Zero-Click Search
A zero-click search is a query that is already answered directly in the search results – through featured snippets, knowledge panels or AI-generated overviews – so that users no longer have to click through to a website.
In practice
Zero-click searches lower the conventional click-through rate. The Pew Research Center analysed the browsing behaviour of 900 US adults for March 2025: users who were shown an AI summary clicked a regular search result on 8% of visits, while those without a summary did so on 15%; a source named inside the summary was clicked on 1% of visits. Being named as the source of such an answer therefore wins visibility above all, not necessarily clicks; there are so far no robust, publicly verifiable figures on how the quality of the remaining clicks changes. In practice that mainly means that visibility as a cited source belongs alongside the click count in measuring success, rather than replacing it.