What are dead clicks?

A dead click is a click on something that looks clickable but does nothing: no navigation, no change on the page, no response.

Why they happen

Images that look like links. A product photo on a card where only the title is a link. The most common dead click on shops.
Styled text. Underlined or coloured words that aren't links, or headings that look like tabs.
Broken handlers. A button whose JavaScript failed to load, or that throws before doing anything.
Disabled controls that don't look disabled.

Why they matter

Each dead click is a visitor who wanted to go somewhere and couldn't. Some click again, some find another way, many leave. Unlike an error, a dead click often leaves no trace in your logs: the page works exactly as built, it just isn't built the way people expect.

How to measure them without recording anyone

Replay tools find dead clicks by watching sessions. Trace's collector notices them in the browser: a click after which nothing on the page changes within a second. It sends only the element's selector, its button or link label with digits masked, and the page path. On the server they become a rate: the share of visits with a dead click on that element.

{ "measure": "session_rate", "match": { "dead_click": ".product-card img" }, "breakdown": "path" }

How to fix them

Make the thing people click do what they expect. On a product card, make the whole card one link.
Or make it stop looking clickable: no pointer cursor, no hover effect.
Then check the rate after the release. If it doesn't fall, the fix didn't land.

In our demo shop, 436 visits in a week clicked a product photo that isn't a link. Try it yourself, then open its live dashboard.