Zero-click search
Also called: zero click search, no-click search, zero-click
Definition
A zero-click search is one where the person gets their answer without visiting any site. The trend already existed with featured snippets and Google's answer boxes, and it is speeding up with answers written by AI.
According to a Pew Research Center study published in 2025, people who see an AI summary on Google click a link in 8% of visits, against 15% when there is none. Clicks go down, influence stays: the brand cited in the answer scores points, even without a visit.
Example
Someone asks Perplexity for the best noise-canceling headphones under €200. They read the answer, remember two brands and go look for them directly on a retail site, without going through any of the cited sites.
What it means for your AI visibility
If your traffic is dropping while your brand awareness holds, AI answers may have something to do with it. Then you need to measure what traffic no longer shows: how many times your brand is cited in those answers.
Related terms
- Google AI OverviewsAI Overviews are the AI-generated summaries Google shows at the top of its search results, with links to their sources.
- AI visibilityAI visibility measures how often, in what position and in what way a brand appears in the answers of generative AI.
- AI trafficAI traffic covers the visits a site gets from AI assistants and generative engines, when a user clicks on a cited source.
- SEOSEO optimizes a site for traditional search engines. It is still the foundation of GEO, but it's no longer enough to get recommended by AI.
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