iPullRank analyzed 13.1 billion search occasions from 9.1 million opted-in customers, overlaying October 2024 by December 2025, to grasp how Google customers behave once they search and the place their clicks finally go.
One of many standout findings for paid search entrepreneurs was ChatGPT’s unusually excessive share of paid site visitors.
By the numbers. ChatGPT was the sixth-most-clicked vacation spot from Google Search within the dataset, trailing solely YouTube, Google’s personal properties, Reddit, Fb and Wikipedia. Tens of millions of searches for ChatGPT occurred every week throughout the panel.
Extra considerably for advertisers, iPullRank discovered ChatGPT drew a larger proportion of paid clicks than any of the opposite main Google locations it analyzed.
That implies OpenAI isn’t relying solely on natural visibility or direct site visitors to draw customers. Paid search can be taking part in a task in transferring folks from Google to ChatGPT.
Why we care. This analysis suggests paid search is holding up whilst Google sends fewer natural clicks, whereas ChatGPT itself is turning into a major paid-search vacation spot. It additionally exhibits that AI and Google Search aren’t essentially separate buyer journeys — customers are transferring between them, creating new alternatives for advertisers to consider how paid search matches into an more and more AI-driven discovery panorama.
The larger image. ChatGPT additionally seems comparatively troublesome for Google to interchange with its personal search options.
Solely 11.1% of searches that may in any other case lead towards OpenAI have been intercepted by a zero-click Google expertise, one of many lowest charges among the many main locations iPullRank studied.
That’s partly as a result of many ChatGPT searches are navigational. Google can reply a factual query straight in Search, however it could’t absolutely fulfill somebody whose intention is just to open ChatGPT.
Paid clicks are holding up. The analysis additionally contained one other probably necessary sign for Google Advertisements advertisers.
Google’s total zero-click fee rose about 2.6 share factors in the course of the 15-month examine interval, whereas the share of searches producing an natural click on fell roughly 2.8 factors.
Paid clicks, nevertheless, confirmed no significant change throughout that interval, in keeping with iPullRank.
That doesn’t imply paid search is resistant to altering search habits. However inside this dataset, the expansion of zero-click searches seems to have come primarily on the expense of natural clicks moderately than advertisements.
Model bidding nonetheless issues. The examine additionally discovered paid clicks have been extra widespread on branded searches.
When branded searches resulted in a click on, 4.4% have been paid, in contrast with 3.3% for non-branded searches. iPullRank describes this as proof of manufacturers paying to defend their very own names in search outcomes.
That context is especially related to ChatGPT. Folks looking Google particularly for “ChatGPT” symbolize extremely priceless navigational site visitors, making distinguished paid placement probably helpful even when the model already has sturdy natural visibility.
The analysis doesn’t, nevertheless, reveal which queries OpenAI bids on or how a lot it spends, so it could’t set up how a lot of ChatGPT’s paid site visitors comes particularly from defensive model bidding.
Search remains to be a discovery engine. One other notable discovering is that solely about 14% of Google clicks went to a web site explicitly named within the consumer’s question. The remaining 86% have been labeled as discovery clicks, the place Google despatched customers to locations they hadn’t particularly requested.
For advertisers, that’s necessary as a result of it suggests Google’s worth isn’t restricted to capturing current model demand.
A big majority of clicks stay probably contestable territory the place advertisements, rankings and different search experiences can introduce customers to a vacation spot.
Backside line. ChatGPT’s place as each a Google competitor and a major recipient of paid Google site visitors exhibits how intertwined conventional search and AI discovery have gotten. For paid search entrepreneurs, that means the rising AI journey isn’t merely Google versus ChatGPT. More and more, it may very well be Google to ChatGPT — with an advert serving to customers get there.
Dig deeper. What 13 Billion Google Searches Reveal About Zero-Click Behavior
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