NerdWallet reveals costly Google SEO visibility challenges

Personal finance company NerdWallet said its organic search visibility had a “pretty brutal” quarter, a trend that is expected to worsen in Q4, according to CEO Tim Chen, speaking on the company’s Q3 earnings call.

From NerdWallet’s Q3 earnings release:

• Credit cards revenue of $45.3 million decreased 16% year-over-year, primarily due to pressures in organic search traffic…

Why we care. SEOs, publishers and content creators have all been concerned about the erosion of organic search traffic since the rise of Google AI Overviews (formerly Search Generative Experience) and other AI answer engines. Gartner predicted that search traffic could fall 25% by 2026.

While some publishers have reported ‘negligible’ traffic impact from Google AI Overviews, we have long expected many websites to start getting less organic traffic as AI Overviews and other search features answer queries directly on the search results page.

What they reported. According to NerdWallet:

• Monthly unique users were down 7% year over year in Q3, with further deceleration expected in Q4 due to search headwinds.
• Organic search visibility challenges impacted traffic to non-monetizing learning-oriented content, affecting overall user engagement.

What they’re saying. Chen was asked to elaborate on the organic search pressures. Here’s what Chen said:

• “So with our shopping traffic, things got worse in August and September. But then going into October, rebounded back to a level that was a bit better even than where we were when we did the Q2 call. We think we did some things on our end to clean up the user experience that were net positive. Now, there were some exceptions, so for example, parts of credit cards and personal loans are still lagging. But, overall, we got a pretty good place – we got to a pretty good place on shopping pages and feel like we’ve figured out what to improve.
• “Conversely, for that far bigger bucket of education-oriented traffic that is less commercial in nature, things got progressively worse throughout the quarter and recently stabilized at a lower level. So, what’s happening there is a renewed push by search engines to incorporate their own answers directly into the search results, like you mentioned AI Overviews as an example. So, for those of you who have been following search over the years, this isn’t really anything new. So, for example, at one point when you search for the weather, it didn’t show up directly in the results, and eventually a module was inserted there. That trend towards the simpler stuff being pulled into search results is inevitable, and we’ve always been more insulated from that.
• “And so, over the last 10 years, I’d say these changes come in waves, and we’re in the middle of a big wave.
• “Now, in the long run, I do think an improving search experience is a win for the overall ecosystem and keeps it healthy and growing. And, really, I’d say the silver lining here is that Q3 was pretty brutal as far as some of the headwinds we faced in organic search, especially in highly commercial areas, and being able to hit like a 12% NGOI margin in Q3 in spite of that headwind is really a testament to some of the progress we’ve made in building a brand and a direct relationship with our users and our increasing competitiveness in other channels.”

But. Despite its organic visibility issues, NerdWallet reported Q3 revenue of $191 million, a 25% year-on-year increase.