Zero-click search: what it is, the numbers and how to stay visible

Your Search Console shows more impressions than ever, while the clicks are not keeping pace. That is zero-click search: the search ends on the results page itself, in an AI Overview, a featured snippet or a knowledge panel. The phenomenon has existed for years, and AI Overviews are now giving it an extra push. Because a lot of unsourced figures circulate around zero-click, we list the measurements here that you can actually check: by country, by study and with their limitations. After that you will read what Google itself says about it, what zero-click content is and how to measure visibility when nobody clicks.

What is zero-click search?

Zero-click search is a search in which the searcher gets their answer without clicking on a result. The answer sits in an AI Overview, a featured snippet, a knowledge panel or simply in the results list, and that is where the search stops. In the first four months of 2026, according to SparkToro, 68% of US Google searches ended this way. For websites, that means impressions without a visit.

Think of tomorrow’s weather, a shop’s opening hours, a conversion from inches to centimetres or the definition of a technical term: Google shows the answer, and the searcher has seen enough. Zero-click search, zero-click searches and searches without a click are three names for the same phenomenon; in our glossary it is listed under zero-click. SparkToro has been tracking it in figures since 2019. Its first measurement back then came to 49% of Google searches without a click.

For ClickForest, which combines SEO and GEO for SMEs in Flanders, zero-click is above all a reason to measure visibility more broadly than in clicks. If you are in the answer, you are seen, even when nobody clicks through.

How many Google searches end without a click?

In the first four months of 2026, according to SparkToro and Similarweb, between 62% and 70% of Google searches ended without a click, depending on the country: 62.1% in Germany, 65.3% in France, 68.0% in the US and 69.5% in the United Kingdom. There is no separate figure for Belgium, so the neighbouring countries Germany and France are the closest reference point.

Country	Searches without a click	Clicks to the open web per 1,000 searches
Germany	62.1%	287
Italy	63.4%	280
Canada	63.8%	268
France	65.3%	271
United States	68.0%	231
United Kingdom	69.5%	232
Belgium	no measurement	no measurement

SparkToro published those country figures in June 2026, based on Similarweb mobile and desktop data from January to April 2026. No country still sends 300 or more clicks per thousand searches to the open web. SparkToro does not explain why the EU countries come out lower than the US and the UK: the EU rules against self-preferencing may help, it writes, but without better tests that is hard to prove.

The phenomenon is older than the AI wave, although the older figures cannot be lined up with those of 2026, because they come from a different data panel (Datos). In SparkToro’s earlier study, with data from September 2022 to May 2024 and therefore largely from before the broad rollout of AI Overviews, 59.7% of Google searches in the EU already ended without a click. Per thousand searches, 374 clicks still went to regular websites in the EU at the time, and 360 in the US.

What are AI Overviews and AI Mode, and are they available in Belgium?

An AI Overview is the AI summary Google shows above the classic search results: a generated answer with source citations, compiled from multiple pages. AI Mode is the conversational version of Google Search, in which you keep asking follow-up questions. Both are available in Belgium: AI Overviews since 25 March 2025, initially only in English, and AI Mode since 8 October 2025 according to ITdaily.

The two are growing together. Since January 2026, according to Google, you can ask a follow-up question straight from an AI Overview on mobile worldwide, after which you continue the conversation in AI Mode, and in July 2026 Google spoke of one merged search experience. Dutch was added as a language through the worldwide expansion of May 2025. Google has never separately confirmed whether and when Dutch-language AI Overviews appeared broadly in Belgium specifically, and the same goes for the merged version.

How big the reach is depends on what you measure. In March 2025, Pew Research saw an AI summary in 18% of the Google searches of a panel of 900 US adults; in early 2026, according to SparkToro, an AI Overview appeared in more than 20% of all searches in the US. According to Google, AI Mode had more than 1 billion monthly users in July 2026, while in the US only 0.34% of searches went to AI Mode from January to April 2026 (SparkToro). The first figure measures reach, the second the share of searches, so they do not rule each other out.

We explain what generative engine optimization is and how it relates to SEO in our pillar article SEO vs GEO. A separate article looks at the AI visibility of Belgian websites. This piece sticks to the phenomenon and the figures.

How many clicks do AI Overviews really cost?

An AI Overview pushes click-through down sharply: according to Ahrefs, the click-through rate of position 1 on desktop is then roughly 58% lower, and in Pew Research’s panel users clicked a regular result almost half as often (in 8% versus 15% of visits). If you are cited in the summary itself, you do better: according to Seer Interactive, you then get 120% more clicks per impression than without a citation.

Ahrefs compared 300,000 keywords in December 2023 and December 2025. For keywords with an AI Overview, the average click-through rate of position 1 on desktop was roughly 58% lower; in their first measurement of April 2025 it was still 34.5%. Ryan Law summed it up like this:

“For every 100 clicks you could historically earn for a top-ranking page, Google now ‘keeps’ 58.”

— Ryan Law, Director of Content Marketing at Ahrefs (February 2026)

In March 2025, Pew Research tracked the browsing behaviour of 900 US adults. The source links inside an AI summary were clicked in barely 1% of visits, and after a search page with a summary, users more often stopped browsing altogether (26% versus 16%).

Seer Interactive tracked 53 brands, accounting for 5.47 million searches and 2.43 billion impressions. Organic CTR on searches with an AI Overview fell from 3.2% in January 2025 to a low of 1.3% in December 2025 and then recovered to 2.4% in February 2026. Without an AI Overview, CTR went from 2.8% to 3.8%.

The broader picture again comes from SparkToro, which drew a trend line across two data panels in 2026. According to SparkToro’s 2026 comparison, the US share of searches without a click rose from 60.45% in 2024 (Datos) to 68.01% in the first four months of 2026 (Similarweb), an increase of 7.5 percentage points.

Study	What was measured	Key result
SparkToro (2026)	Share of searches without a click, US	68.01% in early 2026 (Similarweb), versus 60.45% in 2024 (Datos)
Pew Research (2025)	Click behaviour with an AI summary, 900 US adults	Click-through in 8% of visits versus 15% without; on source links in 1% of visits
Ahrefs (2026)	Click-through position 1, desktop, with AI Overview	roughly -58%, versus -34.5% in April 2025
Seer Interactive (2026)	CTR with AI Overview, 53 brands	1.3% in December 2025, 2.4% in February 2026; cited: +120% clicks per impression
Amsive (2025)	CTR difference per keyword type, 10 sites in 5 sectors	Non-branded -19.98%; with brand name +18.68%

Read those figures with their limitations. They show correlation; a causal link has not been proven. The click studies are American or do not mention a country, and only the Ahrefs measurement is specifically about desktop. The 58% figure also applies only to position 1 for keywords with an AI Overview. A Belgian measurement of the click impact does not exist yet. Since June 2026, however, there are zero-click figures for Germany, France and Italy, as in the country table above.

What does Google itself say about zero-click?

Google maintains that total organic click volume to websites remains roughly stable and that AI in Search delivers higher-quality clicks. The company does not publish a dataset to back this up. Independent measurements by Pew, Ahrefs and SparkToro call that into question, although they measure click-through rates and shares, not total click volume.

Liz Reid, VP and Head of Google Search, wrote in August 2025:

“Overall, total organic click volume from Google Search to websites has been relatively stable year-over-year.”

— Liz Reid, VP and Head of Google Search (August 2025)

Google is sticking to that line. According to CEO Sundar Pichai, Google now sends “billions of clicks to websites every week” through its AI features (July 2026), again without figures per website.

Click-through rate and click volume are two different things. If the number of searches grows, and according to Google AI is doing exactly that, the total number of clicks can hold up while each search delivers fewer. The only large volume measurement in this dossier does point the other way: across more than 2,500 news sites, organic traffic from Google fell by 33% worldwide between November 2024 and November 2025 (Chartbeat data in the Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2026), a figure from the news sector that you cannot simply extend to an SME’s website.

For your strategy it makes little difference who turns out to be right. In both scenarios your visibility reaches further than your click statistics show, and you need more than visit numbers to measure it.

What is zero-click content and when does it work?

Zero-click content is content that delivers value where the reader already is, without them clicking through: an answer, figure or insight in an AI Overview, a search result or a social post, with your brand name attached. It works when awareness and trust are the goal, and poorly when your business model runs on page views.

Rand Fishkin, whose research has put the phenomenon into figures since 2019, put it this way in 2024:

“For marketers, this underscores the importance of zero-click content: getting value from searches that don’t result in a click.”

— Rand Fishkin, cofounder and CEO of SparkToro (July 2024)

In practice, you give the answer away. A clear definition that ends up in an AI Overview with your brand name, a figure from your own practice that others pick up, or a LinkedIn post that gives the whole reasoning in the feed, without a link to your blog. The reader does not have to do anything to benefit from it, and remembers who said it.

Situation	Does zero-click content work?	Why
Definition and knowledge questions	Yes, if you are cited as the source	The answer is already in the AI Overview; your brand only wins if your name is next to it
Local info: address, opening hours, phone	Yes	The searcher calls or drops by without visiting your website
B2B services with a long decision process	Yes	Whoever repeatedly sees your name in answers looks you up directly later
Sites that live off advertising per page view	No	Every missed click is missed revenue
Purchase and quote queries	Limited	There, the click itself is the conversion

For a local business, the business profile on Google is one of the clearest forms of zero-click content: address, opening hours and reviews are right there in the search result. How to get that in order in Belgium is covered in our guide to local SEO in Belgium.

What can you do about zero-click search?

Nobody can stop zero-click search, so you steer on what remains without a click: the searcher seeing and remembering your brand. A zero-click marketing strategy does that with citable content for AI Overviews and chatbots, visibility on the results page itself, brand building beyond Google and owned channels such as email. None of those tracks needs a website visit to deliver something.

SparkToro drew that conclusion itself in 2026:

“Our belief and advice is to invest in Zero Click Marketing: earning influence and growing your brand’s awareness without requiring a visit to your website.”

— Rand Fishkin, cofounder and CEO of SparkToro (June 2026)

Citable content means short, assertive answers under question-style headings, with figures and sources, so that an AI system can take over your facts and your brand name. The tactics behind this are in our guide to GEO strategy, and how to use search engine optimization and AI tools together is covered in combining SEO and AI. You earn visibility on the results page with a well-kept business profile and titles that carry your brand name. Brand building beyond Google makes people type in your name deliberately later on, and in owned channels such as email no algorithm stands between you and your audience.

ClickForest combines GEO and SEO for SMEs in Flanders: the citability layer comes on top of a healthy SEO foundation. If you want to have that done for you, you will find the approach on the page about outsourcing GEO.

Is your site cited in AI answers? Our GEO audit analyses whether ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity cite your website, and what your site needs to become citable.

How do you get cited in an AI Overview?

According to Google, the same SEO best practices apply to AI Overviews and AI Mode as to regular search results, without additional requirements or separate optimization. In practice: answer the question directly under a clear heading, back it up with sourced figures and keep your site technically healthy, so Google can retrieve, understand and trust your page.

Google Search Central says it literally: “The best practices for SEO remain relevant for AI features in Google Search (such as AI Overviews and AI Mode). There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary.” According to Google, you do not need a separate AI file or special markup either. For structured data, Google recommends that it matches the visible text on the page; according to Google, there is no special schema for appearing in AI Overviews.

Featured snippets follow the same logic. How to find the queries that trigger one is covered in our keyword research guide. Just do not count on them as a traffic source: in the Amsive study (700,000 keywords across 10 websites in 5 sectors, April 2025), an AI Overview with a featured snippet produced the biggest click-through drop of all, -37.04%.

Your brand counts. In the same Amsive study, click-through on non-branded keywords fell by almost 20%, while keywords with a brand name and an AI Overview rose by 18.68%; only 4.79% of branded keywords got an AI Overview, though. Seer Interactive also found that brands cited in an AI Overview get 120% more organic clicks per impression than when they are not cited. According to Amsive, the gain on branded keywords is likely due to brand recognition and search intent. How to actively steer on mentions in AI assistants, from your entity to external sources, is covered in how to get ChatGPT to recommend your business.

How do you measure visibility without clicks?

Measure visibility on three layers: impressions and positions in Search Console, mentions in AI answers together with the search volume on your brand name, and the traffic from AI assistants that GA4 shows as a referral source. If your impressions rise while clicks stay flat, you are probably visible in answers without people clicking through.

A feasible rhythm for an SME: review the ratio between impressions and clicks per core page every month, ask ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini the same set of core questions every month and note whether you are mentioned, and track your branded search volume as a yardstick for brand building. Those assistants are big by now: according to OpenAI, ChatGPT has more than 900 million weekly users (February 2026).

If your impressions themselves stay low, something other than zero-click is going on. The triage in why your website is not ranking high in Google helps you tell whether you have an indexing, a ranking or a click problem.

What does zero-click search mean for your SEO?

Zero-click search is structural and accelerating: according to SparkToro’s comparison, the US share without a click rose from 60.45% to 68.01% in two years, and in France (65.3%) and Germany (62.1%) the majority of searches also end without a click. SEO remains the foundation, because Google applies the same best practices to AI Overviews. What changes is the return: fewer clicks per search, more visibility without a visit.

Whoever stays visible writes to be cited, so they are quoted in the answer itself. They build their brand, because keywords with a brand name actually gained click-through in the Amsive study. And they measure impressions and mentions, alongside visits. Rand Fishkin put it this way in June 2026: “your SEO still matters as much or more than ever before, it just won’t earn you traffic the way it once did.”

For a Flemish SME, that means: keep investing in your SEO foundation and build the citability layer of GEO on top of it. ClickForest combines SEO and GEO for SMEs in Flanders, with the figures in this article as a compass. Want to know where your site stands? Start with a question via our contact page, or book a video call and we will look at your numbers together.