Search Engine Journal editor Katie Morton and I recorded the first episode of Search Engine Journal’s revamped podcast, focusing on a recurring theme in our coverage. We discussed how clicks decrease on the open weba trend that many researchers have noticed. We argue that much of this attention has not disappeared but has shifted to areas that are difficult to track by standard analyses. Listen to the full episode here.
(04:28) — Introduction: Disappearing Clicks
(05:09) — Where to invest your marketing resources?
(09:14) – How to measure performance beyond clicks
(13:49) — Where is search traffic going?
(16:41) — What does visibility mean now?
(21:11) — Reset goals for content leaders
Where the research lands now
These days, most searches often don’t lead directly to a click on the open web. According to Rand Fishkin’s analysis of Similarweb clickstream data, approximately 68% of Google searches in the United States during the first four months of 2026, will end without any clicks. Only about a quarter of them actually redirect users to an external website. The rest completes without a click, leads to another Google search, or directs users to a Google-owned property or paid result.
This attention is concentrated in a few places. A large part never leaves Google, owned by AI Insightsestablishment profiles, Maps lists and more recent surfaces such as Request cards that direct people to specific businesses. Community platforms also appear more often in the results.
After May Core Update, SE Rank Tracker showed Reddit gaining the top three positions in the 20 niches it tracks. Google’s partnership with Reddit has been in place for a while and Google has been leaning more into forum results, although I wouldn’t say the deal alone explains the move.
Then there is a smaller set of sites that still reliably generate organic traffic. Transactional, local, and branded searches continue to send clicks. What’s being hit hardest is lifestyle content, wire journalism, and utility pages like weather and TV listings, which are the kinds of things that an AI preview can respond to without sending a click anywhere.
Katie added that much of what comes out of the open web lands on social platforms and video, where AI can’t easily replicate formats. Younger audiences, in particular, are spending their time there rather than on traditional sites, and YouTube is capturing their attention across all age groups.
Content bets that have stopped paying off
Many blogs try to cover all related topics with generic content, which worked when Google indexed them all and generated traffic. Now they face tougher competition from similar pages and AI summaries that respond directly in search results. Focusing only on volume no longer works.
Google’s Danny Sullivan drew this line at Search Central Live Toronto this springseparating core product content from the type of work that only your company and experience can produce. The list that could come from anywhere is on one side. What only you can say rests on the other. The topic matters less than which side of that line your content falls on.
John Mueller made a related point on Reddit. For a new site, audience work comes first, and search visibility can follow once you’ve created something worth finding. Starting with “how do I rank” is not the right place to start.
Katie linked this to professional relevance. SEJ does not accept all money transfer clients, as off-topic or low-quality sponsors can cost you the trust of your audience. For her, it remained simple:
It always comes back to authenticity. You want to provide value, you want to serve your audience. It has to be a mutually beneficial thing.
Old-school SEO principles never die, and direct experience is the one thing AI can’t replicate.
Measure visibility when the click never comes
The challenge now is that the numbers you once relied on have become harder to interpret. Raw traffic used to be a clear metric, but today your brand might show up in search results and still not show up in your analytics, especially if it didn’t generate any clicks.
Branded search is a signal to watch alongside citation tracking. Repeated exposure to AI responses can lead to more branded queries. Search Console brand query filter makes these changes easier to identify.
Another change is moving from links to mentions. Unlinked mentions can have importance that a traditional links report cannot detect. For example, a brand might be referenced in a Reddit thread, which a chatbot then relies on to make a recommendation, even if there are no hyperlinks in the channel. If you only count the links, you might forget it.
Katie described the reader’s side when purchasing merino wool travel clothing:
I see brand names, but I don’t always click during the search process. I see brand names mentioned again on the SERPs and Reddit and in Claude, my favorite AI chatbot… eventually it will trigger a brand search, then I’ll go straight to someone’s website, and they’ll probably have no idea how I found them.
This is the attribution gap that much of e-commerce finds itself in: direct traffic that they can’t link back to a source. His advice was to know where you’re cited, maintain a brand presence on Reddit, and make your content crawlable by AI.
No clicks means no value. Our point on the episode was that if your content helped form the response someone got, you could be in the consideration set even if no reference follows.
Reset Dashboard as Content Leader
Katie emphasized that proving your worth as a content leader starts with identifying your “north star.” She emphasized that revenue and bottom lines are key, but it’s equally important that editorial and marketing work hand-in-hand with business strategy while putting audiences first. Ultimately, this means keeping content aligned with the business model, which also means being selective about clients in order to maintain audience respect.
Part of the strategy is to focus on a niche. SEJ has improved its contributor program by becoming more selective about writers, prioritizing real expertise over self-promotion.
My part of that is the dashboard. When clicks stop being the main number, you make the clicks you get count more. If the only metric you report is organic sessions and Google sends a smaller share of searches to the open web, that line is going to continue to slide. Keep declining sessions in mind and place them alongside growing signals, like search queries and brand mentions.
Watch the full conversation
This leaves content teams with a harder and more honest measurement job.
A broader dashboard can highlight values that a sessions-only report might miss. While this won’t fix the loss of revenue caused by traffic that doesn’t return, managing these two aspects together is now truly the key to success.
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Featured image: Paul Poetry/Search Engine Journal
