The State of Search 2023 - Key Highlights

SemRush just released a study that evaluates the search landscape in the past year. Here are some key data points in the study:

1. Some industries regained their YoY search traffic, while others did not. Industries that saw bigger drops include Fashion (-14%), Technology (-6%) and Travel (-4%)

2. According to the data, Google has started showing more Transactional and Commercial queries in the SERPs and fewer Navigational and Informational. The biggest percentage jump was Informational, which dropped -3.5% YoY.

3. Overall search traffic to their tracked sites appeared to follow macroeconomic movements. From March 2022 to June 2022, sites saw overall decreases in traffic. This recovered towards the end of 2022.

4. In total, overall site traffic was lower in 2022 than the previous year. The study didn't indicate by how much.

5. The March 2023 update was particularly volatile when compared with others in the past (pictured). The update that saw similar volatility was the May 2020 Core Update.

6. According to their click-through rate curve, the average site in the first position saw 22% CTR on desktop and mobile. In general, CTRs were higher on mobile than desktop devices.

7. Google started showing a lot more "Popular Products" results, especially on mobile devices. This jumped up +17% YoY on mobile.

8. The desktop SERPs are getting more visual. Images in organic results increased by +42% YoY.

This is definitely an interesting data study that's worth reviewing. It gives some overall good insights on how much organic traffic sites received in the last year and even breaks them down by industry.

Here is the link to the post: https://www.semrush.com/blog/state-of-search-2023/