Foundations
Zero-Click Search
A search that ends on the results page, with no click to any website.
A zero-click search is one where the user gets what they need on the results page itself and never clicks through to a site. Featured snippets started the trend; AI Overviews and AI answers have accelerated it, because a written answer with a few citations often removes the reason to click at all.
Zero-click is usually framed as a loss of traffic, and for informational queries it often is. But in AI search it reframes the goal rather than removing it: if the click is dying, the citation becomes the new click. Being the named, cited source in a zero-click answer still puts your brand in front of the buyer and still shapes the shortlist, even when no visit is recorded.
The strategic response is to optimise for presence in the answer, not just for the click — and to measure success as citation and mention rates, not only sessions.
Related terms
AI Overviews
Google's AI-generated answer box at the top of search results.
Featured Snippet
Google's boxed answer at the top of results, lifted verbatim from one ranking page.
AI Visibility
How present a brand is across AI answers — mentions and citations, not rankings.
Citation (AI)
When an AI answer attributes or links a specific page as its source.
AI Search
Search where an AI reads sources and writes one answer instead of listing links.
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