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Rand Fishkin: Zero-click search began long before AI
Rand Fishkin didn’t get into SEO because he saw the future.
He got into it because he had no choice.
In the early 2000s, Fishkin helped run a small web business with his mom in Seattle. They hired another company to do SEO until they couldn’t afford to pay them anymore.
That moment pushed him into search marketing. More than 20 years later, Fishkin has become one of the best-known voices in SEO — and one of Google’s biggest critics.
In this interview, he looks back at how search has changed, what went wrong, and what may happen next.
Early SEO was wild
SEO today can feel messy. But in the early days, it was even more chaotic.
“There was no social media,” is how Fishkin described that era, where forums like WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch were the center of the industry.
People shared tactics openly. Many of those tactics were risky. Buying links was common — and effective.
Fishkin did it, too. Then Google’s Matt Cutts called him out in public.
That moment changed how he approached SEO. He spent years focusing on “white hat” practices and following Google’s guidelines.
Looking back, though, Fishkin now questions whether that shift went too far. He believes Google’s own behavior over time has made those guidelines harder to trust.
The early industry wasn’t just chaotic — it was also full of strange and memorable moments. Fishkin recalled massive conference parties with huge budgets and over-the-top ideas, including a staged “retirement” of the Ask Jeeves mascot.
But what stood out most to him wasn’t the tactics or the parties.
“My favorite thing… is people,” he said, pointing to the relationships and friendships built over decades in search.
When Google stopped sending traffic
Many people think AI is the big turning point in search.
Fishkin says the shift started much earlier — around 2011.
That’s when the idea of “zero-click search” first appeared. Google began answering more queries directly on the results page instead of sending users to websites.
At first, it was small features like weather boxes and calculators.
Then it grew:
- Around 2016–2017: nearly half of searches ended without a click
- By 2018: more than half
- Today: more than two-thirds
Fishkin emphasized that this trend didn’t start with AI — it has been building for more than a decade.
Publishers had a chance — and missed it
Fishkin believes publishers could have taken action early — but didn’t.
- “The time to fight back… was 15 or 20 years ago,” he said.
In his view, large media companies should have worked together to push back against Google’s growing control. They could have demanded payment for content or limited how Google used it.
Instead, they allowed Google to crawl and use their content freely.
At the same time, Google expanded its influence through lobbying and policy.
- “Publishers just missed that opportunity,” Fishkin said.
Now, he argues, the focus has to shift to adapting:
- Build subscription businesses
- Monetize attention, not just traffic
- Learn how to operate within platform ecosystems
Some companies have already made that shift. Fishkin pointed to The New York Times as an example of a business evolving beyond traditional news consumption.
Did Google change?
Fishkin does not believe Google has become worse for users.
- “If it was easier or better to search on Bing… people would go to those places,” he said.
But he does believe Google has become much harder for publishers and creators.
The change, he said, was gradual. As Google grew, went public, and aligned with investor expectations, its priorities shifted toward growth and revenue.
- “They became the people that they spent time with,” Fishkin said.
The biggest AI mistake people make
Fishkin says most people misunderstand how AI works.
They treat AI answers like search results — consistent and reliable.
But they aren’t.
If you ask the same question multiple times, the answers can vary widely.
- “You will get completely different answers. And if you do that 10 times, you will get 10 incredibly unique different answers,” he said.
His advice is simple: don’t rely on a single response. Ask multiple times and look for patterns. If the same answer shows up consistently, it’s more likely to be trustworthy.
This matters most for important decisions, like health or finance, where relying on one answer could be risky.
What he misses about the early days of SEO
Fishkin doesn’t miss a specific tactic or tool.
He misses the level of opportunity that existed in the early web.
Back then, smaller creators and independent sites had a better chance to succeed. Traffic was more evenly distributed.
- “The world of clicks and traffic… was so… flat compared to… today,” he said.
What’s next?
Fishkin believes the future of media and search may look more like the past.
He expects a smaller number of powerful platforms to control most of the flow of information.
At the same time, individual creators will still produce much of the content — but within those systems.
Still, he hopes the web can evolve again.
