Sunshine Coast search demand fell off a cliff in 2026

01 · The headline number

Sunshine Coast search demand fell 39% in a year

We pulled monthly Google search volume for 80-plus Sunshine Coast service keywords, "pest control sunshine coast", "web design agency sunshine coast", "plumber sunshine coast" and the like, across 21 industries, from January 2024 through August 2026, then compared like-for-like windows: January-August 2026 against January-August 2025.

Demand fell 39% year-on-year. It was already easing (−5%) from 2024 to 2025, then broke in May 2025 and has not recovered, leaving the January-August run of 2026 about 42% below the same months of 2024.

The timing is the story. Demand did not drift down: it broke in May 2025 and has stayed down, with 2026 averaging 21,223 searches a month across the tracked keywords against 34,990 over the same months of 2025. The break sits inside the period in which Google's AI Overviews scaled across Australia, and our companion study found AI Overviews now appear on roughly 38% of Sunshine Coast search results. We can't prove causation from volume data alone, but the matched-window comparison is robust, and the most plausible single driver is the one reshaping every results page in the country: AI answers are absorbing searches that used to be typed, repeated, and clicked.

02 · The demand curve

The rise, the peak, and the fall

Here is total monthly search volume across all 21 tracked industries, every month from January 2024 to August 2026. Demand climbed to a peak of about 51,210 searches in March 2025 (matching its April 2024 high), then broke in May 2025 and drifted lower through 2026 to around 19,430 by August. The one-month spike in September 2025 reverts the next month, the signature of a Keyword Planner reporting artefact, so read the trend rather than that point. The chart's single highest month, September 2025, is that spike, not the peak of the trend.

The fall is broad, not isolated. 20 of the 21 industries we tracked recorded lower demand in the January-August window of 2026 than in 2025. When almost every category turns down together, in the same window, it points to something happening at the level of the search engine rather than 21 separate local markets all cooling at once by chance.

03 · What Sunshine Coast searches for

The demand league table

Average monthly searches in the January-August window of each year, for 2024, 2025 and 2026, with the year-on-year change at each step. Read a row left to right: 12 of 21 categories rose into 2025, and 20 fell in 2026. Pest Control, Web Design and Plumbers lead by volume; the smallest categories swing wildly on tiny numbers, so read those with caution.

Average monthly searches in the January-August window of each year, Sunshine Coast-qualified keywords. Click an industry to open its month-by-month volume. Source: Google Keyword Planner via DataForSEO.

The decline is near-universal. 20 of the 21 categories fell in 2026. Be careful with the smallest rows, the marketing and niche categories swing violently because they sit on just a few hundred searches or fewer, where Google's volume buckets round hard. The biggest categories are the reliable signal, and they're pointing down.

04 · Since the last edition

April to August: what moved

The previous edition of this report ended at April 2026. Between then and August 2026, total monthly demand across the 21 industries went from 19,870 to 19,430 searches (−2%), and 13 of the 21 categories fell further. The steepest fall among the sizeable categories was Pest Control (−12%).

Search volumes for both months are from the September 2026 pull. The previous edition reported 19,910 for April 2026; this pull gives 19,870 (−40, under 1%), because Google Keyword Planner revises history. Cost-per-click is volume-weighted across the keywords Google priced in each industry, from the pull that built each edition; the June 2026 column is recomputed from that pull's keyword data under this edition's weighting, so a few figures differ from the June 2026 page, which counted a keyword with no reported rate as $0. Source: Google Keyword Planner via DataForSEO.

Clicks moved more than demand did. The biggest rises in cost were Pest Control ($15.59 to $29.25, +88%), Painters ($24.83 to $44.02, +77%) and Yoga ($2.19 to $3.82, +74%). The biggest falls were Buyers Agents ($20.57 to $15.69, −24%), Dentists ($17.62 to $13.45, −24%) and Accountants ($15.09 to $13.27, −12%). A category whose demand fell while its click price rose is one where fewer searches are being fought over by the same advertisers; where both fell, advertisers have pulled back with the demand.

05 · The cost to compete

What a Sunshine Coast click costs

Demand is only half the picture, the other half is what it costs to capture it. Here is the average cost-per-click (AUD) for each Sunshine Coast category with enough advertiser data to report.

Lawyers ($79) and Plumbers ($57) command the dearest clicks in Sunshine Coast. At the other end, Yoga and Pilates are the cheapest to advertise against. Note that SEO Agency, Paid Marketing and Google Ads returned no reliable cost-per-click, too few advertisers bid on those Sunshine Coast-specific terms for Google to report a rate.

06 · Sunshine Coast vs the nation

Where Sunshine Coast is dearer, and where it's a bargain

Is Sunshine Coast an expensive place to advertise? It depends on the category. We compared each industry's Sunshine Coast cost-per-click to the national average. 12 of the 17 categories with data cost more here; 5 cost less. Green means Sunshine Coast is cheaper than the national average, a relative bargain.

Sunshine Coast cost-per-click from the September 2026 pull against the series' national baseline (June 2026 pull). Source: Google Keyword Planner via DataForSEO.

Lawyers (+171%), Painters (+132%) and Mechanics (+74%) cost the most relative to the national rate, the classic smaller-market dynamic, where a handful of advertisers bid up a scarce pool of searches. By contrast Digital Marketing (−61%), Real Estate (−59%) and Buyers Agents (−40%) are genuine bargains, worth knowing before you set a bid cap off a national figure.

07 · What to do about it

Five takeaways for Sunshine Coast businesses

1. Never size a budget off one year. The same keywords fell 42% in two years. Plan against the multi-year trend, not a single snapshot, and re-pull your category's volumes at least twice a year.
2. Assume AI is eating the top of your funnel, and measure it. Demand fell across 20 of 21 categories in 2026, alongside AI Overviews now on roughly 38% of Sunshine Coast results. Shift the goal from "rank #1" to "be the source the AI cites", and track AI-answer visibility, not just classic rankings.
3. Defend the transactional, local queries. Every query in this study is a "[service] sunshine coast" search and even these fell 39%; they still convert, so concentrate effort on them and on "[service] [suburb]" rather than on the explainer content an AI answer absorbs.
4. Price paid search against Sunshine Coast, not the nation. Costs swing wildly by category here. Set bid caps and channel budgets off the Sunshine Coast figures in this report, not a generic national benchmark, or you'll mis-price both ends.
5. Own organic and AI-citation visibility, it compounds. With demand falling and the dearest clicks running up to $79, every lead earned through organic search, content and citations is worth multiples of a bought one.