177 Search Engine Statistics for 2026

Which search engine has the biggest market share worldwide?

Google, by a wide margin on both measures shown here. The trackers differ on the decimals because each one counts referrals on its own network of sites, so read each figure with its producer.

1. 1 Google 91.05%
2. 2 Bing 4.8%
3. 3 Yahoo! 1.18%
4. 4 Yandex 1.14%
5. 5 DuckDuckGo 0.64%
6. 6 Baidu 0.42%

• Behind Google in October 2026, StatCounter puts Bing at 4.8% of the worldwide search engine market, Yahoo! at 1.18%, Yandex at 1.14%, DuckDuckGo at 0.64% and Baidu at 0.42% (all devices). (StatCounter (worldwide search share), Oct 2026)
• StatCounter's yearly figure for Google worldwide was 89.91% for 2025, against 90.67% for 2024 and 92.38% for 2023 (all devices). (StatCounter (worldwide search share), 2025)
• On the same yearly measure Bing went from 2.97% worldwide in 2023 to 3.74% in 2024 and 4.02% in 2025, and Yandex from 1.35% to 1.94% and 2.24%. (StatCounter (worldwide search share), 2025)
• On Cloudflare's network, Google referred "nearly 90%" of search engine traffic to customer sites worldwide in 2025. Bing referred 3.1%, Yandex 2.0%, Baidu 1.4% and DuckDuckGo 1.2%. (Cloudflare (Radar Year in Review 2025), Dec 2025)

StatCounter and Cloudflare are different producers with different networks and periods. StatCounter's figures are its own measure from its tracker network; Cloudflare's come from the referer header on requests to its customers' sites. Neither is a share of queries, and the two should not be merged.

What is Google's share of search in the United States?

Lower than its worldwide share on the tracker data, and still far ahead of everyone else. Bing does better in the US than elsewhere, and almost all of that is on desktop.

View data table

Google's yearly share of the US search engine market on StatCounter's measure, all devices, 2015-2025. The measure is search referrals to sites in StatCounter's network, not searches made.

Period	Value
2015	81.32%
2016	85.65%
2017	87.24%
2018	86.91%
2019	87.93%
2020	88%
2021	88.11%
2022	87.22%
2023	88.58%
2024	87.89%
2025	86.16%

• Behind Google in the United States in October 2026, StatCounter puts Bing at 9.78%, Yahoo! at 2.54%, DuckDuckGo at 1.74%, Yandex at 0.32% and Ecosia at 0.11% (all devices). (StatCounter (US search share), Oct 2026)
• StatCounter's yearly figure for Google in the United States was 86.16% for 2025, against 87.89% for 2024. Bing went from 7.27% to 7.94% and DuckDuckGo from 1.98% to 2.32%. (StatCounter (US search share), 2025)
• On US desktops in October 2026, StatCounter puts Google at 74.86%, Bing at 18.8%, Yahoo! at 3.98% and DuckDuckGo at 1.96%. (StatCounter (US search share), Oct 2026)
• On US mobile devices in October 2026, StatCounter puts Google at 94.12%, Bing at 2.26%, DuckDuckGo at 1.53% and Yahoo! at 1.51%. (StatCounter (US search share), Oct 2026)
• Measured by query volume, the court found Google's share of US general search rose to 94.9% on mobile devices in 2020, against Bing's 5.5% of all queries and 1.3% on mobile. Google's share had been 80% in 2009 (opinion of 5 August 2024). (US District Court, D.D.C. (United States v. Google LLC, liability opinion), Aug 2024)
• The court found that Google receives nine times more search queries each day than all of its rivals combined across all devices in the United States, and nineteen times more on mobile (opinion of 5 August 2024, trial record). (US District Court, D.D.C. (United States v. Google LLC, liability opinion), Aug 2024)
• Counting searches made on 41 major sites, SparkToro found Google handled 73.7% of all US desktop searches in Q4 2025. About 80% of desktop searches happened on traditional search engines, about 10% on commerce sites, about 5.5% on social networks and 3.2% on AI tools (Datos desktop panel). (SparkToro (41 search sites study), Mar 2026)

Three different measures appear here. StatCounter counts search referrals on its tracker network. The court's figures are shares of general search engine queries from the trial record. SparkToro counts searches typed into 41 sites, including shops and social networks, on a desktop panel. They are not comparable.

How does search engine market share vary by country?

Google leads in the UK, Germany and India on the tracker data, but not everywhere. Yandex is ahead in Russia, Naver runs Google close in South Korea, and Bing takes a large slice in Japan on the tracker data.

1. 1 Baidu 49%
2. 2 Bing 21.69%
3. 3 Yandex 11.77%
4. 4 Haosou 8.67%
5. 5 Google 6.83%
6. 6 Sogou 1.72%

• In the United Kingdom in October 2026, StatCounter puts Google at 90.59%, Bing at 6.76%, Yahoo! at 1.37%, DuckDuckGo at 0.7%, Ecosia at 0.31% and Yandex at 0.24% (all devices). (StatCounter (search share by country), Oct 2026)
• In StatCounter's Europe region, which is not the same as the EU, Google had 88.77% in October 2026, Bing 5.58%, Yandex 2.5%, Yahoo! 1.51%, DuckDuckGo 0.77% and Ecosia 0.47% (all devices). (StatCounter (search share by country), Oct 2026)
• In Germany in October 2026, StatCounter puts Google at 88.47%, Bing at 6.41%, Yahoo! at 1.61%, Yandex at 1.34%, DuckDuckGo at 0.98% and Ecosia at 0.91% (all devices). (StatCounter (search share by country), Oct 2026)
• In India in October 2026, StatCounter puts Google at 98.06%, Bing at 1.11%, Yahoo! at 0.35% and DuckDuckGo at 0.33% (all devices). (StatCounter (search share by country), Oct 2026)
• In the Russian Federation in October 2026, StatCounter puts Yandex at 70.22%, Google at 28.36% and Bing at 0.82% (all devices). (StatCounter (search share by country), Oct 2026)
• In the Republic of Korea in October 2026, StatCounter puts Google at 48.48%, Naver at 42.25% and Bing at 4.94% (all devices). (StatCounter (search share by country), Oct 2026)
• In Japan in October 2026, StatCounter puts Google at 59.34%, Bing at 32.51% and Yahoo! at 6.56% (all devices). (StatCounter (search share by country), Oct 2026)
• On Cloudflare's network in 2025, Yandex held a 65% share of search referrals in Russia against Google's 34%. In the Czech Republic Google had 84% and the local engine Seznam 7.7%. (Cloudflare (Radar Year in Review 2025), Dec 2025)
• The CMA found that Google has held over 90% of queries among traditional general search providers in the UK for at least fifteen years, and that in each year from 2009 to 2019 it generated more than 90% of UK search traffic and of UK search advertising revenues (decision of 10 October 2025). (CMA (Google general search SMS decision), Oct 2025)

StatCounter's and Cloudflare's figures for Russia come from different networks and periods and are not the same measure. The CMA's finding is a share of queries, which is a different basis again.

How much is Google Search used?

Google publishes a yearly search total and occasional milestones, not a daily count. Every figure in this section is Google's own statement unless it is labelled as a court finding.

View data table

AI Overviews monthly users as stated by Google at three announcements. Each figure was given as "over" the number shown and these are milestones, not a regular series. Each figure comes from the announcement for that date; the link is to the latest one.

Period	Value
Apr 2025	over 1.5bn
Jul 2025	over 2bn
May 2026	over 2.5bn

• Google said in 2017 that 15 percent of the searches it sees every day are new, and that around 0.25 percent of queries in its daily traffic had been returning offensive or clearly misleading content (worldwide, Google's own statement). (Google (2017 Search quality post), Apr 2017)
• Google says its year-over-year search query growth rate in the third quarter of 2026 was the highest in five years. It gave no growth rate or query count. (Google (Q3 2026 earnings remarks), Oct 2026)
• Google says it now handles over 50 billion visual searches a month (worldwide, October 2026). (Google (Q3 2026 earnings remarks), Oct 2026)
• Google says queries in AI Mode are on average three times longer than traditional searches, and that one in five AI Mode searches worldwide use voice, images or documents (October 2026). (Google (Q3 2026 earnings remarks), Oct 2026)
• Google says it has cut Search latency by more than 35% over the past five years, and cut the cost of core AI responses by more than 30% since moving AI Overviews and AI Mode to Gemini 3 (April 2026). (Google (Q1 2026 earnings remarks), Apr 2026)
• Google says Circle to Search was available on over 580 million Android devices in February 2026. The count is of devices, not users. (Google (Q4 2025 earnings remarks), Feb 2026)
• The court found that Google's top five queries by volume are navigational, and that nearly 12% of all Google queries are navigational (US trial record, opinion of 5 August 2024). (US District Court, D.D.C. (United States v. Google LLC, liability opinion), Aug 2024)
• The court found that 80% of Google's queries are noncommercial, meaning Google does not try to show a search advertisement against them (US trial record, opinion of 5 August 2024). (US District Court, D.D.C. (United States v. Google LLC, liability opinion), Aug 2024)

Google gives its search total per year. This page does not convert it to a daily figure.

How much revenue does search advertising generate?

Hundreds of billions of dollars a year on Alphabet's own accounts, and the line grew again in 2025 and 2026. Microsoft reports growth in search advertising too, but gives a rate and not a comparable total.

View data table

Alphabet's "Google Search and other" revenues by year, worldwide, in millions of US dollars, 2017-2025. These are the firm's own reported figures and the line is not search-only. Each year comes from the release for that year; the link is to the latest one.

Period	Value
2017	$69,811m
2018	$85,296m
2019	$98,115m
2020	$104,062m
2021	$148,951m
2022	$162,450m
2023	$175,033m
2024	$198,084m
2025	$224,532m

• Alphabet reported $198,084 million for "Google Search and other" in 2024, and says in its 2025 annual report that these revenues increased $26.4 billion from 2024 to 2025 (worldwide, the firm's own figures). (Alphabet (Form 10-K 2025), Feb 2026)
• Alphabet's total revenues were $402,836 million in 2025. Google advertising in total was $294,691 million, of which YouTube ads were $40,367 million and Google Network $29,792 million (the firm's own figures). (Alphabet (Form 10-K 2025), Feb 2026)
• Google's traffic acquisition costs, the payments it makes to distribution partners and Network partners, were $59,926 million in 2025, up from $54,900 million in 2024. The rate fell from 20.7% to 20.3% of Google advertising revenues (Alphabet's own figures). (Alphabet (Form 10-K 2025), Feb 2026)
• Alphabet reported that paid clicks on Google Search and other rose 6% and cost-per-click rose 7% in 2025 against 2024 (the firm's own metrics, worldwide). (Alphabet (Form 10-K 2025), Feb 2026)
• Alphabet reported "Google Search and other" revenues of $63,350 million for the third quarter of 2026, against $56,567 million a year earlier, and $187,020 million for the first nine months of 2026, against $161,459 million (the firm's own unaudited figures). (Alphabet (Form 10-Q, Q3 2026), Oct 2026)
• Microsoft reported that its search advertising revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs increased 12% in its fiscal year 2026, the year ended 30 June 2026 (the firm's own figure). (Microsoft (Form 10-K FY2026), Jul 2026)
• The court found that Google booked nearly $47 billion in advertising revenue in 2014 and over $146 billion in 2021, and that Bing generated less than $12 billion in 2022 (opinion of 5 August 2024). (US District Court, D.D.C. (United States v. Google LLC, liability opinion), Aug 2024)

The court's advertising figures and Alphabet's reported line are close but not identical, so each is kept with its source.

How much does Google pay to be the default search engine?

Tens of billions of dollars a year, according to the US court that ruled on those contracts. The findings show why it pays: most searches start wherever the default sends them.

1. 1 Google-Apple agreement 28%
2. 2 Android device makers and carriers 19.4%
3. 3 Third-party browsers 2.3%

• The court found that the revenue share Google paid in 2021 was four times its other search-related costs combined, and that its payment to Apple in 2022 was an estimated $20 billion for worldwide queries (opinion of 5 August 2024). (US District Court, D.D.C. (United States v. Google LLC, liability opinion), Aug 2024)
• The court found that roughly 50% of all general search queries in the United States flow through a search access point covered by one of the Google default contracts at issue in the case (opinion of 5 August 2024). (US District Court, D.D.C. (United States v. Google LLC, liability opinion), Aug 2024)
• In its remedies opinion of 2 September 2025, the court found that default placements drove 70% of all US-based queries to Google at the time of the liability trial, and that the Chrome default accounts for 20% of all searches in the United States. (US District Court, D.D.C. (United States v. Google LLC, remedies opinion), Sep 2025)
• On Microsoft's Edge browser, where Bing is the default, the court found Bing's search share to be approximately 80% and Google's 20% (US trial record, opinion of 5 August 2024). (US District Court, D.D.C. (United States v. Google LLC, liability opinion), Aug 2024)
• On iPhones, where Google is the Safari default, the court found that Google receives almost 95% of general search queries and that 5.1% of searches go to another search engine (opinion of 5 August 2024). (US District Court, D.D.C. (United States v. Google LLC, liability opinion), Aug 2024)
• Across all Apple devices, the court found that 65% of searches are entered into Safari's default search access point (opinion of 5 August 2024). (US District Court, D.D.C. (United States v. Google LLC, liability opinion), Aug 2024)

The court's revenue share figure covers default distribution contracts. It is not the same line as the traffic acquisition costs Alphabet reports, which also include payments to Network partners.

How many Google searches end without a click?

Most of them. SparkToro titled its 2026 study on the finding that less than one third of Google searches still send a click, and a second producer with its own panel reports a higher share still.

1. 1 United Kingdom 69.5%
2. 2 United States 68.0%
3. 3 France 65.3%
4. 4 Canada 63.8%
5. 5 Italy 63.4%
6. 6 Germany 62.1%

• Only 0.34% of US Google searches led to AI Mode in January-April 2026, on SparkToro's analysis of Similarweb's panel. (SparkToro (zero-click study 2026), Jun 2026)
• Of the six countries SparkToro compared for January-April 2026, the zero-click share of Google searches was highest in the United Kingdom at 69.5% and lowest in Germany at 62.1% (Similarweb's panel). (SparkToro (zero-click by country), Jun 2026)
• First Page Sage, on its own panel and crawl, puts the share of US Google searches that end without a click at 74.2% in its September 2026 report, up from 64.8% a year earlier. (First Page Sage (CTR by position 2026), Sep 2026)
• Total visits to the web's top million sites peaked at 2.243 trillion in Q1 2022 and stood at 1.970 trillion in Q3 2026, down 12.2%, on SparkToro's analysis of Similarweb's worldwide panel. The count covers all traffic and is not limited to search referrals. (SparkToro (open web traffic study), Nov 2026)
• In the same study, visits per web user fell 29.2% as the number of web users grew from 4.95 billion to 6.15 billion. (SparkToro (open web traffic study), Nov 2026)
• 96.55% of pages in Ahrefs' index of about 14 billion pages get zero traffic from Google, and 1.94% get between one and ten monthly visits, on Ahrefs' own traffic estimates from its 2023 study. (Ahrefs (search traffic study), Dec 2023)

SparkToro and First Page Sage are separate measures on different panels and should not be compared or averaged. SparkToro's 2024 comparison uses a different panel from its 2026 figure, and SparkToro says so itself.

How often do AI Overviews appear in Google results?

It depends on who is counting and which searches or keywords they count. The five producers below use different keyword sets, bases and dates, and their shares are far apart.

• 18% of Google searches made by a panel of US adults in March 2025 produced an AI summary, and 58% of the panel ran at least one search that did, in Pew Research Center's study. (Pew Research Center (AI summaries study), Jul 2025)
• In Semrush's own keyword dataset (10M+ keywords), AI Overviews were triggered for 6.49% of queries in January 2025, 24.61% in July 2025 and 15.69% in November 2025. (Semrush (AI Overviews study), Dec 2025)
• In seoClarity's keyword database, AI Overviews appeared for 30% of US desktop keywords in September 2025, against 10% in March 2025. (seoClarity (AI Overviews research), Oct 2025)
• Similarweb puts the AI Overview appearance rate in the US at 43%+, without stating a month or a base. (Similarweb (AI Search Stats 2026), Jul 2026)
• First Page Sage reports that an AI-generated answer, meaning an AI Overview or an AI Mode response, appeared on 81.6% of US Google queries in September 2026, up from 23.4% in September 2025 (its own panel and crawl). (First Page Sage (CTR by position 2026), Sep 2026)

These five figures are not comparable and none is the definitive share. Pew counts searches made by a panel of US adults. Semrush and seoClarity count keywords in their own databases. Similarweb gives no month or base. First Page Sage counts AI Overviews and AI Mode responses together on its own query sample.

Do AI Overviews reduce clicks to websites?

Two outside studies find fewer clicks, one finds the zero-click rate went down, and Google points to more queries. The designs differ too much to settle the question here, so each finding is given with its method.

1. 1 Position 1 -58.0%
2. 2 Position 2 -50.8%
3. 3 Position 3 -46.4%
4. 4 Position 4 -38.8%
5. 5 Position 5 -32.6%
6. 6 Position 6 -30.5%
7. 7 Position 7 -29.7%
8. 8 Position 8 -28.8%
9. 9 Position 9 -29.7%
10. 10 Position 10 -19.4%

• US Google users who saw an AI summary clicked a traditional search result in 8% of visits, against 15% of visits for those who did not, in Pew's panel study of March 2025. A link inside the AI summary was clicked in 1% of visits. (Pew Research Center (AI summaries study), Jul 2025)
• In the same Pew study, US Google users ended their browsing session after 26% of search pages with an AI summary, against 16% of pages with only traditional results. (Pew Research Center (AI summaries study), Jul 2025)
• Ahrefs found that the presence of an AI Overview correlates with a 58% lower average click-through rate for the top-ranking page on December 2025 data, up from the 34.5% reduction it found in April 2025 (300,000 keywords, desktop click-through rate). (Ahrefs (AI Overviews click study), Feb 2026)
• Around 9% of AI Overviews appear outside position one on the results page, in the same Ahrefs study. (Ahrefs (AI Overviews click study), Feb 2026)
• In Semrush's own keyword dataset, the zero-click rate for the same keywords went from 33.75% before they started showing an AI Overview to 31.53% after (over 200,000 keywords, January-October 2025, Datos clickstream data). (Semrush (AI Overviews study), Dec 2025)
• Google says AI Overviews drive over 10% more queries worldwide for the types of queries that show them. This is Google's own claim and it concerns query volume, not clicks to websites. (Google (Q2 2025 earnings remarks), Jul 2025)
• On US Google results pages with an AI answer, 51.0% of clicks went to a citation link, in First Page Sage's own data for 2026. (First Page Sage (CTR by position 2026), Sep 2026)
• First Page Sage puts the click-through rate of the first source cited in a Google AI answer at 5.2% (39.7% of all AI answer clicks), the second at 3.1% (23.7%), the third at 1.9% (14.5%), the fourth at 1.2% (9.2%) and the fifth at 0.8% (6.1%), in its own US data for 2026. (First Page Sage (CTR by position 2026), Sep 2026)

These findings are not comparable. Pew observes clicks by a panel of US adults. Ahrefs compares actual with forecast desktop click-through rates for keywords. Semrush compares zero-click rates for the same keywords before and after an AI Overview appeared and does not state a country. Google's statement is about query volume. This page does not rule between them.

What is the click-through rate of the top Google result?

There is no single answer. Three producers publish a position-one figure, and each uses its own data, definition and period, so the numbers below cannot be lined up against each other.

1. 1 Position 1 7.1%
2. 2 Position 2 3.0%
3. 3 Position 3 1.7%
4. 4 Position 4 1.1%
5. 5 Position 5 0.7%
6. 6 Position 6 0.6%
7. 7 Position 7 0.4%
8. 8 Position 8 0.3%
9. 9 Position 9 0.2%
10. 10 Position 10 0.2%

• Backlinko's study of about 4 million Google results puts the average click-through rate of the number one organic result at 27.6%, and finds it 10x more likely to be clicked than the number ten result. The page was last updated in 2025 and gives no collection period. (Backlinko (CTR study), Apr 2025)
• First Page Sage puts the US click-through rate of organic position one at 7.1% in 2026, blended across pages with and without an AI answer: 3.6% when an AI answer is present and 22.6% when it is not. Its blended figure was 39.8% in its 2025 report (1,184 domains, March-August 2026). (First Page Sage (CTR by position 2026), Sep 2026)
• Ahrefs, which prints click-through rate as a fraction, found the average position-one rate for informational keywords fell from 0.076 in December 2023 to 0.039 in December 2025. For keywords that show an AI Overview it fell from 0.073 to 0.016 (aggregated Google Search Console desktop data). (Ahrefs (AI Overviews click study), Feb 2026)

The Backlinko, First Page Sage and Ahrefs figures are not comparable. Backlinko uses Search Console data supplied by its owner Semrush, organic results only, with no stated period or country. First Page Sage uses its own client and panel domains in the US. Ahrefs uses desktop data for chosen keyword groups.

Are AI chatbots replacing search engines?

Not on the referral data. Chatbots send a very small share of visits to websites, though people use them more and more to look things up on OpenAI's own figures.

1. 1 ChatGPT 51.58%
2. 2 Google Gemini 28.86%
3. 3 Perplexity 15.04%
4. 4 Claude 2.3%
5. 5 Microsoft Copilot 2.18%
6. 6 Deepseek 0.05%

• Head to head on StatCounter's measure of referrals to websites, Google had 99.91% and ChatGPT 0.09% worldwide in October 2026. (StatCounter (referrals by channel), Oct 2026)
• 63% of websites received at least one visit from an AI chatbot, AI chatbots accounted for 0.17% of the average site's visitors, and ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini sent 98% of AI traffic, in Ahrefs' early 2025 study of 3,000 websites. (Ahrefs (AI traffic study), Feb 2025)
• In a CMA-commissioned survey of UK smartphone owners, 17% would "most often" use an AI assistant for any of four search tasks, against 97% for traditional general search providers (2025). (CMA (Google general search SMS decision), Oct 2025)
• Less than 10% of the queries ChatGPT receives produce answers grounded in search infrastructure, according to OpenAI's response to the CMA as quoted in the decision of 10 October 2025. (CMA (Google general search SMS decision), Oct 2025)
• 39% of respondents in the CMA's UK consumer survey said they use a shopping website or app when searching the web for a product to buy (2025). (CMA (Google general search SMS decision), Oct 2025)
• The court's remedies opinion of 2 September 2025 records Google's internal estimate of daily queries to AI chatbots as of 28 March 2025: ChatGPT 1.2 billion, Meta AI over 200 million, the Gemini app roughly 140 million, Grok 75 million, DeepSeek 50 million and Perplexity 30 million. (US District Court, D.D.C. (United States v. Google LLC, remedies opinion), Sep 2025)
• "Seeking Information" grew from 14% to 24% of all ChatGPT usage between July 2024 and July 2025, while Writing fell from 36% to 24% (OpenAI's own platform data for consumer plans, worldwide). (NBER (How People Use ChatGPT), Sep 2025)
• About 49% of ChatGPT messages are "Asking", which covers seeking information or advice, 40% are "Doing" and 11% are "Expressing". By late June 2025 the split was 51.6% Asking, 34.6% Doing and 13.8% Expressing (consumer ChatGPT, worldwide). (NBER (How People Use ChatGPT), Sep 2025)
• Citations were present in about 1.6% of US ChatGPT prompts in June 2025 and roughly 6.8% in May 2026, on Similarweb's panel. Travel and Hospitality prompts carry a citation about 23% of the time, Automotive roughly 20% and Professional Services under 4%. (Similarweb (AI Search Stats 2026), Jul 2026)
• 42% of people who use AI chatbots for news say they always or often click through from chatbot answers to original news sources, against 44% of search news users and 36% of social media news users (survey in 27 markets, early 2026). The share was 56% in South Korea and 26% in Denmark. (Reuters Institute (Digital News Report 2026), Jun 2026)
• Across the full sample in those 27 markets, 4% of respondents say they always or often click through to news sources from AI chatbots, 19% from search engines and 17% from social media. For AI chatbots the figure is 1% in the UK, 3% in Spain, 4% in Argentina and 8% in South Korea. (Reuters Institute (Digital News Report 2026), Jun 2026)
• Among those who click through to a news source, 51% of AI chatbot users did so because they wanted more detail, against 59% of search engine users and 60% of social media users (27 markets, 2026). (Reuters Institute (Digital News Report 2026), Jun 2026)
• Forecast: Semrush projected in July 2025 that, for digital marketing and SEO topics, visitors from AI search may overtake visitors from traditional search by early 2028. The projection covers that one subject area and not search as a whole. (Semrush (AI search traffic study), Jul 2025)
• In Semrush's own data, the average AI search visitor was worth 4.4 times the average traditional organic search visitor by conversion rate, and pages cited by ChatGPT search rank in organic positions 21+ almost 90% of the time. (Semrush (AI search traffic study), Jul 2025)

Referral shares measure clicks out to websites, so they understate chatbot use that ends without a click. The Reuters Institute figures are self-reported and cover news use only; its three platform figures have different user bases. ChatGPT messages are not searches and should not be set against Google's query counts. The court's chatbot figures are a Google estimate from March 2025.

How much web traffic comes from search and AI crawlers?

A lot. On Cloudflare's network, bots request nearly as many pages as people do. AI crawlers take far more pages than they send visitors back, on Cloudflare's own ratio.

1. 1 Oceania 54.2%
2. 2 Europe 48.6%
3. 3 North America 45.5%
4. 4 South America 44.2%
5. 5 Asia 39.0%
6. 6 Africa 35.8%

• Googlebot was responsible for over 28% of traffic from Verified Bots on Cloudflare's network in 2025. OpenAI's GPTBot originated about 7.5% and Microsoft's Bingbot 6% (worldwide). (Cloudflare (Radar Year in Review 2025), Dec 2025)
• Search engine crawlers were responsible for 40% of Verified Bot traffic on Cloudflare's network in 2025, AI crawlers for 20% and SEO bots for over 13%. (Cloudflare (Radar Year in Review 2025), Dec 2025)
• AI bots accounted for an average of 4.2% of HTML requests across Cloudflare's customer base in 2025, while Googlebot alone originated 4.5%. (Cloudflare (Radar Year in Review 2025), Dec 2025)
• As of 2 December 2025, humans generated 47% of HTML requests on Cloudflare's network and non-AI bots 44%. (Cloudflare (Radar Year in Review 2025), Dec 2025)
• Cloudflare says Anthropic had the highest crawl-to-refer ratios in 2025, reaching as much as 500,000:1 and later ranging from about 25,000:1 to 100,000:1. Perplexity generally stayed below 400:1 and Microsoft peaked in the 50:1 to 70:1 range. (Cloudflare (Radar Year in Review 2025), Dec 2025)
• Google's crawl-to-refer ratio on Cloudflare's network ranged from about 3:1 to as high as 30:1 in 2025, and DuckDuckGo's stayed below 1:1 for the first three quarters. (Cloudflare (Radar Year in Review 2025), Dec 2025)
• AI "user action" crawling, where a bot fetches pages in response to a chatbot user's question, grew over 21x from January to early December 2025 on Cloudflare's network. Crawling for model training reached as much as 7-8x search crawling and 32x user action crawling at peak. (Cloudflare (Radar Year in Review 2025), Dec 2025)

Verified Bots is Cloudflare's directory of identified bots, not all bot traffic. The HTML request shares cover requests for HTML content only. Cloudflare calls its crawl-to-refer ratio volatile, and the values here are ranges from its text.

How many websites pass Core Web Vitals and basic SEO checks?

About half pass Core Web Vitals, and desktop does better than mobile. Title tags and HTTPS are on nearly every page; meta descriptions, canonical tags and structured data are not.

View data table

Share of websites with good Core Web Vitals on mobile by year, 2021-2025, on Chrome real-user data used by the HTTP Archive Web Almanac. The metric definitions changed over the period, so the early years are not strictly like for like.

Period	Value
2021	32%
2022	31%
2023	36%
2024	44%
2025	48%

• On desktop, 56% of websites had good Core Web Vitals in 2025, against 55% in 2024 and 41% in 2021. The mobile share was 44% in 2024 and 32% in 2021 (Chrome real-user data, worldwide). (HTTP Archive (Web Almanac 2025, Performance), Jan 2026)
• 51% of the 1,000 most popular sites have good Core Web Vitals on mobile, against 42% for the next 10,000 and 37% for the next 100,000. Among the top 1,000, 59% pass on desktop (2025). (HTTP Archive (Web Almanac 2025, Performance), Jan 2026)
• 74% of desktop pages and 62% of mobile pages have a good Largest Contentful Paint (2025, Chrome real-user data). (HTTP Archive (Web Almanac 2025, Performance), Jan 2026)
• 77% of websites have good Interaction to Next Paint on mobile in 2025, against 74% in 2024, and 97% on desktop. Among the top 1,000 sites, good mobile scores rose from 53% to 63%. (HTTP Archive (Web Almanac 2025, Performance), Jan 2026)
• HTTPS is used on 91.7% of desktop pages and 91.5% of mobile pages in 2025, against about 89% in 2024 (HTTP Archive crawl, worldwide). (HTTP Archive (Web Almanac 2025, SEO), Jan 2026)
• The viewport meta tag is on 93.1% of desktop pages and 95.2% of mobile pages (2025). (HTTP Archive (Web Almanac 2025, SEO), Jan 2026)
• 98.62% of desktop pages and 98.54% of mobile pages have a title tag (2025). (HTTP Archive (Web Almanac 2025, SEO), Jan 2026)
• 67.7% of desktop pages and 67.2% of mobile pages have a meta description in 2025, against 66.7% and 66.4% in 2024 and 71% in 2022. An h1 heading is present on 71% of desktop and 70% of mobile pages. (HTTP Archive (Web Almanac 2025, SEO), Jan 2026)
• Canonical tags are on 68% of desktop pages and 67% of mobile pages in 2025, against 65% in 2024. (HTTP Archive (Web Almanac 2025, SEO), Jan 2026)
• Hreflang is on about 20% of pages in 2025 (20.3% desktop and 19.7% mobile in raw HTML), roughly double the 9-10% of 2024. At the median, 60% of images on mobile pages have alt attributes, against 58% in 2024. (HTTP Archive (Web Almanac 2025, SEO), Jan 2026)
• 50% of home pages on both desktop and mobile use structured data in 2025, up from 49% of mobile home pages in 2024. (HTTP Archive (Web Almanac 2025, SEO), Jan 2026)
• JSON-LD is on 43% of home pages in 2025, against 41% of desktop and 40% of mobile home pages in 2024. WebSite schema is on 36% of mobile home pages, against 35% in 2024 and 30% in 2022. (HTTP Archive (Web Almanac 2025, SEO), Jan 2026)

The Core Web Vitals figures are for sites in the Chrome UX Report, where a site passes when its loading, responsiveness and layout stability measures are all good for most visits. The page-level SEO figures come from the HTTP Archive crawl of those sites.

How do people search for local businesses?

Google is still where most US consumers read reviews, but its share fell in BrightLocal's 2026 survey while AI tools jumped. The survey is BrightLocal's own and the one-year jump is very large, so treat the AI figure with care.

View data table

Policy-violating reviews that Google says it blocked or removed on Google Maps worldwide, 2024 and 2025. These are Google's own operating figures, stated as "more than" 240 million and "over" 292 million. Each year comes from the release for that year; the link is to the latest one.

Period	Value
2024	over 240m
2025	over 292m

• 71% of US consumers used Google to read local business reviews in 2026, down from 83% in 2025, in BrightLocal's own survey of US adults. (BrightLocal (Local Consumer Review Survey 2026), Feb 2026)
• Use of ChatGPT and other generative AI tools for local recommendations rose from 6% to 45% of US consumers in a year, in BrightLocal's survey. Apple Maps rose from 14% to 27% and local news sites fell to 29%. (BrightLocal (Local Consumer Review Survey 2026), Feb 2026)
• 97% of US consumers read online reviews for local businesses, and 41% "always" read reviews when browsing for businesses, up from 29% a year earlier. The average consumer uses six review sites (BrightLocal survey, 2026). (BrightLocal (Local Consumer Review Survey 2026), Feb 2026)
• 31% of US consumers will only use a business with 4.5 stars or more, against 17% a year earlier, and 68% only one with four or more stars, against 55% in 2025 (BrightLocal survey). (BrightLocal (Local Consumer Review Survey 2026), Feb 2026)
• 47% of US consumers will not use a business with fewer than 20 reviews, and 74% look for reviews written in the last three months (BrightLocal survey, 2026). (BrightLocal (Local Consumer Review Survey 2026), Feb 2026)
• 40% of US consumers trust AI platforms to provide business recommendations and 32% do not. 42% trust AI recommendations as much as traditional reviews (BrightLocal survey, 2026, stated attitudes). (BrightLocal (Local Consumer Review Survey 2026), Feb 2026)
• 82% of US consumers read AI-generated review summaries and 23% would rely on them alone (BrightLocal survey, 2026). (BrightLocal (Local Consumer Review Survey 2026), Feb 2026)

What do SEO professionals say about their work?

They report growth and worry in the same breath. Most say organic traffic rose, and most fear that AI answers will take clicks away. The survey is self-selected, so it describes its respondents and not the whole trade.

1. 1 Original content creation 66%
2. 2 Content updates 42.6%
3. 3 Technical SEO 42.3%

• 77% of SEO professionals worry that AI answers will reduce website clicks, in Search Engine Journal's survey of 371 SEO professionals in 52 countries. (Search Engine Journal (State of SEO 2026), Sep 2025)
• Algorithm changes were the top difficulty for 59% of SEO professionals in the same survey. (Search Engine Journal (State of SEO 2026), Sep 2025)
• 60% of SEO professionals in the survey reported more organic traffic and 34% reported more leads and conversions. (Search Engine Journal (State of SEO 2026), Sep 2025)
• 58% of SEO professionals in the survey plan human-written content with AI support, 49% are doubling down on E-E-A-T and 22% are AI-heavy adopters. The groups overlap. (Search Engine Journal (State of SEO 2026), Sep 2025)
• 43% of companies cut some SEO spending in the last year and 65% expect no cuts next year, in the same survey. (Search Engine Journal (State of SEO 2026), Sep 2025)

Methodology and sources

This page compiles search engine statistics from primary sources only: tracker datasets, company filings and statements, court opinions, regulator decisions, official and academic reports, and vendor studies that publish their method. Each figure is copied as printed and links to the page that carries it, with the date of the data or release. Figures from different producers are never merged or averaged, because they measure different things: StatCounter and Cloudflare count search referrals on their own networks, courts and regulators count queries, and vendor studies use their own panels and keyword sets. Company figures are labelled as the firm's own, court and regulator figures as findings, and forecasts as forecasts with who made them and when. Where a producer has restated a figure, the latest value is used. The page is reviewed monthly, and StatCounter's monthly figures roll forward with each review.

• Ahrefs (AI Overviews click study) · Feb 2026
• Ahrefs (AI traffic study) · Feb 2025
• Ahrefs (search traffic study) · Dec 2023
• Alphabet (Form 10-K 2025) · Feb 2026
• Alphabet (Form 10-Q, Q3 2026) · Oct 2026
• Backlinko (CTR study) · Apr 2025
• BrightLocal (Local Consumer Review Survey 2026) · Feb 2026
• Cloudflare (Radar Year in Review 2025) · Dec 2025
• CMA (Google general search SMS decision) · Oct 2025
• Court of Justice of the EU (Google Shopping judgment) · Sep 2024
• European Commission (DMA decisions on Google) · Jul 2026
• First Page Sage (CTR by position 2026) · Sep 2026
• Google (2017 Search quality post) · Apr 2017
• Google (AI and the future of shopping post) · Mar 2025
• Google (I/O 2026 keynote) · May 2026
• Google (Maps fake reviews post 2025) · Apr 2025
• Google (Maps trust and safety post 2026) · Apr 2026
• Google (March 2024 spam update post) · Apr 2024
• Google (Q1 2025 earnings remarks) · Apr 2025
• Google (Q1 2026 earnings remarks) · Apr 2026
• Google (Q2 2025 earnings remarks) · Jul 2025
• Google (Q3 2025 earnings remarks) · Oct 2025
• Google (Q3 2026 earnings remarks) · Oct 2026
• Google (Q4 2025 earnings remarks) · Feb 2026
• HTTP Archive (Web Almanac 2025, Generative AI) · Jan 2026
• HTTP Archive (Web Almanac 2025, Performance) · Jan 2026
• HTTP Archive (Web Almanac 2025, SEO) · Jan 2026
• IAB UK (Digital Adspend 2025) · Mar 2026
• IAB/PwC (Internet Advertising Revenue Report 2025) · Apr 2026
• Microsoft (Form 10-K FY2026) · Jul 2026
• NBER (How People Use ChatGPT) · Sep 2025
• Pew Research Center (AI summaries study) · Jul 2025
• Reuters Institute (Digital News Report 2026) · Jun 2026
• Reuters Institute (Trends and Predictions 2026) · Jan 2026
• Search Engine Journal (State of SEO 2026) · Sep 2025
• Semrush (AI Overviews study) · Dec 2025
• Semrush (AI search traffic study) · Jul 2025
• Semrush (commercial modifiers study) · Oct 2026
• seoClarity (AI Overviews research) · Oct 2025
• Similarweb (AI Search Stats 2026) · Jul 2026
• SparkToro (41 search sites study) · Mar 2026
• SparkToro (open web traffic study) · Nov 2026
• SparkToro (zero-click by country) · Jun 2026
• SparkToro (zero-click study 2026) · Jun 2026
• StatCounter (AI chatbot referrals) · Oct 2026
• StatCounter (referrals by channel) · Oct 2026
• StatCounter (referrals by channel) · Oct 2026
• StatCounter (search share by country) · Oct 2026
• StatCounter (search share by country) · Oct 2026
• StatCounter (search share by country) · Oct 2026
• StatCounter (search share by country) · Oct 2026
• StatCounter (search share by country) · Oct 2026
• StatCounter (search share by country) · Oct 2026
• StatCounter (search share by country) · Oct 2026
• StatCounter (search share by country) · Oct 2026
• StatCounter (search share by device) · Oct 2026
• StatCounter (search share by device) · Oct 2026
• StatCounter (US search share) · Oct 2026
• StatCounter (US search share) · 2025
• StatCounter (US search share) · Oct 2026
• StatCounter (US search share) · Oct 2026
• StatCounter (worldwide search share) · Oct 2026
• StatCounter (worldwide search share) · 2025
• US District Court, D.D.C. (United States v. Google LLC, liability opinion) · Aug 2024
• US District Court, D.D.C. (United States v. Google LLC, remedies opinion) · Sep 2025