Google saw more searches than ever in early 2026, and from January to April that year 68.01% of US Google searches ended without a click. Search demand keeps growing while each search sends fewer visitors, and a good SEO plan for this year accounts for both trends.
We collected 67 SEO statistics on where people search, how many clicks a search sends, how pages rank and what changed in 2026. We opened every source ourselves, copied the exact figure and noted when and how each study was run.
When good studies disagree, as they do on zero-click rates and on the click-through rate for the #1 result, we show both numbers and explain how the methods differ. For buyer and pipeline numbers, see our B2B SEO statistics, and for AI search in depth, see our AI SEO statistics.
Search Engine Market Share in 2026
Google still runs the large majority of the world's searches. StatCounter measures page views across its network of sites, and its September 2026 numbers put Google close to 90% worldwide and even higher on phones.
Google's share worldwide, in the US and on mobile
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 89.94% of search | worldwide went to Google in September 2026, with Bing at 5.29% and Yahoo at 1.36% | StatCounterSept 2026 · Page view tracking |
| 85.19% in the US | was Google's share of US search, with Bing at 9.89% | StatCounterSept 2026 · Page view tracking |
| 95.68% of mobile search | worldwide went to Google | StatCounterSept 2026 · Page view tracking |
In the US, Bing is the next largest engine, with 9.89% of searches. It's worth claiming your site in Bing Webmaster Tools, though most teams don't need a separate Bing plan.
Where searches happen when you count every site
People also search inside shopping sites, social networks and AI tools. SparkToro and Datos counted searches on 41 large US sites with a search box, using a desktop clickstream panel, and Google's share comes out lower once those sites are included.
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 73.7% of US desktop searches | across 41 large sites ran on Google in Q4 2025, while search engines as a group had about 80%, commerce sites about 10%, social networks about 5.5% and AI tools 3.2% | SparkToro and DatosMar 2026 · Clickstream panel, 41 sites |
| 3.5 points of share | lost by Google across those 41 sites during 2025 | SparkToro and DatosMar 2026 · Clickstream panel, 41 sites |
Added together, commerce sites, social networks and AI tools handled about 18.7% of desktop searches in that study (our calculation). If your buyers shop on Amazon or learn on YouTube, those search boxes deserve their own keyword research.
Devices
Mobile carries most of the world's web traffic, so many people will see your pages on a phone before they ever see them on a laptop.
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 58.99% of web traffic | worldwide came from mobile devices, against 39.26% from desktop and 1.76% from tablets | StatCounterSept 2026 · Page view tracking |
Is Search Still Growing?
Yes. Google says people search more than ever, and studies that count AI chat alongside search engines find total search use going up. What shrank is the number of clicks each search sends.
Search volume and revenue
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| More than 5 trillion searches | a year on Google, which works out to about 13.7 billion a day (our calculation) | GoogleMar 2025 · Company statement |
| Record high | for Google Search query volume, reached in the first quarter of 2026 | GoogleMay 2026 · Company statement |
| 17% revenue growth | in Google's Search and Other business in Q2 2026 | AlphabetJul 2026 · Quarterly earnings |
The figure of more than 5 trillion searches a year comes from Google itself. Many roundups still quote older estimates from other sites, which we list in the section on popular stats we left out.
Organic traffic to websites
Graphite, an SEO agency that states its own interest in the topic, used Similarweb data to measure search use and organic visits. Reassuringly, both of its studies found organic traffic fell far less than many headlines suggested.
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 26% more search use | worldwide in 2025 when search engines and AI chat are counted together, and 16% more in the US | GraphiteMar 2026 · Similarweb sessions |
| 2.5% fewer organic visits | from Google to the 40,000 largest US sites, year over year | GraphiteJan 2026 · Similarweb visits |
| "Relatively stable" | is how Google describes total organic click volume to websites year over year, without publishing the data | GoogleAug 2025 · Company statement |
Google's own statement points the same way, though Google hasn't published the data behind it. Read together, the numbers suggest that demand moved to more places and each search now sends fewer clicks.
Branded search
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 45.7% of Google searches | are branded once you weight by search volume, against 36.9% of unique queries | AhrefsMay 2025 · 150M US keywords |
Almost half of all Google searches name a brand. The more people know your name, the more of those searches you can win.
Zero-Click Searches and Click-Through Rates
This is where 2026 looks most different from a few years ago. More searches end on Google's results page, and the top result earns a much smaller share of clicks when an AI answer sits above it.
How many searches end without a click
SparkToro has zero-click data from clickstream panels going back ten years. Its 2026 numbers come from Similarweb's mobile and desktop panel, while earlier years used Jumpshot and Datos, so each step in the chart below also reflects a change of panel.
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 68.01% of US Google searches | ended without a click from January to April 2026, up from 60.45% in 2024 | SparkToroJun 2026 · Clickstream panel |
| About 45% ten years ago | was the share of Google searches that ended without a click, measured on the older Jumpshot panel | SparkToroJun 2026 · Clickstream panels |
| 74.2% of US searches | end without a click by First Page Sage's estimate, up from 64.8% a year earlier | First Page SageSept 2026 · Client data |
First Page Sage puts the rate higher, at 74.2%. Its estimate comes from one agency's client Search Console data and a SERP crawl, while SparkToro watches real browsing on a panel, and the two methods land about six points apart.
CTR by ranking position in 2026
First Page Sage published its 2026 click-through rate tables in September. They now split every position by whether an AI answer appears on the page, and the gap between the two columns is large.
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 22.6% CTR at position 1 | on pages with no AI answer, against 3.6% when an AI answer shows and 7.1% blended | First Page SageSept 2026 · Client data |
| From 39.8% to 7.1% | is how far blended position 1 CTR fell between First Page Sage's 2025 and 2026 reports | First Page SageSept 2026 · Client data |
First Page Sage also says Google made AI answers the default in July 2026, which Google's own posts don't state. The agency doesn't publish its sample sizes either, so use the table as a guide for your own forecasts.
You can run these curves on your own keywords with the click estimator further down this page.
What AI Overviews do to clicks
Several large studies measured how AI Overviews change clicks, and their results differ because each one measures something different. Ahrefs compared click-through rates in Search Console data, Pew followed the browsing of 900 adults, and Seer tracked 53 client brands into 2026.
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 58% lower CTR | for the page ranked first when an AI Overview appears | AhrefsFeb 2026 · 300,000 keywords |
| 8% of visits | with an AI summary led to a click on a regular result, against 15% of visits without one | Pew Research CenterJul 2025 · Browsing of 900 adults |
| 2.4% organic CTR | on queries with an AI Overview in February 2026, up from a low of 1.3% in December 2025, while queries without one rose from 2.8% to 3.8% | Seer InteractiveApr 2026 · Client data, 53 brands |
| 120% more clicks | per impression for brands cited in an AI Overview than for brands left out, though still 38% fewer than with no AI Overview | Seer InteractiveApr 2026 · Client data, 53 brands |
| 33.75% to 31.53% | is how the zero-click rate moved on the same keywords after they started showing AI Overviews | SemrushDec 2025 · Clickstream, 200K+ keywords |
| 48% of tracked queries | showed an AI Overview, up from roughly 30% a year earlier | BrightEdgeFeb 2026 · Keyword tracking |
Interestingly, Semrush found the zero-click rate dipped slightly once keywords started showing AI Overviews. Semrush followed the same keywords over time, while Ahrefs and Pew compared searches with and without an AI answer, so the studies answer different questions.
Seer's data shows the effect is still moving. Organic CTR on AI Overview queries hit 1.3% in December 2025 and climbed back to 2.4% by February 2026. For the full picture on AI search, see our AI SEO statistics.
Paid clicks and SERP features
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 6.8% of queries | now show a featured snippet, down from roughly a third | First Page SageSept 2026 · Client data |
| 21.8% paid CTR | on queries without an AI Overview in February 2026, down from 26% in January 2025, while paid CTR with an AI Overview rose from 14.6% to 16.2% | Seer InteractiveApr 2026 · Client data, 53 brands |
Featured snippets have mostly given way to AI answers, and paid ads on regular searches are losing clicks too. For a full comparison of the two channels, read our SEO vs PPC statistics.
Where Website Traffic Comes From in 2026
Ahrefs tracks a fixed set of 115,254 websites through its Web Analytics product and publishes the channel mix every month. Search is still the largest source of visits after direct traffic.
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 26.82% of website visits | came from search in September 2026, 23.96% from Google alone and 0.43% from AI assistants | AhrefsSept 2026 · 115,254 sites |
| 3.0% a month | was the average monthly drop in Google referrals, while ChatGPT referrals grew 5.5% a month | AhrefsJun 2025 to Sept 2026 · 115,254 sites |
| 42.4% of traffic | came from organic search in Health Care, 39.6% in Communication Services and 33.8% in Industrials | ConductorNov 2025 · 1,215 enterprise domains |
AI assistants send a small slice of visits today, though they grew 5.5% a month on average while Google referrals shrank 3.0% a month. Conductor's enterprise data shows organic search carries even more weight in some industries.
If your organic share sits well below these numbers, our guide on how to increase traffic to a B2B website has practical next steps.
Ranking Statistics
How long it takes to rank
Ahrefs followed 1 million random new pages for a year to see how many reached Google's top 10. Very few did, and about two in five of the ones that made it got there within a month.
In Ahrefs' 2017 study, 5.7% of new pages reached the top 10 within a year, so the bar has risen since then. If a page hasn't moved after six months, reworking it is usually a better use of time than waiting. Our post on when B2B companies should invest in SEO covers timing in more detail.
How old ranking pages are
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 72.9% of top 10 pages | are more than three years old, and the average #1 page is five years old | AhrefsMay 2025 · 1.3M keywords |
Most pages in the top 10 have been around for years. Updating and expanding a page that already ranks is often faster than publishing a new one on the same topic.
How many pages get any traffic
The 96.55% figure comes from a 2023 study, so we tag it as older. Long tail keywords add up, though each one is small on its own, which is why our B2B keyword research guide groups related terms onto one page.
Google updates
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 45% less low quality, unoriginal content | in search results after Google's March 2024 core update, by Google's own count | GoogleApr 2024 · Company statement · Older study |
| 10 confirmed updates | from January 2025 to October 2026: five core updates and five spam updates | GoogleOct 2026 · Our count of Google's log |
We counted the confirmed core and spam updates on Google's Search Status Dashboard ourselves. Five core updates in about 22 months works out to between two and three a year (our calculation).
Content and AI Writing
Does AI content rank?
Ahrefs ran its AI detector over 900,000 new pages, then over the top 20 results for 100,000 keywords. Most new pages contain some AI text, and the share of AI text has almost no link to where a page ranks.
In Ahrefs' data, the amount of AI text made no real difference to rankings. Our SEO best practices guide covers what makes a page useful to searchers in 2026.
What content teams report
Orbit Media has surveyed bloggers for 13 years, and its 2026 survey of 1,042 content marketers shows strong results getting harder to reach. The average post now runs 1,312 words and takes 3 hours and 20 minutes to write.
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 13.9% of bloggers | say their blog delivers strong results, a record low, while 92.4% now use AI for blogging | Orbit Media2026 · Survey of 1,042 |
| 18% of bloggers | say they don't know if their blog delivers results, a big jump from the year before | Orbit Media2026 · Survey of 1,042 |
| 50% better odds | of strong results for bloggers who publish original research, and 2.6x the benchmark for those who work with influencers | Orbit Media2026 · Survey of 1,042 |
| 95% of B2B marketers | say their organization uses applications powered by AI | CMI and MarketingProfs2026 · Survey of 1,015 |
Surprisingly, Orbit found that using AI for blogging correlates with nothing at all in its results. Original research does show a link, since publishing it improves the odds of strong results by 50%.
Backlink Statistics
Do links still matter?
Ahrefs checked the top 20 results for the top 1 million US keywords and measured how each factor correlates with ranking position. Happily, referring domains still came out as the strongest link metric.
Link decay
Links also disappear over time. This study was last updated in 2024, so we tag it as older.
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 66.5% of links | pointing to 2,062,173 sampled sites since January 2013 have disappeared | AhrefsFeb 2024 · 2M sites · Older study |
Technical SEO Statistics
Core Web Vitals
We used two sources that track Core Web Vitals across the web, and both use data from real Chrome users. The Chrome UX Report publishes numbers every month, and the HTTP Archive Web Almanac looks deeper once a year.
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 55.9% of websites | had good Core Web Vitals in September 2026, up from 53.7% a year earlier | Chrome UX ReportOct 2026 · Real Chrome users, 18.4M sites |
| 68.3% with good LCP | against 81.7% of sites with good CLS and 85.4% with good INP | Chrome UX ReportOct 2026 · Real Chrome users, 18.4M sites |
| 48% of mobile sites | passed Core Web Vitals in 2025, up from 36% in 2023, against 56% on desktop | HTTP Archive2025 · Web Almanac, Chrome user data |
| 51% of the top 1,000 sites | pass Core Web Vitals on mobile | HTTP Archive2025 · Web Almanac, Chrome user data |
| 62% with good LCP on mobile | against 74% of desktop pages | HTTP Archive2025 · Web Almanac, Chrome user data |
| 45% of mobile home pages | pass Core Web Vitals, against 56% of mobile inner pages | HTTP Archive2025 · Web Almanac, Chrome user data |
Encouragingly, pass rates keep rising each year. Mobile still trails desktop, LCP is the metric sites fail most often, and home pages pass less often than inner pages.
Page basics across the web
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 91.7% of desktop pages | use HTTPS, as do 91.5% of mobile pages | HTTP Archive2025 · Web Almanac crawl |
| 67.7% of desktop pages | have a meta description, while 98.6% have a title tag | HTTP Archive2025 · Web Almanac crawl |
| 43% of home pages | use JSON-LD structured data, on desktop and mobile alike | HTTP Archive2025 · Web Almanac crawl |
| 68% of desktop pages | use a canonical tag (67% on mobile), up from 65% the year before | HTTP Archive2025 · Web Almanac crawl |
Title tags are nearly universal, yet about a third of desktop pages skip the meta description and more than half of home pages skip JSON-LD. Data on AI crawlers and llms.txt is in our AI SEO statistics.
Local SEO Statistics
Reviews
BrightLocal's 2026 Local Consumer Review Survey asked a representative panel of 1,002 US adults how they choose local businesses. More of them now always read reviews, and they want those reviews to be recent.
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 97% of consumers | read reviews for local businesses, and 41% always do, up from 29% a year earlier | BrightLocalFeb 2026 · Survey of 1,002 |
| 47% of consumers | won't use a business with fewer than 20 reviews, and 31% will only use one rated 4.5 stars or more, up from 17% | BrightLocalFeb 2026 · Survey of 1,002 |
| 74% of consumers | only care about reviews written in the last three months, and 54% check the business's website after reading positive reviews | BrightLocalFeb 2026 · Survey of 1,002 |
Where people look for local businesses
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 71% for Google | as a source of local reviews, down from 83% in 2025, while Apple Maps nearly doubled its usage from 14% to 27% | BrightLocalFeb 2026 · Survey of 1,002 |
| 45% of consumers | use ChatGPT or other AI tools for local business recommendations, up from 6% a year earlier | BrightLocalFeb 2026 · Survey of 1,002 |
Google is still the top source, though its share fell. Use of ChatGPT and other AI tools for local recommendations jumped from 6% to 45% in a year, which made AI the third most popular source.
Local rankings and clicks
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Proximity ranks first | among local pack factors, ahead of keywords in the Business Profile title, an address in the searched city and opening hours | WhitesparkNov 2025 · Survey of 47 experts |
| 14.8% CTR | for local pack position 1, down only 16% in a year from 17.6% | First Page SageSept 2026 · Client data |
| 7.9% of local searches | trigger an AI Overview | AhrefsNov 2025 · 146M SERPs |
Whitespark's ranking factors come from a survey of 47 local search experts, so they show what practitioners believe works. Fortunately for local businesses, the top local pack spot lost far fewer clicks than organic position 1, and only 7.9% of local searches show an AI Overview.
Video SEO Statistics
YouTube in search and AI answers
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 22.9% of citations | among the 50 domains most cited in Google AI Overviews go to YouTube, the top site | AhrefsSept 2026 · 3M+ US queries |
| 0.737 correlation | between YouTube mentions and brand visibility in AI answers, the strongest of any factor Ahrefs tested | AhrefsDec 2025 · 75,000 brands |
Unsurprisingly, YouTube's reach carries into AI search, where it's cited in Google's AI Overviews more than any other site. Our AI SEO statistics cover AI citations in more detail.
What video teams are doing
Wistia's 2026 report combines a survey of more than 900 professionals with data from 13 million videos and 79 million viewing hours on its platform.
| Stat | Insight | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 76% of companies | make at least one video a month, and vertical video uploads rose 24% in a year | Wistia2026 · Survey of 900+ and platform data |
| 48% of companies | plan to raise video promotion budgets this year, while 40% expect to spend more on production | Wistia2026 · Survey of 900+ and platform data |
B2B SEO Statistics
B2B buyers research differently, and B2B funnels run longer. We keep those numbers in a separate post, B2B SEO statistics, which covers how buyers use AI, when they contact sales and how organic leads move through the funnel.
If you'd like help turning these numbers into a plan for your own pipeline, our B2B SEO agency team builds programs around them.
SEO ROI, Budgets and SEO vs PPC
Return and budget numbers need more context than one table can give, so they live on their own pages. Our SEO vs PPC statistics compare cost, clicks and conversions for the two channels, and our B2B SEO statistics include ROI benchmarks.
Estimate Your Organic Clicks in 2026
Enter a few keywords with their monthly search volume and your current position. The estimator applies the 2026 click-through rate curves and shows how many clicks AI answers may cost you and how many citations could win back.
Pick a study, or drag the slider to the share you see in your own rank tracker.
Sources: CTR by position from First Page Sage (Sept 2026, client data) or Ahrefs (Feb 2026), citation lift from Seer Interactive (Apr 2026, client data), AI answer shares from Semrush (Nov 2025), Ahrefs (Sept 2025), Conductor (Sept to Oct 2025), BrightEdge (Feb 2026) and First Page Sage (Sept 2026, counts AI Mode). CTR curves are averages, so check them against your own Search Console data.
With the default inputs, three keywords at positions 1, 3 and 5 would earn about 640 clicks a month if no AI answers appeared. At BrightEdge's 48% AI Overview rate, with a quarter of those answers citing you, the estimate falls to about 395 clicks, and citations win back about 14 of them (our calculation).
Swap in your own keywords and the AI answer share from your rank tracker before you plan around the result. If the gap looks large, our B2B SEO agency team can help you plan for it.
Popular SEO Stats We Left Out
These numbers appear on many SEO statistics pages. We traced each one as far as we could, and here is where each trail ended.
- "Organic search drives 53% of all website traffic" comes from BrightEdge's 2019 channel report, and some 2026 roundups present it as new research. It's seven years old, and Ahrefs' September 2026 data puts search at 26.82% of visits.
- "The #1 Google result gets 39.8% of clicks" is First Page Sage's 2025 figure, which the agency replaced with 7.1% blended in September 2026. Backlinko's 27.6% for the top result comes from its 2023 study and is out of date as well.
- "Leads from search close at 14.6%, against 1.7% for outbound" has circulated since the middle of the 2010s. We couldn't find a study, sample or date behind it.
- "SEO delivers 8x ROI, twice the 4x of PPC" traces back to an NP Digital LinkedIn post with no published method.
- "Google handles 8.5 billion (or 16.4 billion) searches a day" comes from estimates by Internet Live Stats and DemandSage. Google's own figure is more than 5 trillion searches a year, or about 13.7 billion a day.
- "75% of people never scroll past the first page" is usually credited to HubSpot, and we couldn't find a study behind it.
Our Sourcing Rules
- Every stat links straight to the company or research group that ran the study.
- Each stat shows when the study was published and how it was done, such as a survey size or a clickstream panel.
- When an agency measured its own clients, the source line says Client data.
- When good studies disagree, we print both numbers side by side and explain how their methods differ.
- Studies from 2023 and 2024 that we kept are tagged as older.
- If we couldn't open the original page and find the exact number, we left the stat out.
- We last checked every number on October 24, 2026.
Found a newer study or a number that changed? Email us at admin@perceptric.com and we'll update the page.
FAQ
What percentage of Google searches end without a click in 2026?
SparkToro measured 68.01% of US Google searches ending without a click from January to April 2026, up from 60.45% in 2024 and about 45% ten years ago. First Page Sage estimates 74.2% using one agency's client data and a SERP crawl. The two figures differ because they are measured in different ways.
What is the click-through rate for the #1 result on Google?
First Page Sage's September 2026 tables put position 1 at 22.6% on pages with no AI answer, 3.6% when an AI answer shows and 7.1% blended. The blended figure fell from 39.8% in its 2025 report. Ahrefs found that an AI Overview cuts the top result's click-through rate by 58%.
How much of the search market does Google have?
Google held 89.94% of worldwide search engine market share in September 2026 and 85.19% in the US, according to StatCounter. When SparkToro and Datos counted searches across 41 large US sites, including commerce and social sites, Google ran 73.7% of desktop searches.
Is SEO dead because of AI?
No. Google says query volume reached a record high in early 2026, and its Search revenue grew 17% in Q2 2026. Graphite found that total search use, counting AI chat, grew 26% worldwide in 2025, while organic visits to the 40,000 largest US sites fell only 2.5%. Each search sends fewer clicks, so SEO now includes earning citations in AI answers as well as rankings.
How much website traffic comes from organic search?
Across 115,254 websites tracked by Ahrefs, search sent 26.82% of visits in September 2026, and Google alone sent 23.96%. Conductor found higher organic shares in some industries, such as 42.4% in Health Care and 33.8% in Industrials.
How long does it take to rank on Google?
Ahrefs found that only 1.74% of new pages reach the top 10 within a year. Of the pages that do, 40.82% get there in their first month. The average #1 page is five years old, so refreshing pages that already rank is often faster than starting new ones.
Does content written by AI hurt rankings?
Ahrefs found almost no link between the share of AI text on a page and its ranking, with a correlation of 0.011. Most top 20 pages (81.9%) mix AI and human writing, and 74.2% of new pages include some AI text. Expert input and careful editing are still worth the time.
Do backlinks still matter in 2026?
Yes. Ahrefs found that referring domains correlate 0.255 with Google rankings, the strongest of the link metrics it measured, and links correlate 0.33 with rankings on local queries. Links from many different sites count slightly more than the raw number of backlinks, which correlates at 0.248.
Want to keep learning? Read our guides on B2B keyword research, increasing traffic to a B2B website and SEO best practices.
