Rand Fishkin

My friend & co-author @amandanat wrote another banger tonight: sparktoro.com/blog/zero-clic… Worth your time 🔥

Apologies - my prior graphic from this research had a math error. For every 1,000 Google searches, *232* clicks go to the open web. It's now corrected in the blog post: sparktoro.com/blog/in-2026-l…

NEW Research: sparktoro.com/blog/in-2026-l… From Jan-April of this year, 68.01% of Google searches in @Similarweb's mobile+desktop panel ended without a click. That's 12.5% growth from two years ago; the fastest we've seen the zero-click search trend rise in the last decade.

Dear fellow @sparktoro fans, Your fave AI tool + SparkToro MCP access = ... uh, actually IDK, b/c the possibilities are♾. Waitlist at sparktoro.com/api. Access should be available in <1 month.

If you're not monitoring AI's inconsistent answers to recommendation questions... what are you doing?! rings.com/pages/ai-jewel… is a great example of how variable and strange the responses can get.

NEW post: sparktoro.com/blog/inimitabl… Ignore traffic. Make inimitable products. Shift your priorities away from “great content” on your own site and toward “great marketing” on the platforms where your audience pays attention. Influence is the new traffic.

I'm seeking a video game marketing consultant (or agency) for the end of the world... well, the Snackbar at the End of the World anyway. If you know a great firm or person in this world, please drop me a line (rand at snackbarstudio dot com). Grazie mille 🍝❤

DAMN it feels good to have this concept validated by others. It's weird trying to convince marketers that: A) Customer journeys are long & complex B) You need to be where your audience pays attention C) Research can show that Thanks to @gert_mellak for searchengineland.com/the-search-eve…

Starting in 35mins: datos.live/event/datos-pulse-of-the-web-state-of-search-q1-2026/ @LosBuenos and I will show you what the data shows us: the common narratives around how, when, and where people are searching is frequently disconnected from reality 🙄😉

We're HIRING! workwithindies.com/careers/snackb… If you know a 2D artist in the EU/UK seeking a remote gig, we've got a stellar small team, loads of flexibility, and pay in the top 80th percentile -- send 'em our way 😎

While in Valencia, Spain for Indie Founders, I got to meet my partner-in-research-crime from @LiveDatos, Belinda Conde (for the first time IRL)! Our joint, State of Search reports have made their way into the hands of 100s of 1000s, and a new one is on the way this April 😎😎😎

Outstanding research from @TheCoolestCool on Reddit's absolutely wild domination of Google's B2B results: foundationinc.co/lab/reddit-b2b… Just look at these numbers 🫪🧐🤯

We make audience research software. It tells you lots of things about any group of people on the web. But... it couldn't tell you how they used AI tools (prompts, topics)... until today 👇

NEW research: sparktoro.com/blog/new-resea… If you give ChatGPT the same request for product recommendations 100X, will you ever get the same list twice? And what does that answer mean for folks who try to track their brand presence in AI tools? Finally, some real answers 🧐

Oh SNAP. New Q4 2025 State of Search report from @LiveDatos + @sparktoro just went live. Some highlights on the growth of AI Mode, Pinterest's impressive rise in searches/searcher, Gemini's growth rate > ChatGPT's declining use (for the first time ever!), and more 👇

"Umm... What if I chose a brand name that's shared by lots of other things on the Internet? Can I still track it with @alertmouse?" TBH it's a $%^*@ of a problem, but the 🔔🐭 guys found a way! Here's how to track brands that overlap with lots of other mentions on the web 👇

NEW post: sparktoro.com/blog/the-5-big… I made 5 predictions for the marketing world in 2026 based on these 5 big trends we're seeing. Feel free to fight with me in the comments AFTER you've read the piece 😉

If you think AI tools are ethically shady, you have a moral duty to check out @ahrefs research from last week showing how to effectively spam your way into AI mentions with self-promotional "best of" lists 👇

Watching my buddy @iPullRank at the #FoundConf Tokyo, and I think some of y'all might enjoy his talk