Episode
He Lost 50% of His Google Traffic to AI Overviews (Here's How He Recovered)
- Podcast
- The Edward Show
- Published
- Jul 23, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3926
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Summary
E1115: Endre Olsvik Elvestad built a large SEO program around SignLab, a sign-language learning company. Its websites offered searchable sign language videos across multiple countries. Then Google AI Overviews appeared. SignLab lost about 50% of its Google clicks. High-intent traffic and app downloads fell even harder. Google could show the answer directly in search by displaying SignLab's videos, leaving users with no reason to visit the website. In this episode, Endre explains what happened, why the original programmatic SEO strategy stopped producing the same results, and how the company rebuilt organic acquisition across Google, YouTube, and AI search. We cover: - How AI Overviews reduced clicks while rankings and impressions often stayed stable - Why losing website visits caused a much larger drop in app downloads - How SignLab moved thousands of sign language videos from self-hosting to YouTube - The upload limits, verification issues, and automation challenges involved - Why YouTube became an important search engine for sign language queries - Why YouTube improved visibility without fully replacing website conversions - The difference between top-of-funnel and bottom-of-funnel traffic - Which queries produced the most app downloads after the decline - Why "Does Duolingo have ASL?" became a strong bottom-of-funnel topic - How the team shifted from individual sign queries to broader communication problems - Why traditional SEO fundamentals still mattered after AI Overviews - How SignLab manages separate SEO strategies across multiple countries and domains - Why direct translation was not enough for international SEO - How AI agents help with research, outlines, writing, review, publishing, and updates - Why content must reflect the culture, search behavior, and ne…