Zero click is an event where a user is able to get information from Google Search without needing to click on a website.
After hearing this, fellow SEO practitioners certainly think that this is detrimental because our website will not get traffic from users.
So, where did the clicks go? Is Google taking zero clicks for its own sake? Let’s discuss the facts together in this article!
Facts behind Zero Click on Google Search
In fact, Google did not take zero clicks for itself. According to Search Engine Mentor‘s study through Search Engine Land, zero click is not a frightening specter for SEO practitioners in recent years.
In fact, zero click has a role in helping Google to make improvements to the thousands or even millions of keywords entered by users on search engines.
That is, this also helps SEO practitioners to find keywords based on search volume data displayed by various keyword research tools.
Then, how many percent of zero clicks that occur on Google search? Below, there is data on the distribution of the percentages obtained by zero click via desktop and mobile.
Why is there Zero Click?
Basically, there is no answer to this question. Every time you look for information on search engines, there must be several searches that have found answers without needing to click on a website.
The reason is, Google has created various search features to make it easier for users to find answers on search engines, such as searching for time, weather, movie show times, president of a country, even the standings of a soccer league.
Introduction History
Zero-Click Search was first recognized when Google introduced a feature called “Featured Snippets”. A feature that can provide information to you without having to click on a link from the source.
Google built this Featured Snippet in order to improve their user experience by displaying search results, so users do not have to click anything.
Not only featured snippets, there are other features such as knowledge panels, maps, instant answers, definitions, calculators, and so on.
Back again, on Zero-Click, Zero-Click Search is a box located at the top or side of the search page results (SERP). Its purpose is to help answer questions that users write in the search field.
So that users do not need to click anything because they have got the answers to the questions they are looking for.
For example, when you do a search and type a keyword in the search column “who is the president of in 2021”, Google will automatically display the answer directly in the search results, so users don’t need to go to a particular website page to find out the answer.
Then based on information from the Search Engine Journal says that 34.4% of search results on the desktop are zero-click. Then 62.5% of users do not click links to search results.
This means that Zero-Click has a positive side because it benefits users to get answers quickly, but what about website owners? Although the search can be favored, but the traffic on the website is certainly not profitable, right?
Zero Click Study Year by Year
From year to year, the percentage rate of zero clicks does seem to increase. This is illustrated by a study conducted by SparkToro as reported by Search Engine Land.
In 2019, zero clicks touched 49%. Then, in 2020 zero clicks rose to close to 65%.
In fact, there is a possibility that according to Danny Goodwin through Search Engine Land, zero clicks will increase to 85% if SparkToro conducts a study this year.
Is Zero Click Really Harming SEO Practitioners?
As explained earlier, zero click is not a big problem for SEO practitioners.
However, referring to 2019, where there was a lot of commotion or protests that occurred due to zero clicks, which were considered very profitable for Google.
Responding to this, Danny Sullivan as Public Liaison for Search from Google offers some context, namely with zero click Google is able to send more traffic to many websites every year.
In addition, Google also offers certain queries that the user does not need to click on to find the answer to his question thereby reducing the number of searches that do not need to go directly to the website.
To Conclude
In conclusion, you do not have to worry about zero clicks too deep, even though the percentage looks quite large if you look at the study conducted.
Even so, the existence of zero clicks also helps us to find the right target keywords according to the search intent.
Thus, certain queries will indeed be shown the answer immediately by Google and it is likely that we will not get traffic on these keywords.
