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SEO statistics · Updated November 2026

SEO statistics,
with their sources

41 numbers on how people search, how AI assistants answer, and what content and links do for traffic. Every one links to the original study or report.

68%

68.01% of US Google searches ended without a click in the first four months of 2026.

sparktoro.com, 2026
−58%

An AI Overview correlates with a 58% lower average click-through rate for the top-ranking page.

ahrefs.com, 2026
96.55%

96.55% of pages get no traffic from Google, and another 1.94% get between one and ten visits a month.

ahrefs.com, 2023
45%

Use of ChatGPT and other AI tools for local business recommendations rose from 6% to 45% in a year.

brightlocal.com, 2026

AI search and assistants ( 8 )

AI search and assistants

How many people use AI assistants and AI search, what they use them for, and what AI answers do to clicks.

  1. ChatGPT had 700 million weekly users sending 18 billion messages a week by July 2025, around 10% of the world's adults.

    ChatGPT consumer plans, worldwide. Working paper by OpenAI, Duke and Harvard researchers, September 2025. OpenAI, How People Use ChatGPT, 2025

  2. Seeking information grew from 14% to 24% of ChatGPT use in a year, and non-work messages grew from 53% to more than 70%.

    Privacy-preserving classification of a representative sample of consumer conversations, July 2024 to July 2025. OpenAI, How People Use ChatGPT, 2025

  3. Google's AI Mode passed 1 billion monthly active users, and the Gemini app had 950 million.

    Alphabet Q2 2026 earnings remarks, July 22, 2026. Google, Q2 2026 earnings call remarks, 2026

  4. Google's AI Overviews have over 2 billion monthly users in more than 200 countries and territories and 40 languages.

    Alphabet Q2 2025 earnings remarks, July 23, 2025. Google, Q2 2025 earnings call remarks, 2025

  5. 42% of US adults use AI chatbots to search for information, and 24% use a chatbot every day.

    Pew survey of 5,119 US adults, February 2026. Pew Research Center, Americans and AI 2026, 2026

  6. When a Google search showed an AI summary, users clicked a regular result in 8% of visits, against 15% without one, and clicked a link inside the summary in just 1%.

    Browsing data from 900 US adults, March 2025. Pew Research Center, Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears, 2025

  7. An AI Overview correlates with a 58% lower average click-through rate for the top-ranking page.

    300,000 keywords, Google Search Console desktop data, December 2023 to December 2025. Correlational. Ahrefs, AI Overviews reduce clicks by 58%, 2026

  8. Organic click-through rate on searches with an AI Overview fell 61%, from 1.76% to 0.61%, but brands cited in the AI Overview got 35% more organic clicks.

    3,119 informational queries across 42 organisations, June 2024 to September 2025. Seer Interactive, AI Overview impact on Google CTR, 2025

Content and blogging ( 7 )

Content and blogging

How long posts are, how many reach Google's first page, and how much of the web is now written with AI.

  1. The average blog post is 1,312 words and takes 3 hours 20 minutes to write.

    Orbit Media's annual survey of 1,042 content marketers, 2026. Orbit Media, Blogging statistics 2026, 2026

  2. Only 13.9% of bloggers say their blog gets strong results, an all-time low, while 92.4% now use AI for blogging.

    Orbit Media's survey of 1,042 content marketers, 2026. Orbit Media, Blogging statistics 2026, 2026

  3. The share of marketers publishing 2 to 6 times a week fell from 28% in 2014 to 12% in 2022.

    Orbit Media's survey data over time, 2014 to 2022. Orbit Media, Blogging statistics 2026, 2026

  4. 96.55% of pages get no traffic from Google, and another 1.94% get between one and ten visits a month.

    About 14 billion pages in Ahrefs' index, 2023. Ahrefs, 96.55% of content gets no traffic from Google, 2023

  5. Only 1.74% of new pages reach Google's top 10 within a year, and the average #1 result is 5 years old.

    1 million random pages first seen in September 2023, tracked for a year. Ahrefs, How long does it take to rank in Google?, 2025

  6. 74.2% of new web pages contain AI-generated content, but only 2.5% are written purely by AI.

    900,000 English pages first detected in April 2025, classified with Ahrefs' AI detector. Ahrefs, 74% of new webpages include AI content, 2025

  7. 86% of articles ranking in Google are written by humans, and 82% of articles cited by ChatGPT and Perplexity are human-written.

    31,493 keywords across 10 categories, June 2025, classified with an AI detector. Graphite, How AI-generated content performs in search and answer engines, 2025

Local and e-commerce ( 6 )

Local and e-commerce

How shoppers use reviews, maps and AI tools to choose where to buy.

  1. 97% of consumers read reviews for local businesses, and 41% always do, up from 29% a year earlier.

    Survey of 1,002 US adults, 2026. BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, 2026

  2. Use of ChatGPT and other AI tools for local business recommendations rose from 6% to 45% in a year.

    Survey of 1,002 US adults, 2026. BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, 2026

  3. 74% of consumers only care about reviews from the last three months, and 47% won't use a business with fewer than 20 reviews.

    Survey of 1,002 US adults, 2026. BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, 2026

  4. Google Maps has more than 2 billion users a month and lists 250 million businesses and places.

    Google figures, global, February 2025. Google, Google Maps celebrates 20 years, 2025

  5. People shop across Google more than a billion times a day, across 60 billion product listings.

    Google figures, global, May 2026. Google, Google Shopping introduces Universal Cart, 2026

  6. Traffic from generative AI tools to US retail sites rose 693.4% year over year in the 2025 holiday season.

    Adobe Analytics, over 1 trillion visits to US retail sites, November to December 2025. Adobe notes the number of AI users is still modest. Adobe, 2025 holiday shopping season, 2026

Technical SEO and speed ( 6 )

Technical SEO and speed

How fast the web is, what speed is worth, and how sites treat AI crawlers.

  1. 48% of mobile sites and 56% of desktop sites had good Core Web Vitals in 2025, up from 32% and 41% in 2021.

    HTTP Archive and Chrome UX Report real-user data, July 2025. HTTP Archive, Web Almanac 2025: Performance, 2025

  2. Mobile devices accounted for 59.9% of worldwide web page views in October 2026.

    Statcounter's network of over 1 million sites, October 2026. Statcounter, Desktop vs mobile vs tablet market share, 2026

  3. Vodafone found a 31% improvement in Largest Contentful Paint led to 8% more sales.

    A/B test on one landing page, 2021. Google web.dev, Vodafone case study, 2021

  4. Improving Interaction to Next Paint gave redBus a 7% increase in sales.

    Case study of one company, 2023. Google web.dev, redBus case study, 2023

  5. 4.5% of desktop sites and 4.2% of mobile sites name OpenAI's GPTBot in their robots.txt, up from 2.9% and 2.7% in 2024.

    HTTP Archive crawl, 2025. HTTP Archive, Web Almanac 2025: SEO, 2025

  6. Only about 2% of sites have an llms.txt file, and Google says it doesn't use them.

    HTTP Archive crawl of mobile sites, 2025 (324,184 valid files). HTTP Archive, Web Almanac 2025: SEO, 2025

How we chose them

Original sources only

Every statistic here was checked on the page of the organisation that produced it: the study, report or official announcement. We don't use "100 SEO statistics" roundups as sources, because numbers often get misquoted as they're copied from list to list.

Each figure is quoted as the source states it, with what was measured and when. Some studies are a few years old; we've noted the year so you can judge for yourself.

Using these numbers? You're welcome to quote any of them. Please cite the original source, and link to this page if it helped: https://usesearchloom.com/seo-statistics. Spotted something out of date? Email hello@usesearchloom.com.