Remember when the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button was Google’s biggest gamble? Now, it’s their entire business model, and your traffic is the casino’s take.
Your best-performing article still ranks #1, but traffic’s down 30%. Search your primary keyword and there it is: a Google AI Overview perfectly summarizing your content. No click required.
Welcome to the age of zero-click search, a blunt term that means exactly what it sounds like: searches where users get their answers without ever visiting your site. Industry veterans are calling the phenomenon “Google Zero” (less self-explanatory but just as ominous-sounding).
This new era means rankings alone no longer guarantee engagement. Your audience absorbs AI-generated answers directly on Google’s platform, bypassing your site entirely. This is the defining challenge of content marketing today. In an era dominated by AI-powered SERP previews, winning means creating digital destinations worth visiting, not just pages that pull rank.
Here’s how brands can adapt.
Understanding the Zero-Click Search Landscape
Google’s AI Mode represents a fundamental shift in how users source information online, compressing entire articles into punchy, AI-powered summaries. Users love the instant gratification. Brands and media companies, on the other hand, are in panic mode.SparkToro analysis from 2024 found that for every 1,000 Google searches in the US, only 360 clicks went to the open web.
Let that implication set in: Out of every 1,000 queries, 640 now lead to no clicked results.
Some publishers are impacted more than others
This trend has only ballooned in 2025, and click-through rates (CTRs) are plummeting. Publishers in reference verticals that have historically relied on search visibility report devastating traffic losses; some witness double-digit drops in referral visits, even as their keyword rankings hold steady. Semrush data finds that science, health, people & society, and law & government are the industries seeing the largest share of AI Overview growth.
The erosion is surgical, with Google’s AI scalpel removing the meat and leaving only bones:
- Recipe sites see their content distilled into lists and cook times.
- Long product reviews shrink to bite-sized bullets.
- Communities and dev sites have detailed Q&As sliced into decontextualized code snippets.
Zero-click search also strips away narrative, perspective, and experience, leaving only commoditized fragments that serve Google’s ecosystem.
The upside for marketers
But here’s what many panicked marketers miss: This isn’t a content apocalypse, but a process of natural selection. Commodity content is the dinosaur.
Most of the formats endangered by zero-click search were already oversaturated (all those “10 Best Tools for X” listicles you’ve been banging your head against a wall writing for the past decade). Many were competing on efficiency, completeness, and SEO tricks rather than on real innovation or brand distinction. Google Zero simply accelerates a reckoning that was always coming.
And here’s the twist: AI Search often surfaces sources that live well beyond the first page of Google’s traditional rankings. In other words, content that was once invisible in the old SEO hierarchy can suddenly become citable and top-of-mind in AI summaries. For brands willing to invest in distinctive, authoritative insights, the playing field may actually be more open than before.
Building a Destination Content Strategy
There are a few tactics for thriving in the Google Zero era. “Destination content,” for instance, inverts the classic SEO playbook. Forget adjusting for every last query and optimizing around keyword density; instead, focus on building branded content experiences that users actively seek out. These are digital destinations that drive interaction, build habit, and deliver value AI cannot compress.
Here are a few examples of what these strategies look like in practice:
1. Utility and interactivity
Example: Tools, assessments, and calculators. Google’s AI Overviews can summarize general best practices, frameworks, or even steps to use a tool, but they can’t generate dynamic, personalized outcomes tied to an individual user’s inputs, data, or context. ChatGPT can mimic personalization if you paste in content or data, but without integrations it can’t apply the proprietary scoring logic, benchmarks, or datasets that make branded tools defensible.
That unique value — rooted in owned IP and interactivity — is what keeps tools like HubSpot’s Website Grader a step ahead of zero-click answers. Users enter their site to get their specific recommendations, a direct exchange of effort for individualized insight that no AI summary can replicate.
2. Memorable Narrative and Voice
Example: Serialized storytelling and editorial franchises. Readers return for evolving narratives, strong opinions, and a distinct voice beyond just facts. (Think of the difference between Wikipedia and a respected analyst’s ongoing columns.) AI can summarize the facts, but not the evolving insight, context, or strategic nuance. For instance, Rare Beauty’s Substack leans into longform, behind-the-scenes storytelling that blends personal anecdotes, mental-health reflections, and candid product development updates. It stands out by offering authenticity tied deeply to the brand, giving readers a reason to subscribe rather than passively consume.
3. Deep, Engaging Experience
Example: Interactive flipbooks, quizzes, and content hubs. Build content networks that reward deeper exploration. Think of an immersive guide that walks a user through a complex topic using clickable flows, rich visuals, and progressive disclosure, instead of flattening content into a one-and-done summary. According to industry guides, formats like flipbooks, quizzes, polls, and interactive infographics are trending as tools for deeper engagement, boosting dwell time and even delivering audience insights.
4. Unmatched Credibility
Example: Subject matter expertise and original research. Every year, Edelman publishes its Trust Barometer, surveying more than 30,000 people across 28 countries on trust in business, media, government, and NGOs. The findings are widely cited by media outlets and executives, and the report’s methodology and charts compel readers to click through for detail.
Such research-driven content stands apart because it offers proprietary insights users can’t get anywhere else. It positions the brand as a trusted authority, fuels citations and coverage, and compels readers to click through for methodology and nuance.
Diversifying Discovery and Distribution
Smart brands aren’t putting all their chips on Google anymore. Instead, they’re engineering multiple discovery paths that are immune to AI summarization and constantly shifting SERP formats. The most resilient strategies balance owned channels, native participation, and interactive experiences — each reinforcing brand visibility outside of Google’s walls.
A few ways to do this include:
1. Email Newsletters
Email newsletters remain the gold standard of owned distribution. Immune to zero-click harvesting, newsletters deliver content directly to your audience on your own terms.
The strongest programs build around a clear editorial promise, tailored segmentation, and actionable next steps. Engagement metrics also look different here: unique opens,real click-to-open rates, and organic subscriber growth matter more than sheer volume. A newsletter welcome in a crowded inbox is a stronger signal of affinity than any search ranking.
2. Native Social Discovery
Native social discovery offers another durable channel. On Reddit, credibility comes from contributing expertise before dropping links — a strategy with extra upside, since Reddit is currently the single-largest source feeding AI search results. On LinkedIn, brands are finding traction with shareable carousels and concise insights designed for in-platform engagement. And in private communities like Slack groups, Discord servers, or other niche forums, value comes from participation, not promotion. Brands that show up with utility and authenticity win trust; those that push content for clicks don’t.
3. Content-Driven Events and Interactive Experiences
Webinars anchored by actionable tools, workshops, or playbooks create live value, while the content generated during those events (clips, FAQs, templates, case studies, etc.) can be repurposed across other touchpoints. The most effective teams go a step further, building “distribution kits” for every major asset. That means automated email sequences, platform-specific social adaptations, community prompts, and even snippets for sales enablement and internal knowledge transfer.
Redefining Performance Metrics in the Google Zero Era
Organic sessions, once the bedrock KPI for SEO success, are no longer reliable on their own. In the age of zero-click search, when Google’s AI Overviews siphon answers directly from your content, traffic becomes unpredictable. To future-proof a destination content strategy, brands need to shift from measuring visits to measuring value.
That involves monitoring a new set of metrics.
Relationship Metrics
Email signups, subscriber growth, retention, and community participation are now among the strongest signals that your content is worth returning to. Unlike a fleeting pageview, these metrics reflect ongoing trust and affinity.
Engagement Signals
These signals reveal depth of impact. Look beyond clicks to measures such as engaged reading time, scroll depth, recirculation into related articles, and direct repeat visits. Even the ratio of direct or bookmarked traffic to organic search traffic tells a story: Audiences are coming back because they want to, not because an algorithm sent them.
Utility and Habit Metrics
These indicators capture how your content integrates into users’ workflows. Tool completion rates, repeat usage of assessments, template downloads, calculator sessions, and resource revisits are strong indicators of content that delivers enduring value. A user who saves and reuses your template is worth far more than one who skims a single article.
Contextualized Traditional Metrics
Traditional SEO metrics like rankings and organic sessions still matter, but only in context. When search is one of many pipelines — not the only one — fluctuations lose their power to derail your growth.
Escaping the SERP
The rise of zero-click search doesn’t signal the death of content marketing, but it just might be the end of lazy content tactics. Google Zero is forcing brands to confront a truth long in the making: Visibility is meaningless without engagement. Traffic is volatile. Relationships endure.
Winning in this era means rethinking what you measure, how you distribute, and why your audience should care. It means building destinations worth seeking out, not just pages that happen to rank. You don’t have to fight AI or abandon SEO entirely — these remain important parts of the mix (and we’ll be covering tactics for LLM optimization in future articles).
But survival in the Google Zero era isn’t about winning clicks; it’s about winning commitment. Brands that build trusted relationships, deliver irreplaceable utility, and foster genuine communities will discover something liberating: when audiences choose to seek you out, no algorithm can make you disappear.
Ready to future-proof your content strategy? Partner with Contently to build destination experiences your audience can’t ignore.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs):
1. What exactly counts as “destination content”?Destination content is any experience your audience seeks out directly, rather than stumbling across through search. That could mean an interactive tool, a trusted newsletter, or a content hub with resources they bookmark and revisit. The key is habit and value: It has to be worth returning to even if Google never sends them.
2. Should we stop investing in SEO altogether?SEO is still important, but it shouldn’t be your only strategy. Think of it as one pipeline among many. Rankings and search traffic should be contextualized alongside relationship, engagement, and utility metrics. The real hedge against zero-click search is diversification.
3. How can smaller teams compete if they can’t build tools like HubSpot’s Website Grader?Interactivity doesn’t have to mean a massive engineering lift. Simple calculators, quizzes, or even well-structured templates can deliver personalized value. The goal is to create something useful enough that your audience wants to return.
