Google Core Update Fallout, Zero Clicks Hit 27.6%, and Apple's Siri AI Lands

It was a rough week for a lot of site owners. According to Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Post-Core Update Volatility, Zero Clicks Rising, Apple's Siri AI & Google SEO Docs, post-core update volatility hit hard over the weekend of June 6th and kept churning through the full week of June 8th to 12th. On top of that, a new zero-click study showed Google is now sending only 27.6% of searches to the open web. And Apple dropped a revamped Siri AI with new Apple Intelligence features. A lot happened. Let's unpack it.

The Details: What Happened This Week

The Google core update volatility that started around June 6th didn't settle quickly. Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable reported it hit some folks hard, with ranking turbulence running straight through the week. If your traffic graph looked like a seismograph the last few days, you're not imagining things.

The zero-click number is the stat that deserves the most attention. An updated study cited in the recap puts zero-click searches to the open web at just 27.6%. That means fewer than three in ten Google searches result in someone actually clicking to an external site. That's not a rounding error. That's a structural shift in how traffic flows from Google.

On the AI front, Apple announced new Apple Intelligence features and a revamped Siri AI. Apple also updated its Applebot documentation to reflect AI crawling behavior, including a crawl delay section and AI-specific guidance. Separately, Bing gave users a way to disable AI Copilot answers entirely in search results — a move that signals user demand for more control over AI-generated content in SERPs.

Google had a busy week beyond rankings. The company published a new help document focused on trusting advice from third-party SEO tools and services, and updated its long-running "hiring an SEO" document with added warnings around SEO tools and AI optimization. Google also launched Search Profile Insights and Analytics, and Google Search Console may be testing a new feature called platform property tooltips. Google Shopping was spotted testing direct links to merchant sites — bypassing the standard product listing page. And soon, Google Business Profiles will connect with Gemini.

On the ads side, Google Ads tested top page links and images within sitelinks, blue dotted underlined sitelinks on sponsored listings, and dotted underlines with shaded URLs in organic snippets. A new campaign guidance feature called Experiment Power Score was also spotted. Google Local Services Ads added support for home listings. And Dynamic Search Ads were extended to the AI Max timeline. A lot of small tests that, taken together, point toward a SERP that looks quite different from the one most of us learned to optimize for.

Why It Matters for Your SEO Strategy

The 27.6% open-web click-through figure is the number your leadership team needs to see. For years, the framing around zero clicks was "Google is stealing traffic." That framing undersells the scale of what's actually happening. If you're still measuring SEO success purely by organic sessions, that metric is going to keep looking worse even when your rankings hold. The traffic pool shrinking isn't a penalty. It's the new environment.

I've watched site owners panic after core updates without pausing to separate signal from noise. The volatility that followed this update hit the weekend especially hard, which tends to mean Google was still processing signals and hadn't fully settled. If your rankings shifted dramatically over June 6th to 8th, wait for stabilization before making sweeping content changes. Reactive edits during active volatility almost always make the diagnosis harder.

Google's new document on third-party SEO tools is worth a careful read. The fact that Google felt the need to publish guidance here suggests they're seeing confusion — or misuse — around what these tools actually measure versus what Google's own systems weigh. Pair that with the update to the hiring an SEO doc, and you've got Google actively trying to shape expectations around AI optimization claims. That's a flag for anyone selling or buying "AI SEO" services right now.

Apple updating its Applebot docs to include AI crawling behavior is genuinely significant for anyone thinking about visibility beyond Google. As Siri AI becomes more capable of pulling answers from the web, how Apple crawls and weighs your content starts mattering more. Crawl delay settings, structured data, and clear content signals aren't just Google problems anymore. The same fundamentals travel.

The Google Shopping test linking directly to merchant sites is one to monitor. If Google shortcuts users to a product page without the standard Shopping journey, that changes attribution, conversion tracking, and how merchants think about their Shopping presence. Early test, but directionally important.

What to Do Now

1. Audit your core update exposure before making edits. Pull your rankings and traffic data for June 6th through 12th in Google Search Console. Identify which pages dropped and look for topical patterns before touching content. Volatility during an active update can mask real signal.
2. Add branded search and direct traffic to your reporting dashboard. If zero-click rates keep rising, organic sessions alone will tell an incomplete story. Tracking brand search volume in Google Search Console gives you a cleaner read on whether Google is building or eroding awareness for your site.
3. Read Google's new third-party SEO tools document. If your agency or vendor is making claims about what their tool can do for your rankings, stack those claims against what Google actually says it weighs. The gap is often wide.
4. Update your Applebot crawl strategy. If you're using crawl delay settings or robots.txt rules that might be blocking Applebot, now is a good time to revisit. Apple's updated documentation signals they're crawling for AI features, not just the legacy Safari search index.
5. Watch the Google Shopping direct-link test. If you run an ecommerce site, set up monitoring for your Shopping traffic sources. A shift to direct merchant links would change how you attribute conversions and could affect your Shopping campaign strategy.

Background and Context

Zero-click growth is not new, but the 27.6% figure is a new low for open-web referral share. Google's expansion of AI Overviews, featured snippets, and answer boxes has steadily pulled answers onto the SERP itself. This week's update and Apple's AI moves are happening inside a broader environment where every major search surface is investing heavily in keeping users on-platform.

Core updates in 2025 and into 2026 have continued the pattern established after the Helpful Content System rollout — sites with thin topical authority, inconsistent E-E-A-T signals, or over-reliance on AI-generated content at scale have generally fared worse. The post-update volatility pattern, where rankings churn hard over a weekend and then gradually settle, is consistent with what the search community has documented through prior core updates.

Apple entering the AI-powered search conversation more aggressively via Siri is part of a broader competitive shift that Google is watching closely. Bing's decision to let users turn off AI answers is a different kind of signal — it suggests some users are pushing back on AI-first SERPs. How that user feedback shapes platform decisions over the next 12 months is one of the more interesting open questions in search right now.

If you're tracking AI visibility alongside traditional rank tracking, AI visibility tracking is becoming a real part of the monitoring stack — not a nice-to-have. Tools like the ones Aergos offers for tracking AI search citations can help you understand whether your brand is showing up where the answers are actually being served.