For two decades, search engine optimisation promised a simple exchange: rank well, receive visitors. Zero-click search breaks that promise. When the answer appears directly on the results page, the visitor gets what they need without ever visiting your site, and SEO teams in Türkiye are now rethinking what success means.
What the Data Shows
According to Similarweb data analysed by SparkToro, 68.01% of Google searches in the US ended without a click to any website in the first four months of 2026, up from 60.45% in 2024. Google’s AI Overviews now appear on more than 20% of searches, while the fuller AI Mode accounted for only 0.34% of searches in that period, which suggests the next phase of change has barely begun. Branded searches reflect a different intent: a user searching for 1kingbet is looking for a particular destination, rather than an answer that a search summary could provide. That makes navigational searches less exposed to zero-click behaviour than generic informational questions.
An interesting fact worth noting: Ahrefs reported that the click-through rate of the top organic position on desktop was roughly 58% lower when an AI Overview appeared, based on December 2025 data.
How SEO Teams Are Adapting
Practitioners are changing their priorities in several ways:
These changes do not mean SEO is dead; they mean the discipline is widening from clicks to influence. For informational queries in particular, teams are accepting that some impressions will never become visits and judging them on awareness instead.
Context for Türkiye
Most published research comes from the United States, and the picture can differ for Turkish queries, where AI features are rolling out more gradually and local search habits include strong use of marketplaces and Yandex alongside Google. Still, the direction is clear. The Pew Research Center, whose study of Google users found that people clicked a result in 8% of visits with an AI summary versus 15% without one, is a good starting point for anyone who wants independent evidence. The best response for Turkish publishers and brands is to invest in reputation, original reporting and formats that still earn attention, from video to newsletters, so that visibility survives wherever the answer is delivered.
