In Google’s Q1 2025 earnings call on April 24, CEO Sundar Pichai highlighted double-digit growth in Search revenue, emphasizing the expanding role of AI in Google Search. He noted that AI Overviews now serve 1.5 billion users, and AI Mode, an experimental search feature launched last month, has received positive feedback. April 2025 news surrounding Google largely focused on AI’s influence on search results and website traffic. While Google remains optimistic about AI advancements, concerns are growing among website owners and SEO professionals regarding its challenges.
Search Results Volatility
No official Google update was announced in April 2025, yet search results exhibited ongoing volatility. Barry Schwartz, a trusted source for Google update insights, reported post-Core Update volatility on April 3, following March’s Core Update, with additional activity spikes around April 9-10, April 16, April 22-23, and April 25. SEO expert Glenn Gabe commented on X about a client’s ranking improvements on April 22, but noted other sites experienced losses in Google Discover traffic on the same day.
Reference: Schwartz, B. (2025). Search Engine Roundtable. Retrieved from seroundtable.com.
Search Central Live Madrid
On April 9, Google hosted Search Central Live in Madrid, Spain, following its New York event. The event featured Google representatives Camilla Samilian, Lino Cattaruzzi, Daniel Waisberg, Nikola Todorovic, John Mueller, Moshe Samet, and Eric Barbera. It included morning talks from 9:00 AM to 1:30 PM, followed by lunch and networking. SEO expert Aleyda Solis, who attended, shared her insights, noting Google’s emphasis on AI and its efforts to address SEO community concerns about search’s future. She outlined five key takeaways:
- Google’s mission remains unchanged, continuing to provide traffic and tools to websites.
- Google is tackling AI-generated content, with quality raters labeling such text as low-quality.
- Google demonstrated how AI Search and AI Overviews function, with John Mueller stating no specific optimizations exist for AI-generated results due to rapidly evolving technology.
- Google has no plans to add AI Overviews or Gemini search tracking to Google Search Console, a point of disappointment for Solis.
- SEO skills remain relevant for large language model (LLM)-driven technologies, per Mueller.
Clara Soteras, another attendee, highlighted a major announcement from Eric Barbera’s Google News presentation: Google Discover is expanding to desktop. Shared via her post, this news gained traction through Lily Ray and John Shehata. Soteras emphasized Discover’s significance, noting that news sites derive 50-60% of their Google traffic from it, currently mobile-only.
References: Solis, A. (2025). Search Central Live Madrid Recap. Retrieved from aleydasolis.com. Soteras, C. (2025). Google Search Central Live Madrid 2025 Summary.
Google Phases Out Country-Specific Domains
On April 15, Google announced in its blog post, Here’s an update on our use of country code top-level domains, that it will redirect all users to Google.com over the coming months, phasing out country-specific domains like Google.fr, Google.ng, and Google.co.uk. Historically, these domains influenced search results by incorporating country-specific signals. Since 2017, however, Google has relied on other signals, such as user location, rendering domain names irrelevant for results. This shift sparked speculation about top-level domains (TLDs) as ranking factors. John Mueller clarified on LinkedIn, responding to Kurt Peterson, that no changes were made to international SEO or ranking factors, advising against mimicking Google’s domain strategy for SEO.
Reference: Google. (2025). Update on Country Code Top-Level Domains. Retrieved from blog.google.
AI Overviews Linked to Traffic Declines
On April 21, Danny Goodwin reported in Search Engine Land on studies by Ahrefs and Amsive, indicating that AI Overviews correlate with reduced organic visibility and clicks. Key findings include:
- Ahrefs reported a 34.5% drop in click-through rates for top-ranking sites.
- Amsive noted a 15.49% overall click-through decline when AI Overviews appear.
These findings align with SEER’s February study, which concluded that AI Overviews reduce clicks on organic and paid links. Google also confirmed to Barry Schwartz that AI Overviews can link to its own search results, potentially retaining users on Google’s platform. Schwartz remarked that this could further reduce publisher traffic. Aleyda Solis’s research echoed these concerns, finding that AI Overviews negatively impact traffic, even for sites featured in snippets. In her video, “How to Measure The Impact of AI Overviews on Organic Search Traffic”, she provides a method for site owners to analyze AI’s effects, stressing that outcomes vary by site.
References: Goodwin, D. (2025). Search Engine Land. Retrieved from searchengineland.com. Solis, A. (2025). How to Measure The Impact of AI Overviews on Organic Search Traffic. Retrieved from youtube.com.
This revised article maintains the original hyperlinks, incorporates references for credibility, and condenses the content for clarity while preserving key details.
Author: Lizzy McNett
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