Zero-click searches are Google searches where nobody clicks through to any result: not to your site, not to an ad, not to anything. They matter because they can grow while your rankings stay the same, so traffic falls and your position report doesn’t explain why. For the wider tour of answer boxes, panels and carousels, see our guide to Google SERP features.
What counts as a zero-click search
The term comes mostly from clickstream research. SparkToro defines it like this: “Zero-click searches are defined as those that end without clicking on any of the results presented. It includes searches that end with the searcher satisfied, frustrated, or changing their search to perform a new one.”
So a zero-click search is not always a searcher who got their answer from Google. Some gave up or rephrased. Headline figures count all of them together.
And a click is not always a visit to the open web. SparkToro’s 2024 study found that “almost 30% of all clicks go to platforms Google owns,” such as YouTube and Google Maps.
Which SERP features cause them
Any part of the results page that answers the question in place can end a search. The usual ones are below, with how Google’s Search Console help says each is counted.
| Feature | What the searcher sees | How Search Console counts it |
|---|---|---|
| AI Overviews | A generated summary with links to sources | “An AI Overview occupies a single position in search results”; a click to an external page in it counts as a click |
| Featured snippets | An extract from one page, shown with a link to it | Typically position 1; a click on the link counts |
| Knowledge panels | A fact box about a person, place or company | All links in the panel share one position |
| People Also Ask | Questions that expand to show an answer | An impression is counted for links inside only when a question is expanded |
SparkToro also points to instant answers and other “UI elements that keep searchers in the results.” We cover featured snippets and the AI side, including how AI search answers work, on their own pages, so we keep them short here.
The search for “zero click searches” is itself a good example. In a DataForSEO SERP check for ‘zero click searches’, google.com US, 4 Nov 2026, the page opened with an AI Overview that defined the term before any link. Below it sat one organic result, then a People Also Ask box with four questions, then the rest of the top ten.
What the data says
There is no single agreed number. Each study measures something different, on different people, over a different period.
| Who, published | Sample | Main finding |
|---|---|---|
| SparkToro with Datos, 1 Jul 2024 | Datos clickstream panel, US and EU, September 2022 to May 2024; no iPhones | 58.5% of US and 59.7% of EU Google searches ended with zero clicks |
| SparkToro with Similarweb, 8 Jun 2026 | Similarweb desktop and mobile web panel, US, January to April 2026 | 68.01% of Google searches ended without a click |
| Pew Research Center, 22 Jul 2025 | Browsing data from 900 US adults in its KnowledgePanel Digital panel, March 2025 | Users clicked a traditional result in 8% of visits with an AI summary, 15% without |
| Ahrefs, 4 Feb 2026 | 300,000 keywords, aggregated Search Console desktop CTR, December 2023 vs December 2025 | An AI Overview “correlates with a 58% lower average clickthrough rate for the top-ranking page” |
The SparkToro studies
The 2024 study, written by Rand Fishkin, also found that “for every 1,000 searches on Google in the United States, 360 clicks make it to a non-Google-owned, non-Google-ad-paying property.” In the EU the figure was 374. Fishkin notes that clickstream panelists “may not be perfectly representative.”
The 2026 follow-up switched to Similarweb’s panel. It gives the 2024 US baseline as 60.45%, not the 58.5% published in 2024, and describes comparing panels across years as “a bit of apples and oranges.” It also says AI Mode wasn’t yet the cause: “Only 0.34% of searches made their way to AI Mode from January–April 2026.”
Pew Research Center
Pew’s study, by Athena Chapekis and Anna Lieb, tracked real browsing. It also found people clicked a link inside the AI summary in “just 1% of all visits” to those pages, and ended their browsing session on 26% of pages with an AI summary against 16% without one. “Some 18% of all the Google searches in our study generated an AI summary.”
What Google says
Google’s statements point the other way. When Google began rolling out AI Overviews to everyone in the US on 14 May 2024, Elizabeth Reid, its VP of Search, wrote: “we see that the links included in AI Overviews get more clicks than if the page had appeared as a traditional web listing for that query.”
On 6 August 2025, Reid, now Head of Google Search, wrote that “total organic click volume from Google Search to websites has been relatively stable year-over-year,” and that Google is “sending slightly more quality clicks to websites than a year ago.” The same post says this contrasts with “third-party reports that inaccurately suggest dramatic declines in aggregate traffic.” Google’s AI features page adds that clicks from results pages with AI Overviews “are higher quality (meaning, users are more likely to spend more time on the site).”
These claims and the studies above can’t be lined up neatly. Google measures from its own systems; SparkToro and Pew use browsing panels; Ahrefs uses Search Console data across keywords. We report both and leave it there.
How to see it in your own Search Console data
You can’t see zero-click searches directly, but you can see their shadow: impressions without clicks. Google’s help page on how impressions, position and clicks are counted explains why the gap can be large. An impression “is counted whenever an item appears in the current page of results, whether or not the item is scrolled into view.” A click is counted only when someone follows a link to your site.
AI features are mixed in with everything else. Google’s AI features page says sites appearing in AI Overviews and AI Mode are reported “in the Performance report, within the ‘Web’ search type.”
A simple way to look:
- In the Performance report, show impressions, clicks, CTR and position, then sort the Queries tab by impressions.
- Flag queries where your position is near the top but CTR is very low.
- Search each one and note what sits above your link.
- Compare with the same period a year earlier: did clicks fall while impressions held?
A low CTR doesn’t prove a search was zero-click. A weak title can do the same, which is why you check the live page.
What site owners can do
Pick your queries with care
Some searches will keep ending on Google. Pew found that 60% of searches starting with words like “who,” “what,” “when” or “why” produced an AI summary, and longer searches were more likely to get one. Put your effort into searches where people need more than a line: comparisons, steps, decisions, tools.
Be the source Google cites
Google’s AI features page says that to be shown as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page must be “indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet,” and that there are “no additional requirements.” Clicks on those links count in Search Console like any other.
It helps to see which questions Google already answers on the page, and with whose words. PAA Box, our Chrome extension, opens the People Also Ask questions for a search, and the Pro version saves Google’s answer and source for each one.
Build a name people search for
An impression without a click still puts your name in front of someone. If people remember it, some may search for you by name later. Watch branded queries in Search Console alongside the generic ones.
Measure more than clicks
Google itself suggests that, in addition to Search Console, “you could also track conversions and time spent on your site in other tools, such as Google Analytics.” If clicks drop but sales hold, the lost clicks may not have mattered much. Whether this means search is finished is a separate question, which we look at in is SEO dead?