In an age of power- and useful generative AI systems on the one hand and Google's approach to determine helpful and authoritative content on the other hand, the question is “What is the state of search now and how will it change”? I present exclusive findings from a deep dive study that reveals how Google is continuously changing and how the users adapt to it. This is not the full study, but a glimpse on how Search is evolving as an appetizer to the soon be release Semrush State of Search 2023 study.
2. Who am I?
Marcus Tober
SVP Enterprise Solutions @Semrush
22 years SEO experience
17 years experience building SEO products
(founder Searchmetrics)
Inhouse, agency and PE experience
/marcustober
@marcustober
3. The State
of Search
2023
Search
is evolving
But how much has it evolved? Even
with ChatGPT, Google is our go-to
Search Engine, so what can we learn?
4. Total traffic trend (US) for 2022
In Q4 traffic is almost back
to normal level
Q1/Q2 for 2022 was pretty low compared
to 2021 in the same time frame
5. Search traffic trend (US) for 2022
During the year the relative share
of Search traffic slightly dropped
6. Search traffic trend (US) for 2022
Generally Search is one of the
most important channels
7. What are typical ratio of Search traffic?
33% 26%
77%
10% 17% 13%
32%
11%
Ecommerce Ecommerce B2B
Informational
Video Video News
Social
8. Winner
Electronics, Beauty,
Media and Food
industries grew YoY
Slightly down
Retail, Online Education
and Travel decreased
in size a little bit
Loser
Service & Technology
and Fashion decreased
more significantly
Winner/Loser for Search Traffic
10. Number of major Google Updates per year
10 confirmed updates
in 2022
11. Google Updates split by different types
All updates are more
nuanced than the former
broad Core Updates
Since 2021 Google officially
introduced different types
of updates
21. Source: Semrush Organic Research—159M Keywords US Desktop
Slow but visible shift towards more
commercial search results
Google transforms
the SERPs with more
transactional SERP features
25. Distribution of Search Volume by
Keyword Length
We will see how long-tail will
change with new conversational
search behaviour
Majority of search is still 1-2 words, most
likely as Google understands intent
so that the user query can be short
27. Number of different domain rankings
is decreasing since 2 years
Google has less diversity
or less spam…
28. Search traffic by domain is growing
Building a brand and become
and authority is more
important than ever
It proves again that SEO
is a long-term game
29. Volatility up, but number of new domains down
Most likely it‘s getting harder
to rank with new
domains/content
31. 1.64% occurence
Short Videos Carousel feature for mobile
searches which suggests watching videos
from TikTok and other short video platforms
Short Video Carousel
35. CTR has not declined in 2022—SEO is not dead
*Based on 30 million keywords
Avg. CTR 2021
Mobile: 6.5%
Desktop: 6.1%
Avg. CTR 2022
Mobile: 7.4%
Desktop: 6.2%