Akamai Briefing: AI Overviews Cut Top Search Clicks by 62.7%
As AI agents replace human searchers, game companies lose the value of top search rankings and must shift from SEO to GEO while defending their e-commerce and account APIs against bots.
Reporting from 1 source: GameBusiness.jp.
Akamai Technologies held a September 3 briefing on AI in e-commerce, where evangelist Kazuhiro Nakanishi outlined the shift from SEO to GEO. Ahrefs data cited at the event shows pages ranked #1 in Japan losing 62.7% of click-throughs when Google displays AI Overviews, up from a 38% decline six months earlier. Nakanishi said companies must now be designed to be chosen by AI, since users no longer click blue links.
Game companies face a double problem, Nakanishi said. Hardware, limited editions, and merchandise sold on their own e-commerce sites are targets for resale bots, and the APIs behind accounts and billing are entry points for attackers. The branding question of how AI sees a title is becoming central to game marketing.
GEO rests on four pillars: structure, evidence, authority, and freshness. Measures include a summary in the first 200 characters, headings phrased as questions users would ask AI, short paragraphs, comparison tables, and original first-party data. JSON-LD keeps AI from confusing brand names with product names, and a company's own publications should match its presence on Wikipedia, YouTube, and major media. Content updated within 90 days gets cited at three times the rate of older material.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.
Sources
- GameBusiness.jp 「検索1位」でもクリックされない時代へ。アカマイが明かすGEOとAIボット対策、ゲーム業界にも迫る変化とは