What AI Answers Mean for Getting Found Online
Published · Sebastian
You have probably noticed it yourself. You search for something, read the answer at the top of the page, and never click anything. The question is answered. The websites that would once have supplied that answer are still there, underneath, unvisited.
If you run a business whose customers find you through search, that is an uncomfortable thing to watch happen. The usual response is either to panic or to declare that search is finished, and neither is much use. So this piece does something narrower: it looks at what the research actually measured, works out which part of it applies to a small business in Cumbria, and suggests what is worth changing.
Short version, if you want it now: the traffic you are most likely to lose is the traffic that was least likely to have become a customer, and the searches that bring you actual work are the ones least affected. That is not a reason to ignore it. It is a reason to be deliberate about where you put your effort. If you would rather skip the explanation and talk about the search engine optimisation work we do for Cumbrian businesses, that page is the better starting point.
What the research actually found
There is a great deal written about this and most of it quotes figures with no method behind them. The exception worth reading is a study from the Pew Research Center, published in July 2025, which did not ask people what they thought they did - it looked at what they actually did, using the real browsing activity of 900 adults in the United States during March 2025.
Three findings stand out:
- When a search produced an AI summary, people clicked through to a traditional result in 8% of searches. When it did not, they clicked in 15%. Roughly half the clicks, gone.
- Clicking a link inside the summary itself was rarer still - 1% of visits. Being cited in the answer is not the same as being visited.
- People were more likely to stop browsing altogether after a page with a summary (26%) than without one (16%). The summary ends the session, not just the click.
Two honest caveats. That is United States data from March 2025, and Google has widened these summaries considerably since. Nobody has published equivalent figures for a market the size of Cumbria, so treat the direction as reliable and the exact numbers as indicative rather than a forecast for your own business.
The pattern almost nobody mentions
Buried in the same study is the finding that actually tells you what to do. Summaries do not appear evenly. They appear according to how the question is asked.
Across all searches, about 18% produced an AI summary. But broken down by length, only 8% of one- and two-word searches did - against 53% of searches of ten words or more.
Read that again with your own customers in mind. Long, conversational, explain-this-to-me questions get answered on the page. Short, blunt, I-know-what-I-want searches mostly still produce a list of links - and those are exactly the searches that bring a joiner in Appleby or an accountant in Kendal a new client.
Nobody types “could you please explain the various considerations involved in engaging a local tradesperson”. They type two or three words and a place name, or they say something short into their phone. The searches with money behind them are usually the short ones.
Working out which side your pages sit on
This gives you a practical sorting exercise. Open whatever you use to see your search traffic - Google Search Console is free and is the one that matters - and look at the queries bringing people to each page. Then put every page into one of two piles.
Pages answering a general question
Guides, explainers, “what is” and “how do I” content. These attract long queries, which means they are the most exposed. Expect the visitor numbers to fall and do not read that fall as a failure of the page.
That does not make them worthless. A page like this one exists to be read by someone weighing up whether to hire somebody, and to be the thing an assistant draws on when summarising the topic. Both still have value. What has gone is the idea that raw visitor count is the measure of it.
Pages answering “who can do this, near me”
Your services, your locations, your contact page. These attract short queries with a place attached, and they are the least affected by any of this. A summary cannot do the job the searcher wants doing, because the job is to pick somebody and get in touch. This is where your effort should go, and it is why we build proper pages for the places we work rather than one page that mentions everywhere.
Why local businesses are better placed than most
Publishers with a business model built on general informational traffic are in genuine trouble. A small business in Cumbria is in a different position, for three reasons.
The searches that matter to you are short and carry a place name, so they are the least likely to be summarised away. The map results sit above the ordinary links and are not replaced by a summary, which makes a complete, current Google Business Profile more valuable than it was, not less. And an answer can tell someone what a good roofer does; it cannot come and fix the roof. The transaction still requires a person, a phone call and a local name.
Where it does bite is the top of the funnel - the person who did not know they needed you yet. That has got harder, and it is worth being clear-eyed about rather than pretending otherwise.
Change what you measure
If you have ever been sent a monthly report full of keyword positions, this is the moment to ask what it is for. Ranking first is no longer the same thing as being visited, and being visited was never the same thing as being paid.
Three numbers are worth more than a page of rankings: enquiries received, where each one came from, and how many turned into work. If those hold steady while your visitor count drifts down, nothing is wrong - you have simply stopped receiving visits that were never going to become customers. If enquiries fall, that is a real problem and a rankings report will not tell you why.
What is actually worth doing
- Claim and finish your Google Business Profile. Hours, categories, photographs, and replies to reviews. For a local business this now outranks most of what people call search engine optimisation in terms of return.
- Make sure you have a real page for each thing you do and each place you serve. Short, specific searches need something specific to land on.
- Answer the questions you actually get asked, in plain language, on your own site. This is what gets quoted when an assistant summarises your trade, and it is what convinces a human who is deciding between you and somebody else.
- Start counting enquiries properly, including the phone calls. You cannot tell whether any of this is working without that.
- Stop judging informational pages by visitor numbers. Judge them by whether the people who do arrive get in touch.
Common questions
Is search engine optimisation still worth doing?
For a local business, yes, and arguably more than before. The searches that bring you work are short and carry a place name, and those are the least likely to be answered by a summary. What has changed is which parts are worth the effort: a complete Google Business Profile and real pages for each service and place now return more than chasing broad informational traffic does.
My website traffic has dropped. Is this why?
It might be, but do not assume it. Check whether the drop is spread across the whole site or concentrated on guide-style pages that answer general questions. If it is the latter, this is the likely cause and your enquiries may well be unchanged. If enquiries have fallen alongside the traffic, something else is usually going on and it is worth looking properly rather than guessing.
Should I try to get my business mentioned in AI answers?
It is worth being the kind of source that gets quoted - clear, factual, specific pages that answer real questions - but keep the value in proportion. The Pew data found that people clicked links inside summaries in around 1% of visits. Being cited builds familiarity rather than delivering traffic, so it is a reason to write well, not a channel to build a plan around.
Does this affect the map results as well?
The local map results sit above the ordinary links and are not replaced by a summary, which is part of why they have become more valuable rather than less. For a business that serves a specific area, keeping that listing complete and current - hours, categories, photographs, replies to reviews - is among the highest-return things you can do.
How do I know whether any of this is working?
Count enquiries, note where each came from, and track how many became paid work. Visitor numbers and keyword positions have both become poor proxies for the thing you actually care about. If enquiries hold steady while visits decline, you have lost traffic that was never going to convert, and nothing needs fixing.
Where to start
If your enquiries have genuinely dropped and you cannot tell why, that is worth looking at properly rather than guessing. We do that work for businesses across the county - what people are actually searching, which of your pages answer it, and what is getting in the way. Our search engine optimisation page sets out what that involves.
If you are earlier than that and still choosing who to work with, our guide to choosing a web design company in Cumbria is the more useful read. And if you run an accommodation business, the related shift in how bookings get made is covered in when an AI books the room.
This article was written in September 2026. The figures quoted come from Pew Research Center browsing data collected in the United States in March 2025 and published in July 2025 - the most rigorous public measurement available at the time of writing. Search behaviour is changing quickly; treat the direction as sound and the precise numbers as dated.