | - | - |
| 2024-10 | 261% | - | - | - | - | - |
| 2024-11 | 243% | - | - | - | - | - |
| 2024-12 | 239% | - | - | - | - | - |
| 2025-01 (Peak) | 526% | - | - | - | - | - |
| 2025-02 | 357% | - | - | - | - | - |
| 2025-03 | 335% | - | - | - | - | - |
| 2025-04 | 274% | 1,441 | 87,886 | 1.66% | 20.99 | 4.37% |
| 2025-05 | 317% | 2,016 | 124,016 | 1.59% | 21.79 | 3.62% |
| 2025-06 | 300% | 1,765 | 133,048 | 1.33% | 21.83 | 3.91% |
| 2025-07 | 326% | 2,110 | 163,790 | 1.27% | 21.55 | 3.55% |
| 2025-08 | 274% | 2,136 | 186,899 | 1.13% | 19.82 | 2.95% |
| 2025-09 | 313% | 2,325 | 213,413 | 1.09% | 12.60 | 3.10% |
| 2025-10 | 283% | 2,321 | 188,743 | 1.21% | 9.43 | 2.80% |
| 2025-11 | 265% | 1,988 | 174,140 | 1.13% | 10.04 | 3.07% |
| 2025-12 | 243% | 1,788 | 182,086 | 0.97% | 12.41 | 3.13% |
| 2026-01 | 361% | 1,932 | 270,012 | 0.71% | 12.16 | 4.30% |
| 2026-02 | 222% | 1,619 | 150,117 | 1.08% | 11.30 | 3.15% |
| 2026-03 | 274% | 1,572 | 154,462 | 1.02% | 8.91 | 4.01% |
| 2026-04 | 239% | 1,446 | 152,458 | 1.03% | 8.68 | 3.80% |
| 2026-05 | 270% | 1,295 | 121,338 | 1.06% | 10.55 | 4.79% |
| 2026-06 | 239% | 1,234 | 137,387 | 0.93% | 9.09 | 4.46% |
| 2026-07 (Current) | 204% | 1,262 | 110,761 | 1.16% | 12.22 | 3.72% |
Compare Jul 2025 and Jul 2026 is ~40% down, the bitter truth when looking from afar
Behind the numbers
Back in early 2025, I published interactive free tools like the YouTube Embed Code Generator and Dropbox PDF Link Converter, supported by technical Q&A guides. Google loved them at first. Organic impressions grew steadily, driving my shop to an all-time peak in January 2025 (526% of Jan 2024 baseline).
However, as Google began expanding AI Overviews across informational technical queries, Search Console CTR collapsed from 1.66% down to 0.71%–1.16%. Impressions remained high (150k–270k/month), but actual organic clicks entering the site fell by 45% (from 2,325 clicks/mo in Sep 2025 down to 1,262 clicks/mo in Jul 2026).
Analyzing product conversion rates
The Order-to-Click Ratio provides an analytical baseline, hovering between 3.1% and 4.8% over the 16-month audit period. This suggests that the likelihood of a visitor purchasing a plugin upon landing has remained relatively consistent. However, while the mechanism appears stable, the overall volume of searchers entering the site from Google has diminished, necessitating a closer look at the relationship between traffic levels and visitor intent.
Do my product pages still work?
Despite a 34% decline in monthly sales, the Order-to-Click Ratio remains a critical metric. Analysis of this data shows that the on-site conversion rate stayed within a steady range of over the period.
What This Proves:
On-Site engagement metrics: The ~4.0% conversion rate is within the expected range for developer tools. While stable conversion rates against declining traffic may mask subtle shifts in visitor intent, the data indicates that the core product utility remains relevant to those who successfully reach the landing pages.
Top-of-Funnel impact: The sales decline correlates with a 45% drop in monthly organic clicks—falling from 2,325 clicks/mo in September 2025 to 1,262 clicks/mo in July 2026. This contraction in top-of-funnel volume, combined with a lack of conversion callouts on informational Q&A pages, has limited the flow of visitors to commercial sales pages.
Strategic assessment: There is initial evidence suggesting that the conversion mechanism on landing pages is functioning, but requires deeper testing to confirm its resilience in an evolving search landscape. Improving the visual bridges from high-traffic Q&A posts to product pages is a logical next step to test if traffic redirection can mitigate the impact of reduced organic reach.
3. Correlating traffic drops with Google updates
Search ranking volatility kept jumping around every time Google pushed a major algorithm update. Here is how order velocity shifted during confirmed update windows:
| Google Update | Rollout Dates | GSC Clicks / Day | GSC Avg CTR | Orders / Day change (Pre vs. Post) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| December 2025 Broad Core Update | Dec 11 – 29, 2025 | 61.1 📉 57.7 | 0.93% 📉 0.68% | 📉 -44.7% Order Drop |
| February 2026 Discover/Search Flux | Feb 5 – 27, 2026 | 59.8 📉 52.6 | 0.81% 📈 0.92% | 📉 -30.2% Order Drop |
| March 2026 Broad Core Update | Mar 27 – Apr 8, 2026 | 49.3 📈 49.7 | 1.10% 📉 0.88% | 📉 -25.9% Order Drop |
| May 2026 Broad Core Update | May 21 – Jun 2, 2026 | 47.9 📉 45.5 | 1.15% 📉 0.96% | 📉 -31.0% Order Drop |
This aligns directly with broader industry SEO reports: Google's AI Overviews are absorbing zero-click informational searches, while core updates have reshuffled commercial keyword visibility.
4. Looking ahead: my gameplan
This audit is part of a larger effort to evaluate the state of my business, create clear recovery steps, and move forward strongly in an AI-first search landscape.
Based on these numbers, people still value curated, hand-crafted software plugins. The product value proposition isn't broken - the bottleneck is visibility and funnel connection.
Here is how I am adapting:
Doubling Down on Owned Media (Email Newsletter):
My most valuable asset is my email newsletter, now with over 3,500+ subscribers. I started collecting emails in mid-2024 after an insightful chat with Omari at Sqspthemes, and subscriber acquisition accelerated in early 2025 when I released my free Ground Control plugin. I send bi-weekly emails, and while it hasn't been a massive direct revenue driver yet, having a direct line to people who know my work is priceless for long-term stability.Going All-In on Ground Control Pro:
I am preparing to launch the paid version of Ground Control Pro to build more predictable, recurring subscription income for the business.Community & Collaboration:
I've historically worked a bit in isolation, but adapting to today's web requires more exposure and collaboration. I recently launched a new Slack community group to bring together like-minded Squarespace developers, designers, and customers. Sharing useful tips is one thing, but content needs personal "juice" and genuine relationships - like a recent organic backlink I received from Collaborada.com for my llms.txt blog post.
Frankly, I think this search shift is the wake-up call I needed to build a more resilient, multi-channel business.
Over to You
What about you? Are these search and conversion trends aligning with what you're seeing in your own analytics, and what actions have you taken to adapt? Let's chat in the comments!
