GLOSSARY
Zero-click search
Zero-click Search
One sentence of definition, and how it differs from the concepts it gets confused with. The definition is written to be quoted as it stands.
DEFINITION
A zero-click search is one where the user reads only the search screen or the AI answer and leaves without clicking a result link. The larger this share grows, the more 'are you inside the answer' matters over 'what position are you'.
Easily confused with
It does not mean traffic goes to zero
Clicks falling and clicks disappearing are different. A preregistered field experiment reported a causal estimate that AI search significantly reduces referrals, but that value is from US Google and there is no basis yet for transferring the magnitude to Korea.
It does not mean abandoning SEO either
A large share of generative answers is built on top of a search index. A document that is not indexed never becomes a candidate, so indexing remains a precondition however far zero-click grows.
In practice
- Where clicks are falling, put mentions and citations alongside traffic as performance metrics.
- Separate questions that end at the answer from those that do not — purchase-decision questions still tend to lead to a click.
Related terms
Where this leads
- Does a high search ranking mean ChatGPT cites you too? Why a page ranked first on Google goes uncited, why a page ranked fifth gets cited, and why a third-party site gets cited instead of your own — the structural reasons search rank and AI citation can disagree.
- What is the difference between AEO and SEO? Raising a search ranking and being cited inside an AI answer have different goals and different metrics. Here is where the two pieces of work diverge and where they overlap, on practical terms.
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