×· Q4 2026
— days until Black Friday (Nov 27, 2026), the biggest gear-buying week of the year

What winning the top three for gear searches is worth to Outside

Outside ranks in Google for 1,549 gear-buying searches (1.10M a month), but reaches the top three for just 72 of them, and AI Overviews now show on 98%. Twenty-one Outside pages compete for running-shoe searches alone. This models what moving the page-one and page-two searches into the top three, plus visits from AI answers, is worth in affiliate, Outside+ and ad revenue. Every rate is a placeholder until Outside's numbers replace it.

Demand
23,400
Half of Outside's 742 gear searches at positions 4–20 (557K a month) reaching the top three, at ~9% click share on AI Overview pages (Similarweb Rank Distribution, US, Sep 2026).
0
Kept at 0 in the headline. Outside gets ~12K AI visits a month (0.39% of visits) vs 0.94% for OutdoorGearLab (Similarweb, Jul–Sep 2026).
Revenue per visit
20%
Placeholder until Outside shares its own (Impact, AvantLink, Rakuten, Skimlinks links on its guides).
$0.53
Placeholder: 5% of clicks buy × $175 order × 6% commission (REI 5%, Backcountry 8%).
0.10%
Placeholder. Piano: ~0.2% of anonymous visitors convert to paid; ~10% of registered users.
$150
$62.99 intro first year + one renewal at $89.99 (Outside+ list, Oct 2026).
$25
Placeholder session RPM; ~1.8 pages a visit (Similarweb).
$1.13
Visit-weighted CPC of the 4–20 gear searches (Similarweb). Used only for the ad-equivalent; never added to revenue.
New revenue a year
$78,905
affiliate + Outside+ memberships + ads, from new gear-search visits
$0.28
Value per visit
20% × $0.53 + 0.1% × $150 + $25 per 1,000
4,680
Retailer clicks a month
20% of 23,400 visits
281
Outside+ joins a year
0.1% of 280,800 visits
$26,442/mo
If bought as ads
23,400 visits × $1.13 CPC

≈ 23,400 more gear-search visits a month, on top of ~8,200 today.

Gear-search visits a month

Today
8,200
With the plan
31,600

Yellow is what the plan adds. Buying those 23,400 visits as Google Ads would cost $26,442 a month.

Where the new revenue comes from

$29,765
Affiliate
38% · retailer clicks × $0.53
$42,120
Outside+
53% · 281 joins × $150
$7,020
Ads
9% · $25 per 1,000 visits

A year of new visits at the rates set above.

If the least certain rates come in different

Click to a retailer$0.30a click, low$0.53placeholder$0.90a click, high

New revenue a year. Columns are earnings per retailer click; every other rate as set above. The yellow cell matches the current setting.

The paid view

Same visits as ads, a month$26,442
Same visits as ads, a year$317,304
Revenue per gear visit$0.28
Google Ads cost per click$1.13
Value ÷ cost (ads need 2×)0.2×

Buying the same 23,400 visits in Google Ads would cost ~$26,442 a month ($317,304 a year). A gear visit is worth ~$0.28 at these rates against a $1.13 click, so ads don't pay here: ranking does.

A click costs more than it earns at these rates; if Outside's real revenue per visit is higher, the case gets stronger: change the sliders.

What waiting costs

Each month without the plan leaves ~23,400 gear-search visits with the rivals that outrank Outside (~$6.6K of revenue at these rates; ~$26K at Google Ads prices). Black Friday (Nov 27) is the biggest gear-buying week of the year. Outside's AI referrals fell 16% from July to September while GearJunkie's rose 25% (Similarweb).

Assumptions & sources. Demand: the 1,549 gear-buying searches ("best", "review", "vs"; brand, credit-card, travel, food and health searches excluded) that outsideonline.com, including run. and velo., ranks for in Google's top 50, ~1.10M searches a month: 72 in the top three, 304 at positions 4–10, 438 at 11–20 and 735 at 21–50 (Similarweb Rank Distribution, US, Sep 2026). Visits are modeled from that rank data: search volume × click share at each position (#1 28%, #2 16%, #3 11%, #10 2%, page two 0.8%, positions 21–50 0.2%), halved where an AI Overview shows (98% of these searches), so the top three average ~9% (CTR curve with a 50% AI Overview haircut; Ahrefs, Feb 2026: −58% at position 1; Seer, Nov 2025: −61%). On that curve Outside gets ~8,200 gear-search visits a month today, worth ~$28K a year at the default rates. Similarweb Website Keywords, Marketing Channels and Engagement (US, Jul–Sep 2026; outsideonline.com incl. run. and velo.) give the AI referrals (~12K visits a month, 0.39% of visits; OutdoorGearLab 0.94%), the ~1.8 pages a visit and the CPC: the visit-weighted Google Ads CPC of the 4–20 gear searches that have one. Google search checks, US, Oct 12, 2026.
Rates. Every rate is a placeholder until Outside shares its own: retailer click-out, earnings per click (affiliate commission terms: REI 5%, Backcountry 8%), Outside+ join rate (Piano subscription benchmark, Digiday, 2022), member value (Outside+ pricing: $62.99 intro first year, $89.99 renewal; outsideonline.com/membership, Oct 12, 2026) and ad RPM.
Tiers. 1 = half of the 304 searches at 4–10 reach the top three; 2 (headline) = half of the 742 at 4–20; 3 = 75% of 4–20 and a quarter of 21–50, plus 5,000 AI visits (placeholder); 4 (ceiling) = all of 4–20 and half of 21–50, plus 10,000 AI visits. Not counted: Backpacker, Trail Runner, Ski, Climbing and Yoga Journal; news and feature traffic; ROAST fees.
Formula. Visits = new gear-search visits + AI visits. Revenue a year = visits × 12 × (click-out × earnings per click + join rate × member value + ad RPM ÷ 1,000). Retailer clicks a month = visits × click-out; Outside+ joins a year = visits × 12 × join rate. Ad-equivalent a month = new gear-search visits × CPC; it is what buying the same clicks would cost and is never added to revenue. Each month of waiting = revenue a year ÷ 12. The tiers change only the gear-search and AI visits; the rates stay as set.
Part of the ROAST × Outside search and AI visibility analysis, October 2026.