More and more website owners are noticing a steady trend when they log into Google Search Console (GSC): A loss of clicks without any substantial changes in positions.
It can be hard to notice because it is not an abrupt change and usually happens for long-tail, low-search-volume queries. Each query or page may be slowly losing traffic but the overall trend can be observed over time.
What can we do about this?
Loss in rankings resulting in lower traffic can and should be diagnosed. But what about search queries where there are no position losses?
It’s not just your site. This trend is affecting everyone, both big and small websites.
Here’s what is causing this:
Zero-Click SERPs
Google’s search result pages (SERPs) are no longer just 10 blue clickable links with a very predictable click-through rate. Search results have been much more visual and dynamic for at least 10 years now. Not all extra features may send clicks to publishers.
Beyond paid ads (which have been stealing some clicks for many years now), here’s what can result in lower organic click-through:
- Featured snippets are very satisfying, as they answer people’s questions in a way that doesn’t require them to click anything.
- Sections like People Also Search For and People Also Ask may engage users and prompt them to conduct further research.
- Images blended into search results increase brand visibility, but they don’t make it easy to access the source site, as that may require a couple of clicks to direct users to a publisher’s website.
- Videos play directly from search results.
- Other search elements (such as maps and social media) may still be too distracting for users to see organic results.
For every 1000 searches, only 360 resulted in external clicks.
AI Overviews
This trend of zero-click searches has been exacerbated by the global launch of AI overviews (AIO).
AI Overviews are a newer Google search feature that provides a detailed answer to a user’s search query.
AI Overviews include links to references (within an answer and in a separate block to the right of the answer).
Google doesn’t provide any official reporting tools allowing publishers to identify which AI Overviews include their sites’ URLs. There are third-party solutions that are pretty expensive, so not all e-commerce business owners can afford them.
As AI Overviews are continually being expanded, it is essential to understand how they work and how your site performs within them.
According to the most recent study, AI overviews dramatically decrease organic and paid click-throughs:
Google won’t show us any reports on AI Overviews, so it’s not entirely clear whether those clicks go to AI Overviews links or if AI Overviews provide satisfying answers that keep people from clicking off search results. However, the trend is clear: AI-driven answers reduce outgoing traffic to ranking pages.
You can track your and competitors’ performance in AI Overviews using tools like ZipTie.dev, which is a standalone AI Overview tracking solution that monitors your important queries every week to alert you of missed opportunities or existing rankings.
Import your list of important queries (I imported the list from Google Search Console), and the tool will generate the initial report, including which queries trigger AI Overviews and how your site is ranking in them:
Click any query in the report to see which URLs are included in the AI Overview and where they rank organically. This is a great insight I wasn’t able to find anywhere else:
Zero-Click Discovery Platforms
People are increasingly interacting with generative AI platforms (such as ChatGPT and Claude) to request business and product recommendations. Very few of the AI answers include links to the business’s websites. That’s when product or brand discovery is referred to as zero-click.
Consumers typically switch to Google to locate those websites or conduct further research. That’s why branded search is on the rise for most publishers and businesses with established brand recognizability. So the non-branded search query positions may remain the same, but clicks and sales are driven through branded search instead.
How to Address the Universal Traffic Decline?
First, change your mindshift. It’s a trend for everyone, not just you. It’s not your loss; it doesn’t weaken your site, and it doesn’t have to impact your bottom line. Start paying attention to other key metrics, such as impressions and brand visibility. Clicks may be going away for good at some point, but if you are changing your strategy now, you are already ahead of your competitors.
- Focus on queries with commercial intent, as AI overviews mostly appear for informational queries. That is not to say you should stop providing helpful informational content, but don’t waste time and energy tracking those positions. Create content that addresses customers’ needs, not for search engines.
- Enhance your product and product category pages for more visibility and conversions. Add more product specifications on a page and in the title, start collecting product reviews and ratings, add product Q&As, etc. Make these pages more helpful for making buying decisions.
- Keep an eye on your (and your competitors’) product performance on Google Shopping and identify missing opportunities.
- Keep an eye on new shopping feed integrations. E-commerce-related searches are not as significantly impacted by AI Overviews, but they are starting to incorporate other AI-driven features. For example, ChatGPT is said to integrate shopping features soon. Being an early adopter is always a good idea as it puts you ahead of your competitors.
- Invest in your brand-building efforts. It doesn’t have to be huge budgets, but those efforts need to be consistent. Get active on your social media channels, repurpose content to cater to multiple platforms, create visual content, and establish a diverse digital footprint for buyers to see you everywhere. Brand visibility is the new traffic.
- Focus on monitoring and optimizing for your branded search. As more people search for your brand, it will become increasingly visible in AI-generated answers.
There is no definitive answer to this ongoing trend of 0-click searches and 0-click discovery, but the above tactics will help you adapt to a future with lower traffic.
While it’s stressful to see a dip in clicks, it’s essential to adopt a new mindset. The goal should no longer solely be about generating organic clicks, but also about enhancing overall brand visibility and driving commercial intent. Focus on queries with strong buyer intent, optimize your commercial pages for conversion, monitor Google Shopping performance, and prioritize branded search queries.
The future of search is undoubtedly more complex, with consumers increasingly finding answers directly on search engine results pages or through AI-powered platforms, like ChatGPT and Gemini.
Instead of fighting this current, successful strategies will embrace it (and ride it). Website owners can continue to thrive, ensuring their presence remains strong in a world where direct clicks are no longer the only measure of success.
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