<b>A query's intent distribution drifts over its lifetime</b>

<b>A query's intent distribution drifts over its lifetime</b>
Intent isn't fixed; Google re-reads it as the market matures. We snapshotted SERP page-type mixes for 400 emerging terms over 18 months.
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Month 0, informational share ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ 74%
Month 9 ▇▇▇▇▇ 52%
Month 18 ▇▇▇ 34%
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New topics start informational because no one is buying yet; as products appear, the SERP shifts commercial. A page built for early-stage intent slowly mismatches the SERP it once fit, and quietly loses position to transactional pages.
<b>So what:</b> re-audit SERP intent on your evergreen winners twice a year. If the page-type mix has shifted, your template is aging out, not your content.
Benchmark of the week: emerging-topic SERPs shed roughly 40 points of informational share over their first 18 months.