9 percent of queries silently change intent within a year

9 percent of queries silently change intent within a year
Intent is not fixed. We re-classified 1,000 SERPs 12 months apart and flagged page-type shifts.

— Queries that changed dominant intent: 9 percent
— Informational to commercial: 5 percent
— Commercial to informational: 2 percent
— Added a video/local pack: 4 percent

Product launches and news events flip what Google thinks a searcher wants, and your old page stops matching. So what: re-check intent on your money pages annually. A ranking drop with no link loss is often intent drift, and the fix is reformatting the page, not building more authority.

Benchmark of the week: nearly 1 in 10 queries quietly switches intent each year.