Growth Rankers
Statistics · Updated October 2026

SEO and AI search statistics for 2026

Statistics pages are full of numbers that have been copied so many times nobody knows where they came from. Every statistic below was checked against its original source on October 12, 2026, with the publisher, date and sample size listed.

The short answer

In 2026, 45% of U.S. consumers used ChatGPT or similar AI tools for local business recommendations, up from 6% a year earlier (BrightLocal). When Google shows an AI Overview, the top-ranking page gets a 58% lower click-through rate on average (Ahrefs), but pages cited in the Overview earn about 120% more clicks per impression than pages that aren't (Seer Interactive). AI tools rarely give the same recommendations twice (SparkToro), and brand mentions correlate with AI visibility more than backlinks do (Ahrefs).

Written by Latisha Gray, founder of Growth Rankers. Former Head of SEO at State Affairs, with SEO roles at CNN and Vox Media.
Last updated

How people use AI search

  • 45% of U.S. consumers used ChatGPT or similar AI tools for local business recommendations in 2026, up from 6% the year before. AI tools ranked as the third most popular source of business recommendations. BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 (Feb. 2026; 1,002 U.S. adults).
  • 40% of consumers trust AI platforms to provide business recommendations. BrightLocal, 2026.
  • ChatGPT's share of worldwide referral traffic rose from 0.23% in April 2026 to 0.32% in May 2026. SE Ranking (101,574 websites).

AI Overviews and clicks

  • The presence of an AI Overview correlates with a 58% lower average click-through rate for the top-ranking page (December 2023 vs. December 2025). Ahrefs (Feb. 2026; 300,000 keywords; desktop Search Console data).
  • Users clicked a traditional search result on 8% of visits when an AI summary appeared, vs. 15% when it didn't. They clicked a link inside the summary on 1% of visits. Pew Research Center (July 2025; 900 U.S. adults; 68,879 searches).
  • Users ended their browsing session on 26% of pages with an AI summary vs. 16% without. Pew Research Center, 2025.
  • AI Overviews appeared on 95.4% of comparison queries and 85.9% of question-style queries, but under 5% of transactional queries. Seer Interactive (April 2026).
  • Being cited in an AI Overview delivered about 120% more organic clicks per impression than not being cited, though still 38% fewer than when no AI Overview appeared. Seer Interactive, 2026. Correlation, not causation.
  • Organic CTR on queries with AI Overviews fell to 1.31% in December 2025, then recovered to 2.36% in February 2026. Seer Interactive, 2026.

What AI tools cite

  • Only 12% of links cited by ChatGPT, Gemini and Copilot appeared in Google's top 10 for the same prompt. Ahrefs (Aug. 2025; 15,000 long-tail queries).
  • Brand web mentions showed the strongest correlation with AI Overview brand visibility (0.664), compared with 0.218 for the number of backlinks. Ahrefs (May 2025; 75,000 brands).
  • Content cited by AI assistants was 25.7% fresher on average than Google's organic results. ChatGPT was most likely to cite newer pages; Google's AI Overviews cited slightly older pages. Ahrefs (July 2025; about 17 million citations across 7 AI platforms).
  • Listicles (21.9%), articles (16.7%) and product pages (13.7%) were the most-cited content types, and 40% of commercial queries cited listicles. Wix Studio AI Search Lab (March 2026; 75,000 AI answers; 1,056,727 citations; ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Perplexity).
  • About 86% of consumer-facing AI citations came from sources brands can directly manage or influence, including websites, listings, reviews and social. Gemini drew 52.15% of its citations from first-party websites; OpenAI's models drew 48.73% from listings and other third-party platforms. Yext (Oct. 2025; 6.8 million citations, July–Aug. 2025).
  • Generative engine optimization techniques improved visibility in AI-generated responses by up to 40% in lab tests. Aggarwal et al., "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization," KDD 2024.

How consistent AI recommendations are

  • AI tools returned the same list of brands fewer than 1 in 100 times, and the same list in the same order fewer than 1 in 1,000 times. SparkToro (Jan. 2026; 2,961 runs of 12 prompts across ChatGPT, Claude and Google's AI).
  • In our own test, asking the same local question twice produced lists that overlapped by an average of 34% to 78%, depending on the AI tool. National B2B and software questions were steadier for most tools. Growth Rankers, AI Visibility Index (Oct. 2026; 10 prompts, 4 platforms, 2 runs).
  • In the same test, about 55% of the sources cited for local businesses were the businesses' own websites, and AI recommendations included only about half of the businesses in Google's top-three map results. Growth Rankers, 2026.

Search and SEO fundamentals

  • 96.55% of pages in Ahrefs' index get no traffic from Google. Ahrefs (about 14 billion pages).
  • "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google." Google Search Central, "Do you need an SEO?" (updated June 2026).
  • "There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary." Google Search Central, "AI features and your website" (updated Dec. 2025).
  • Google's July 2026 AI optimization guide says Google Search doesn't use llms.txt files and that structured data isn't required for its generative AI features. Google Search Central, 2026.
  • "There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google." Google Business Profile Help.

SEO pricing

  • The most common monthly SEO retainer is $501–$1,000. Average retainers: about $1,349 for freelancers, $3,209 for agencies and $3,250 for consultancies. Ahrefs (Aug. 2024; 439 SEO providers worldwide).
  • The most common hourly rate is $75–$100 (24% of respondents). Ahrefs, 2024.
  • The most common one-time project fee is $2,501–$5,000 (21.2% of respondents). Ahrefs, 2024.

Sources

  1. BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026: brightlocal.com
  2. SE Ranking, ChatGPT referral traffic, May 2026: seranking.com
  3. Ahrefs, AI Overviews reduce clicks (2026 update): ahrefs.com
  4. Pew Research Center, AI summaries and clicks (2025): pewresearch.org
  5. Seer Interactive, AIO impact on Google CTR, 2026 update: seerinteractive.com
  6. Ahrefs, AI search overlap: ahrefs.com
  7. Ahrefs, AI Overview brand correlation: ahrefs.com
  8. Ahrefs, do AI assistants prefer fresh content: ahrefs.com
  9. Wix Studio AI Search Lab, content types most cited by LLMs: wix.com
  10. Yext, AI citations, user locations and query context: yext.com
  11. Aggarwal et al., "GEO: Generative Engine Optimization": arxiv.org
  12. SparkToro, AI recommendation consistency research: sparktoro.com
  13. Ahrefs, search traffic study: ahrefs.com
  14. Google Search Central, "Do you need an SEO?": developers.google.com
  15. Google Search Central, "AI features and your website": developers.google.com
  16. Google Search Central, AI optimization guide: developers.google.com
  17. Google Business Profile Help, tips to improve local ranking: support.google.com
  18. Ahrefs, SEO pricing survey: ahrefs.com
FAQ

About these statistics

How were these statistics verified?

Each statistic was checked against its original source (the study, survey or official documentation) on October 12, 2026. We list the publisher, date and sample size where available, and link to the source. We excluded figures we couldn't trace to a primary source.

Can I use these statistics?

Yes. Please cite the original source for each statistic. If this page helped, a link to it is appreciated. Our own AI Visibility Index data is free to use under a Creative Commons Attribution license.

How often is this page updated?

We review it when major new studies are published and at least quarterly. The date at the top shows the last update.

Why do some statistics seem to conflict?

Studies use different methods, time periods and samples. For example, Ahrefs measured a large drop in clicks when AI Overviews appear, while Seer Interactive saw some recovery in early 2026. We note methods and caveats so you can weigh them.

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