{"id":11604,"date":"2026-07-14T22:21:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T14:21:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/?p=11604"},"modified":"2026-07-14T22:21:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T14:21:25","slug":"where-search-attention-is-going-how-to-measure-it-via-sejournal-mattgsouthern","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/?p=11604","title":{"rendered":"Where Search Attention Is Going &amp; How To Measure It via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p> <div id=\"narrow-cont\"> <p>Katie Morton, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Journal, and I recorded the debut episode of Search Engine Journal\u2019s revamped podcast, focusing on a recurring theme in our coverage. We discussed how clicks are declining on the open web, a trend many in search have noticed. We argue that much of this attention hasn\u2019t vanished but has shifted to areas not easily tracked by standard analytics. Listen to the complete episode here.<\/p> <p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Where the Clicks Go Now.\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TWhl5CEFOM8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p> <p>[04 : 28] \u2014 Introduction: The Disappearing Clicks<br \/>[05 : 09] \u2014 Where to Invest Your Marketing Resources?<br \/>[09 : 14] \u2014 How to Measure Performance Beyond Clicks<br \/>[13 : 49] \u2014 Where Is Search Traffic Going?<br \/>[16 : 41] \u2014 What Does Visibility Mean Now?<br \/>[21 : 11] \u2014 Resetting Goals for Content Leaders<\/p> <p><iframe class=\"sej-iframe-auto-height\" id=\"in-content-iframe\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/www.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-json\/sscats\/v2\/tk\/Middle_Post_Text\"><\/iframe><\/p> <h2>Where Searches Are Landing Now<\/h2> <p>Most searches nowadays often don\u2019t lead directly to a click on the open web. According to Rand Fishkin\u2019s analysis of Similarweb clickstream data, about\u00a068% of U.S. Google searches\u00a0in the first four months of 2026 end without any click at all. Only around a quarter actually take users to an external website. The rest either conclude without a click, lead to another Google search, or direct users to a Google-owned property or paid result.<\/p> <p>That attention is collecting in a few places. A lot of it never leaves Google, held by AI Overviews, Business Profiles, Maps listings, and newer surfaces like Ask Maps that point people toward specific businesses. Community platforms are showing up in the results more often, too.<\/p> <p>After May\u2019s core update, SE Ranking\u2019s tracking showed Reddit gaining top-three positions across all 20 niches it follows. Google\u2019s partnership with Reddit has been in place for a while, and Google has leaned harder into forum results, though I wouldn\u2019t say the deal alone explains the movement.<\/p> <p>Then there\u2019s a narrower set of sites that still reliably pull organic traffic. Transactional, local, and branded searches keep sending clicks. What\u2019s getting hit hardest is lifestyle content, wire-service journalism, and utility pages like weather and TV listings, which are the kind of thing an AI Overview can answer without sending a click anywhere.<\/p> <p>Katie added that much of what leaves the open web lands on social platforms and video, where AI can\u2019t easily replicate the formats. Younger audiences, in particular, are spending their time there rather than on traditional sites, and YouTube holds their attention across age ranges.<\/p> <h2>The Content Bets That Stopped Paying Off<\/h2> <p>Many blogs try to cover every related topic with generic content, which worked when Google indexed them all and drove traffic. Now, they face tougher competition from similar pages and AI summaries that answer directly in search results. Focusing on volume alone no longer works.<\/p> <p>Google\u2019s Danny Sullivan drew that line at Search Central Live Toronto this spring, separating commodity content from the kind of work only your business and your experience can produce. The listicle that could come from anywhere sits on one side. What only you can say sits on the other. The topic matters less than which side of that line your content falls on.<\/p> <p>John Mueller made a related point on Reddit. For a new site, the audience work comes first, and search visibility may follow once you\u2019ve built something worth finding. Starting with \u201chow do I rank\u201d is the wrong place to start.<\/p> <p>Katie tied this back to business fit. SEJ doesn\u2019t take every client who waves money, because off-topic or low-quality sponsors can cost you your audience\u2019s trust. For her, it stayed simple:<\/p> <blockquote> <p><em>It always comes down to authenticity. You want to provide value, you want to serve your audience. It has to be this mutually beneficial thing.<\/em><\/p> <\/blockquote> <p>Old-school SEO principles never die, and firsthand experience is the one thing AI can\u2019t replicate.<\/p> <h2>Measuring Visibility When The Click Never Comes<\/h2> <p>The challenge now is that the numbers you once relied on have become harder to interpret. Raw traffic used to be a clear indicator, but today, your brand can appear throughout search results and still not show up in your analytics, especially if it didn\u2019t lead to a click.<\/p> <p><span style=\"box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;\">Branded search is a signal to monitor alongside citation tracking. Repeated exposure in AI answers may lead to more branded queries. Search Console\u2019s\u00a0branded queries filter makes these changes easier to identify.<\/span><\/p> <p>Another change involves shifting from links to mentions. Unlinked mentions may matter in ways that a typical link report can\u2019t detect. For example, a brand might be referenced in a Reddit thread, which a chatbot later relies on for a recommendation, even though there\u2019s no hyperlink in the chain. If you only count links, you might overlook this.<\/p> <p>Katie described the reader\u2019s side from shopping for merino wool travel clothes:<\/p> <blockquote> <p><em>I\u2019m seeing brand names, but I\u2019m not always clicking during the research process. I\u2019m seeing brand names mentioned over again on the SERP and Reddit and in Claude, my preferred AI chatbot \u2026 eventually it will trigger a branded search, and then I\u2019ll go directly to someone\u2019s website, and they would probably have no idea how I found them.<\/em><\/p> <\/blockquote> <p>That\u2019s the attribution gap a lot of ecommerce is living in: Direct traffic they can\u2019t tie back to a source. Her advice was to track where you\u2019re being cited, keep a brand presence on Reddit, and make your content crawlable by AI.<\/p> <p>No click doesn\u2019t mean no value. Our argument on the episode was that if your content helped form the answer someone got, you may be in the consideration set even when no referral follows.<\/p> <h2>Resetting The Scoreboard As A Content Leader<\/h2> <p>Katie emphasized that proving value as a content leader begins with identifying your \u201cnorth star.\u201d She pointed out that revenue and the bottom line are central, but it\u2019s equally important for editorial and marketing to work hand in hand with the business strategy while still putting the audience first. Ultimately, it involves keeping content aligned with the business model, which also means being selective about customers to maintain the audience\u2019s respect.<\/p> <p>Part of the strategy involves niching down. SEJ improved its contributor program by becoming more selective about writers, prioritizing genuine expertise over self-promotion.<\/p> <p>My piece of this is the scoreboard. When clicks stop being the main number, you make the clicks you do get count for more. If the only metric you report is organic sessions, and Google\u2019s sending a smaller share of searches to the open web, that line is going to keep sliding. Keep the declining sessions in view and set them alongside the growing signals, like branded search queries and mentions.<\/p> <h2>Catch The Full Conversation<\/h2> <p>This leaves content teams with a harder measurement job, and a more honest one.<\/p> <p>A wider scoreboard can highlight value that a sessions-only report might miss. While it won\u2019t undo the revenue loss caused by traffic that doesn\u2019t return, managing both aspects together is truly the key to success now.<\/p> <p><strong>More Resources:<\/strong><\/p> <p>\u00a0<\/p> <hr\/> <p><em>Featured Image: Paulo Bobita\/Search Engine Journal<\/em><\/p> <\/div> <p>SEJ Podcast,SEO,SEO Strategy#Search #Attention #amp #Measure #sejournal #MattGSouthern1784038885<\/p> ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Katie Morton, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Journal, and I recorded the debut episode of Search Engine Journal\u2019s revamped podcast, focusing on a recurring theme in our coverage. We discussed how clicks are declining on the open web, a trend many in search have noticed. We argue that much of this attention hasn\u2019t vanished but has [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[87,10886,90,13391,95,80],"class_list":["post-11604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-accessibility","tag-amp","tag-attention","tag-mattgsouthern","tag-measure","tag-search","tag-sejournal"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11604\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}