SEO Statistics 2026: Pew’s 8% vs 15%, Zero-Click Data, Datos

Pew Research Center found that Google users clicked a traditional search result on 8% of visits to results pages that showed an AI summary, against 15% of visits when no summary appeared. The sample was 900 US adults whose browsing was tracked from March 1 to 31, 2025, covering 68,879 unique Google searches, and the study was published July 22, 2025. The other number people search for most, the share of Google searches that end without any click, was 68.01% in the US for January to April 2026, per SparkToro using Similarweb’s clickstream panel.

Every figure on this page lists who measured it, how many people or keywords were in the sample, when the data was collected and what method produced it. Most SEO statistics pages skip that step, which is why the same number gets quoted three different ways. Each source link below goes to the primary study.

SEO statistics at a glance: source, sample, date and method

Two patterns are worth noticing before you quote anything. First, the panels changed: SparkToro’s 2024 numbers come from Datos and its 2026 numbers come from Similarweb, so the jump from 58.5% to 68.01% mixes a real trend with a change of measuring stick. Second, “CTR” means different things in different rows. Pew counts clicks per visit to a results page. Ahrefs and Seer divide Search Console clicks by impressions. Semrush counts searches that end with no click at all.

Pew’s AI summary study: the exact 8% and 15% figures, sample and method

This is the study behind every “site:pewresearch.org ai summary 8% 15%” search. Athena Chapekis and Anna Lieb wrote it for Pew’s short reads series. Here is what it measured, in Pew’s terms.

How Pew measured it

• Panel: 900 US adults in KnowledgePanel Digital, which Pew’s methodology page describes as a subset of Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel, a probability-based panel recruited by address-based sampling. The 900 were the people active in March 2025 out of 1,254 pilot survey respondents.
• Tracking: panelists installed the RealityMeter app on Android or Apple phones and tablets or on Windows or Apple computers, so mobile and desktop are both covered. Pew received every URL visited on a tracked device from March 1 to 31, 2025, about 2.5 million URLs in total.
• Detecting summaries: Pew says Google results pages “are not retrievable through most traditional web scraping methods,” so a third-party scraping service re-ran the panel’s searches from April 7 to 17, 2025 and captured the AI summary text and up to three of its source links.
• Classifying the next step: Pew used the timestamp and URL of each user’s next visit. A session counted as ended when the user left the browser for five seconds or more. A link that appeared in both the summary and the standard results was credited to the summary.
• Scope: Google only. Pew says it could not reliably detect AI summaries on other engines.

Numbers from the same study that rarely get quoted

• Only 8% of one or two word searches produced a summary, against 53% of searches with 10 or more words.
• 60% of searches phrased as questions produced a summary.
• 88% of summaries cited three or more sources. The median summary ran 67 words.
• Wikipedia, YouTube and Reddit made up 15% of sources in summaries and 17% in standard results. Government sites were 6% of summary sources against 2% of standard results.

How to quote the Pew study correctly

8% versus 15% is a relative drop of about 47% (7 divided by 15), not a 7% drop. Pew itself says users clicked “nearly twice as often” without a summary. Copy-ready citation:

In March 2025, Google users clicked a traditional search result on 8% of visits to pages with an AI summary and on 15% of visits without one (Pew Research Center, browsing data from 900 US adults, 68,879 searches, published July 22, 2025).

We found no rerun of this browsing-based click study as of November 2026. For chatbot adoption, AI referral share and Pew’s survey data on AI use, see our AI search statistics page.

Who is Datos? The Semrush company behind SparkToro’s zero-click data

Datos is a clickstream data company, founded in 2019, that licenses anonymized browsing data. Semrush took a majority stake in December 2023, according to the June 18, 2024 Datos and Semrush press release, and Datos now brands itself “Datos, A Semrush Company.” SparkToro is a separate company: Rand Fishkin’s audience research startup. It is a Datos data partner and customer, not its owner. So if you searched “Datos Semrush or SparkToro”, the answer is Semrush owns it and SparkToro publishes research with it.

Datos does not publish how panelists are recruited on its homepage beyond saying datasets are “anonymized and privacy-secured.” That matters when you weigh it against Pew, whose recruitment method is documented.

Zero-click search statistics: 2024 Datos vs 2026 Similarweb

SparkToro defines a zero-click search as one that ends without a click on any result, including Google’s own properties and ads. The search either ends or the user types a new query.

2024 study (Datos panel, published July 1, 2024)

• 58.5% of US and 59.7% of EU Google searches ended with zero clicks.
• For every 1,000 searches, 360 clicks reached the open web in the US and 374 in the EU. The post title says “EU 374, US 360”; some summaries swap them.
• Almost 30% of US clicks went to Google-owned properties such as YouTube, Maps and Flights.
• Paid ads drew about 1% of all clicks. SparkToro notes Datos did not remove ad-blocker users, so paid clicks may be undercounted.

2026 study (Similarweb panel, published June 8, 2026)

• 68.01% of US Google searches ended without a click, January to April 2026.
• The data excludes the Google mobile search app, where SparkToro expects zero-click rates to be even higher.
• Only 0.34% of searches went to AI Mode in that period.
• US searches sent 231 clicks to the open web per 1,000 searches, per the country follow-up below.

Zero-click rate by country, January to April 2026

Source: SparkToro, June 16, 2026, Similarweb data. Organic and paid clicks are grouped together for non-US countries.

A conflict to know about: SparkToro’s 2026 post states that “in 2024, US zero click searches on Google stood at 60.45%” and calls the rise to 68.01% 7.5 points. Its own 2024 study published 58.5%. The 2026 post does not explain the difference, and it describes the 2024 data as coming from Datos. If you quote a two-year change, name both figures and both panels. The longer series (about 45% in 2016 and 49% in 2019) comes from the now-defunct Jumpshot panel and is historical context only.

Ahrefs clickstream: what Ahrefs actually uses it for

Ahrefs uses clickstream data in one visible place: the Clicks and Clicks per search (CPS) columns in Keywords Explorer. Its help article says “we process tons of clickstream data” to show how many times a month people click any result for a keyword. The example it gives: “seo” had 125K monthly searches but 59K clicks. Ahrefs does not name its clickstream provider.

The rest of Ahrefs’ traffic numbers are models, not clickstream:

• Organic traffic estimates are built per keyword from “ranking position, monthly search volume, and our estimated CTR for that position,” then summed, per Ahrefs’ own explanation. CTR curves come from third-party data sources.
• Search volume combines Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends and other third-party sources. Ahrefs reports its volumes were “roughly accurate for 60% of the studied keywords” against Search Console impressions, versus 45% for Keyword Planner, per its accuracy note. The note does not date that test.
• The AI Overview CTR studies use aggregated Google Search Console data, not clickstream.
• The AI vs search traffic benchmark uses Ahrefs Web Analytics, a first-party script installed on 115,254 sites. In September 2026 Google sent 23.96% of their traffic and AI assistants 0.43%, with ChatGPT at 0.34%.

So when someone cites “Ahrefs data”, ask which of the four it is. A keyword-level Clicks figure, a modeled traffic estimate, a Search Console aggregate and an analytics-script benchmark have very different error profiles.

How Similarweb, Ahrefs and Semrush estimate traffic, and why they disagree

Third-party tools fall into two families. Clickstream tools watch a sample of real devices and scale up. Keyword-position tools take the keywords a site ranks for, multiply search volume by an assumed CTR for each position, and add it up. Semrush runs both, which is why its own knowledge base says Traffic Analytics and Domain Analytics “will almost always report different estimations.”

How each data source measures search

For market share specifically, our search engine market share page compares StatCounter, Similarweb and Cloudflare Radar side by side.

Worked example: what a modeled estimate does with an AI Overview

Take a keyword with 10,000 monthly desktop searches where you rank first. Ahrefs measured position 1 desktop CTR on AI Overview keywords at 0.016 in December 2025, against a modeled 0.037 had AI Overviews not appeared. That is 160 clicks a month instead of 370. A keyword-position tool that applies one generic CTR curve to both kinds of keyword will overstate the AI Overview keyword by more than double. Before you trust a competitor’s estimated traffic, check how many of their top keywords trigger an AI Overview.

How Search Console counts AI Overview clicks

Google’s Search Console documentation says a click on an external link in an AI Overview counts as a click, standard impression rules apply, and “an AI Overview occupies a single position in search results, and all links in the AI Overview are assigned that same position.” AI Mode clicks also count. Data normally appears in 2 to 3 days and days are labeled in California time, per About Search Console data. If you want to separate AI referrals from search in your own reporting, we walk through it in tracking AI search traffic in GA4 and GSC.

AI Overviews and click-through rate: five studies, five yardsticks

These do not contradict each other as much as they look. Ahrefs and Seer measure what happens to sites that rank. Semrush measures whether the searcher clicks anything at all, including ads and Google properties. Pew measures real people across all searches. Seer’s earlier September 2025 update, the source of the widely quoted “0.61%” and “61% drop”, is superseded by the 2026 version above; its own figures (1.76% to 0.61%) also work out to a 65% drop, not 61%. Seer’s 2026 data also found brands cited inside an AI Overview earned 2.07% organic CTR against 0.94% when not cited, across informational queries in 2025, a correlation Seer says it cannot prove is causal. For what to do about it on your own pages, see optimizing for Google AI Overviews.

How often AI Overviews appear depends on who is counting: 18% of real searches in Pew’s March 2025 panel, 15.69% of Semrush’s 10 million+ tracked keywords in November 2025 after a July peak of 24.61%, and “~16% of Google SERPs” in SparkToro’s March 2026 post.

Search engine market share: 91% or 74%?

StatCounter put Google at 91.04% of worldwide search referrals in October 2026, with Bing at 4.77% and Yahoo at 1.18%, from its CSV export. StatCounter counts clicks that land on sites carrying its code. Its FAQ is blunt: “If that person never clicks on any website result then no search engine referral will be tracked by us.”

SparkToro and Datos measured something different: all searches on 41 domains, including Amazon, YouTube, Bing and ChatGPT. On that basis Google ran 73.7% of US desktop searches in Q4 2025 and lost 3.5 points over the year. Traditional engines held about 80% of searches, commerce sites about 10%, social networks about 5.5% and AI tools 3.2%. Rand Fishkin chose the 41 domains editorially from the 250 most visited in Datos’ panel, and the panel is desktop only.

Which SEO statistic should you quote? A decision table

Run this check before a number goes into a deck or a press pitch. Match the question you are answering to the dataset built to answer it.

If you track only one number for your own site, make it clicks per query group from Search Console, not estimated traffic. Our guide to SEO metrics that matter covers how to build that view.

Older SEO statistics still in circulation, labeled historical

• Backlinko CTR study (27.6% for position 1, 54.4% for the top 3, 0.63% for page two): based on Search Console data from accounts supplied by Semrush across 1,312,881 pages and 12,166,560 queries. The page was last updated April 16, 2025 but does not state when the data was collected, and some charts are dated 2019. It predates AI Overviews; treat it as a historical baseline.
• Semrush zero-clicks study (25.6% of desktop searches): 20,000 US users, May 2022, published October 25, 2022. Historical.
• SparkToro 2019 (49% zero-click): Jumpshot panel, now defunct. Historical.
• Ahrefs “96.55% of pages get zero Google traffic”: published December 1, 2023 from about 14 billion pages. Ahrefs says the sample leans toward “the quality side of the web” and the traffic numbers are estimates.

Local search figures, such as map pack clicks and review behavior, are tracked separately on our local SEO statistics page. If you are deciding how much budget to keep in search given these numbers, that is a conversation I am happy to have in a consultation.

Frequently asked questions

What did Pew Research find about Google AI summaries and clicks (8% vs 15%)?

Pew Research Center found that users clicked a traditional search result on 8% of visits to Google results pages with an AI summary, against 15% of visits without one. They clicked a link inside the summary on 1% of visits. The data came from the tracked browsing of 900 US adults in KnowledgePanel Digital from March 1 to 31, 2025, covering 68,879 searches. Pew published it on July 22, 2025.

Is Datos owned by Semrush or SparkToro?

Semrush. Semrush took a majority stake in Datos in December 2023, announced in a June 18, 2024 press release, and Datos now calls itself Datos, A Semrush Company. SparkToro is a separate company run by Rand Fishkin. It partners with Datos and used Datos clickstream data for its 2024 zero-click study and its March 2026 analysis of search across 41 websites.

What is Ahrefs clickstream data used for?

Ahrefs says it processes clickstream data to produce the Clicks and Clicks per search metrics in Keywords Explorer, which show how many searches for a keyword lead to any click. Its example: seo had 125K monthly searches but 59K clicks. Ahrefs' organic traffic estimates are different: they multiply ranking position, search volume and an estimated CTR per position. Ahrefs does not name its clickstream provider.

What percentage of Google searches are zero-click in 2026?

SparkToro, using Similarweb's desktop and mobile clickstream panel, found 68.01% of US Google searches ended without a click from January to April 2026. The UK was higher at 69.5% and Germany lowest at 62.1%. The data excludes the Google mobile app. SparkToro's 2024 study with Datos reported 58.5% for the US, but the panels differ, so the change is not a like-for-like trend.

How do Similarweb, Semrush and Ahrefs estimate website traffic?

Similarweb blends direct measurement from sites that share analytics, its own contributory network of consumer products, partners such as ISPs, and public data, then models it with machine learning. Semrush Traffic Analytics models clickstream from a panel it puts at over 200 million users. Ahrefs and Semrush Domain Analytics estimate search traffic from keyword rankings, search volume and assumed CTR. None of them are your actual analytics.

How much do AI Overviews reduce click-through rate?

It depends on the metric. Ahrefs found position 1 desktop CTR was 58% lower than its modeled baseline on AI Overview keywords in December 2025, using 300,000 keywords of Search Console data. Pew found clicks per visit fell from 15% to 8%. Semrush and Datos found the zero-click rate on the same keywords went from 33.75% to 31.53% after an AI Overview appeared. Quote each with its own definition.

How does Google Search Console count clicks from AI Overviews?

Google's documentation says a click on an external link inside an AI Overview counts as a click, standard impression rules apply, and the whole AI Overview occupies one position, so every link in it gets that same position. Clicks from AI Mode also count. Search Console omits rare queries for privacy, and its report tables show up to 1,000 rows, with more available through the API.