Concept · Answer surfaces
Zero-click search
Definition
A search that ends without the user visiting any result, because the answer was given on the results page.
What it means in practice
Answer engines make this the default rather than the exception. The consequence for measurement is that analytics tools which count sessions cannot see the interaction at all: the brand was read, compared, and possibly recommended, with no referral to record. Visibility inside the answer becomes the only observable signal.
How refd treats it
This is category vocabulary, not a refd metric. refd measures what AI answers actually said across repeated runs, and publishes the raw answer behind every number. Where a term above carries a claim about what causes visibility, refd treats that claim as a hypothesis to test rather than a setting to configure.
This definition is editorial. It describes how the term is used across the field rather than something the software computes, so unlike the metric pages it is not generated from the product.
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