Ahrefs Podcast Top SEO myths debunked with real data | Ethan Smith (Graphite)
Feb 3, 2026
Ethan Smith, CEO of Graphite and AEO researcher who helped growth at Instagram and Robinhood, joins to debunk SEO myths with large-scale data. He shows why AI is not killing search. Small sites can gain traffic. Mentions and citations matter more in the AI era. Practical tactics for mining prompts, cleaning citations, and prioritizing where to show up are discussed.
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AI Isn't A Zero-Sum Replacement
- The narrative that AI must cannibalize the web is a zero-sum bias and usually wrong.
- Ethan Smith shows historical parallels (apps vs web) proving new channels often add to, not replace, existing ones.
Broad Data Shows Small Net Traffic Change
- Graphite + SimilarWeb analysis of 40,000 U.S. sites found organic traffic down only about 2.5%, not 25%.
- The middle-sized sites saw the biggest drops while the largest and smallest sites actually gained traffic.
AI Overviews Lower CTR On Info Queries
- AI overviews reduce click-through rate mainly on informational queries, not transactional ones.
- This reduces some clicks but doesn't mean fewer people use Google; it changes which queries generate clicks.