Whereas ChatGPT has almost a fifth of Google’s question quantity, folks use the platforms in numerous methods.
I needed to see how ChatGPT in comparison with Google, not simply on the full variety of searches, but in addition searches the place they compete with Google, how a lot site visitors they ship to web sites, and the CTR variations within the methods.
Let’s dig in.
- 65% of ChatGPT utilization qualifies as search, however this may be decrease relying on the way you outline search.
- For each search-like question in ChatGPT, there are 8.33 searches in Google.
- Google sends 190x extra site visitors to web sites than ChatGPT.
- ChatGPT’s CTR is 96% decrease than Google’s CTR.
The info exhibits two completely different enterprise fashions: Google connects folks to web sites, ChatGPT retains them in dialog. If AI search is the way forward for search, web site site visitors is in bother.
| Platform | Each day Searches/Prompts | Annual Complete |
|---|---|---|
| 13.7 billion | 5+ trillion | |
| ChatGPT | 2.5 billion | ~912 billion |
Google processes over 5 trillion searches yearly (supply: Google Inner Knowledge, January 2025).
ChatGPT handles 18 billion messages weekly as of July 2025, which equals roughly 2.5 billion prompts per day.
Not each ChatGPT immediate is a search question. In accordance with analysis from OpenAI and Harvard, which analyzed 1.5 million conversations, 24% is pure search and 51.6% is asking intent. Asking intent consists of interactions the place customers search recommendation, perspective, or data to enhance judgment, reasonably than delegating process completion.
I’ve seen some research that used these numbers for comparability, however I don’t agree with them. Google does extra than simply search. There are instruments for calculations, translation, and extra that are included in different classes within the examine. Even issues like coding assist are categorized in another way, however devs have been looking points on Google (and Stack Overflow) for a lot of years.
For instance, we see lots of of tens of millions of searches each month for folks trying to translate issues on Google.
their examples, I’d classify 65% of the searches on ChatGPT as issues that have been historically searched on Google. That is greater than what the researchers categorized, however I’ve extra entry to information on what folks search than they did.
| Class | % of ChatGPT Utilization | ChatGPT Each day Quantity | % of Google’s Quantity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pure Search (information, merchandise, recipes) | 24.0% | 600 million | 4.38% |
| Asking Intent (search + recommendation) | 51.6% | 1.29 billion | 9.42% |
| My Search Classification (issues folks historically searched on Google) | 65.0% | 1.625 billion | 11.86% |
ChatGPT will get ~12% of the search quantity of Google for issues folks have historically looked for on Google. For some comparability, it’s estimated that Bing will get 1.2 billion searches a day. ChatGPT has surpassed Bing in search!
When you haven’t seen it but, Ahrefs constructed https://chatgpt-vs-google.com/ with information from Ahrefs Internet Analytics throughout 76,000 web sites.
If we take a look at the site visitors coming to web sites, Google sends 190x extra site visitors to web sites than ChatGPT. Google makes up almost 40% of site visitors to web sites and ChatGPT simply 0.21%.
That is the place the platforms diverge utterly.
I ran the numbers for the completely different classifications, however once more I imagine that my search classification is extra correct than these from the paper. I got here up with ChatGPT having a 96% decrease CTR than Google.
Calculation methodology: Estimated CTR = (Site visitors Share % / Each day Queries in billions) × 10
| Platform/Class | Each day Queries | Site visitors Share | Estimated CTR | CTR vs Google |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13.7 billion | 39.98% | 29.2% | Baseline | |
| ChatGPT (Pure Search) | 600 million | 0.21% | 3.5% | 88% decrease |
| ChatGPT (Asking Intent) | 1.29 billion | 0.21% | 1.6% | 94% decrease |
| ChatGPT (My Search Classification) | 1.625 billion | 0.21% | 1.3% | 96% decrease |
| ChatGPT (All Utilization) | 2.5 billion | 0.21% | 0.84% | 97% decrease |
Last ideas
Google stays the dominant search engine with 5.5x extra every day exercise. ChatGPT made headway into search in a brief period of time. They’ve handed longtime search rivals like Bing.
Nevertheless, I’m undecided if web site house owners will settle for the drop in site visitors or if they may finally push again on AI search.
