Zero-Click Searches Hit Record Highs in 2026, Report Finds

Image credit: Search Engine Journal

Zero-click searches reached an unprecedented level in June 2026 across the United States, European Union, and United Kingdom, as users increasingly found answers directly within search engine results pages.

A new analysis from Datos and SparkToro reported that only 40 percent of U.S. searches and 40.7 percent of EU/UK searches in June 2026 resulted in a click to a website outside of Google‘s ecosystem, marking a record low for the open web.

The State of Search Report 2026 highlighted a significant shift in user behavior, with 17.1 percent of U.S. searches and 20.4 percent of EU/UK searches leading to Google-owned properties.

Paid clicks also experienced a notable decline between March and June 2026, according to the report. In the U.S., paid clicks fell from 2.3 percent to 1.3 percent, while in the EU/UK, they decreased from 2.4 percent to 1.4 percent.

The study also observed a rise in informational searches, with the U.S. seeing an increase from 59.69 percent to 65.12 percent between the second quarter of 2025 and the second quarter of 2026. During the same period, informational queries in the EU/UK rose from 55.39 percent to 61.31 percent.

Wikipedia’s prominence in search results grew substantially in Europe, moving from the seventh to the third most visited domain from search between the second quarter of 2025 and the second quarter of 2026, Datos and SparkToro reported.

The report suggested that the increasing sophistication of AI-powered search features, such as those found in Google and ChatGPT, contributed to users finding complete answers without needing to visit external websites.

This trend poses ongoing challenges for publishers and content creators who rely on organic search traffic to their sites, according to the analysis.

Other search engines like Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and Bing were also included in the analysis of search trends and user engagement.

Source: Search Engine Journal