The Ultimate Guide To SERP Click Through Rates

Posted by Pete - 06/08/08 at 09:08:28 am

Whilst browsing everyone’s favourite SEO site, I noticed a post in YOUmoz that I couldn’t quite work out. The figures that you can see there seemed wrong to me. Now, I happen to have fairly definitive numbers. The data you see below is derived from the results of 36,389,567 searches and 19,434,540 clicks on a variety of SERPs, from millions of users, covering a huge array of topics. The data is also from AOL, so whilst the interface isn’t Google’s, the listings displayed are.

N.B. This data is for organic listings only. There are no PPC clicks accounted for in data.

Rank Clicks Click % Delta #n-1 Delta #1
1 8220278 42.30% n/a n/a
2 2316738 11.92% -71.82% -71.82%
3 1640751 8.44% -29.18% -80.04%
4 1171642 6.03% -28.59% -85.75%
5 943667 4.86% -19.46% -88.52%
6 774718 3.99% -17.90% -90.58%
7 655914 3.37% -15.34% -92.02%
8 579206 2.98% -11.69% -92.95%
9 549196 2.83% -5.18% -93.32%
10 577325 2.97% 5.12% -92.98%
11 127688 0.66% -77.88% -98.45%
12 108555 0.56% -14.98% -98.68%
13 101802 0.52% -6.22% -98.76%
14 94221 0.48% -7.45% -98.85%
15 91020 0.47% -3.40% -98.89%
16 75006 0.39% -17.59% -99.09%
17 70054 0.36% -6.60% -99.15%
18 65832 0.34% -6.03% -99.20%
19 62141 0.32% -5.61% -99.24%
20 58384 0.30% -6.05% -99.29%
21 55471 0.29% -4.99% -99.33%
31 23041 0.12% -58.46% -99.72%
41 14024 0.07% -39.13% -99.83%

As you can see, the number one position recieves just over 42% of all clicks. Where this gets really interesting though is when you look at what can happen if you own most of the real estate on a good SERP. The top four results put together account for over two thirds of all clicks that will happen (68.69% in total). The top ten taken as a whole will give nearly nine tenths! (Actual total figure - 89.69%).

Drop onto page two, and you’re basically stuffed. Unless the term gets huge traffic, you’re not going to. We can see all the page two listings getting under 1%, and most getting less than 0.5% of the total number.

The other gem of information is noticing that of all the searches performed, 46.6% of people didn’t click on anything at all! So don’t think that just because people search for something they’re clicking on the results. Some searches will have virtually no clickthroughs onto listings.

As will all things though, it’s not quite that simple. Depending on PPC listings showing, and what the SERP is will obviously affect where and how people click, so your own mileage will vary. However, this should still act as a fairly useful guide in terms of what you can expect.

24 Comments »

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  1. Interesting and timely for me. Just went through a bunch of rankings last night and notated seven or so on a site where we ranked #8-10 and with a little effort, can move up… will be interesting to see if this is even loosely accurate as a prediction of traffic increase to predict future ROI. Thanks for sharing the data.

    Comment by Sugarrae — August 6, 2008 #

  2. Interesting indeed, however the numbers from what I’ve seen can fluctuate dramatically depending on several factors. Price of goods/service being one of the big ones.

    Certainly a good average across industries and terms here, but industry specific numbers could be much different and it’s something to keep in mind.

    Comment by TheMadHat — August 6, 2008 #

  3. [...] informatiei - http://searchlightdigital.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-serp-click-through-rates [...]

    Pingback by Ce pozitie trebuie sa am intr-o pagina de cautare? | SEO PENTRU TOTI — August 7, 2008 #

  4. Message to market can make a big difference in response rate. For a given search term, the PPC ad was getting better results than the organic results. I used PPC to test various messages. Then modified the web page. Organic response (clicks) trippled and was outpulling the PPC ad.

    John

    DirectMarketResults.com

    Comment by jrdeck — August 7, 2008 #

  5. [...] http://searchlightdigital.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-serp-click-through-rates   [...]

    Pingback by » The Ultimate Guide To: SERP Click Through Rates :: Searchlight Digital :: Full Service Online Marketing ? ??, ??????? — August 7, 2008 #

  6. I find this to be out of whack for a couple reasons. First it assumes that a searcher will only click on one result, and that result will always totally satisfy. Not reality. Second it does not address that a great title will get attention if it answers the searchers need exactly.
    True the top position may get a huge share of the first clicks, but unless the website answers the searchers expectation quickly they will back out and continue clicking on other results.

    Comment by Sly-grrr — August 8, 2008 #

  7. [...] ruim tweederde van alle kliks. De eerste 10 zoekresultaten krijgen zelfs 90% van alle kliks! searchlightdigital.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-serp-click-through-rates Deel het met anderen: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and [...]

    Pingback by De interessantste SEO artikelen van deze week | echthelder.nl — August 8, 2008 #

  8. [...] Searchlight Digital have got a great have got a hold of the data of over 36 million searches, across a whole range of [...]

    Pingback by How many clicks will you get for ranking #1 in SERPs? | SEO | Believe Design - anything is possible... — August 8, 2008 #

  9. Actually, that’s not entirely true. You can download the datafile at this site. Check it out and you’ll see what I mean.

    And you’d be surprised how little title formatting/wording affects things. Test it and see!

    Comment by Pete — August 8, 2008 #

  10. [...] at the Searchlight Digital Blog, an interesting post has surfaced that talks about the percentage of click-throughs based on a [...]

    Pingback by A Thorough Understanding of Google SERP Clickthrough Rates-! » PageTraffic SEO Blog — August 8, 2008 #

  11. The data above is a distribution of results across their data set. The clicks that a specific result gets will depend on what gets displayed by the search engine. As Pete notes above, small change can effect the results. The challenge is finding the meaningful changes. The secondary challenge is the time needed for testing when you are looking at 100’s or 1000’s of keyword and ranking results.

    John

    DirectMarketResults.com

    Comment by jrdeck — August 8, 2008 #

  12. The engagement of the users depends greatly on three factors.

    1.) The nature of the search request

    2.) The weighting of the brands in the page

    3.) The specific properties of the listing relative to the other results.

    If all of these factors fall into place the CTR’s will of course be as demonstrated.

    One interesting aspect to consider:-

    If the top site gets a CTR of 42.30%, how many are bouncing back to the SERPS, affecting the quality of the 2nd and 3rd listings traffic?

    If the marketer is savvy enough to leverage SERPS data (long tail and head) against the creative (Meta Description), of the listed pages, the level of engagement will always be superior and wastage will be significantly reduced leading to quality with quantity.

    Max

    Comment by Remortgage Man — August 8, 2008 #

  13. Thanks for the data and analysis. I’d like to see the same data from Google. I think their UI and (more importantly) user base could significantly alter the results.

    Comment by erikcunningham — August 8, 2008 #

  14. [...] and Searchlight Digital have looked into the click-through rate of organic search results recently, giving more insight [...]

    Pingback by What is the click-through rate (CTR) on search engine result pages (SERP?s)? › Blue Fountain Media Blog — August 8, 2008 #

  15. [...] Google prezentuje :: Serwis Searchlight Digital opublikowa? interesuj?ce wyniki bada? dotycz?ce rozk?adu klikni?? w organicznych wynikach [...]

    Pingback by Bluerank: 63% klikni?? dla Top3 wynik?w wyszukiwania - Bez komentarza… — August 11, 2008 #

  16. [...] 7th August - What 36,389,567 Searches Can Tell You About Google (TCSM) Post of the week award (well, not really an award) goes to Pete, who explains how he estimates the clickthrough rate of each position in a search results page. The data comes from our old friend, the leaked AOL data, that everyone got excited about many years ago during SES San Jose. Direct Link: TCSM [...]

    Pingback by Sphinn Weekly - Week 5 | The Sphinn Blog — August 12, 2008 #

  17. [...] learning what percentage of users click on each of the top 40 search results for a given keyword? Read this blog post then. Fascinating data, what do you [...]

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  18. [...] results in major search engine results pages. Pete at Searchlight Digital provided the following SERP Click Through Rates [...]

    Pingback by Importance of Search Engine Results Position - Sonicko Consulting — August 15, 2008 #

  19. [...] Kiedy mo?emy m?wi? o skutecznym pozycjonowaniu strony ? Wtedy gdy wypozycjonowane frazy daj? wysoki wsp??czynnik konwersji, czyli gdy np.generuj? nam wysok? sprzeda? jakiego? produktu. Je?li jednak skupimy si? tylko na wygenerowaniu du?ego ruchu na naszej witrynie w?wczas pod uwag? musimy bra? tak?e klikalno?? w wynikach wyszukiwania. Najcz?stsze zapytania o pozycjonowanie strony www dotycz? tego jaki jest koszt wypozycjonowania strony do top10. Jednak wed?ug bada? przeprowadzonych przez serwis Searchlight Digital a? 63% klikni?? w organicznych wynikach wyszukiwania dotyczy top3, a 42% pierwszej pozycji. Zatem je?eli zale?y nam na bardzo du?ym ruchu w?wczas powinni?my zastanowi? si? nad pozycjonowaniem do top3.R??nica w klikni?ciach mi?dzy top3 a top10 jest cz?sto bardzo du?a.Zale?y to te? od konkurencyjno?ci danego s?owa kluczowego. Ciekawostk? jest to i? b?d?c na pozycji 9 osi?gniemy wi?ksz? liczb? wej?? ni? na miejscu 10. Niew?tpliwie jednak je?li naszej witryny nie ma w top10 nie mamy szans na osi?gni?cie du?ego trafficu. Wyniki bada? dost?pne s? pod tym adresem:TOP3 [...]

    Pingback by Pozycjonowanie stron &#8226 Sil.Net.Pl &#8226 Skuteczna reklama - profesjonalne i skuteczne pozycjonowanie - zajmij fotel lidera » Pozycjonowanie do TOP3 — August 18, 2008 #

  20. [...] The Ultimate Guide To SERP Click Through Rates - The ultimate guide to where people click. This data is the result of 36,389,567 searches and 19,434,540 clicks. The results make for interesting reading… [...]

    Pingback by Higher Education Internet Marketers Links of the Week August 22th, 2008 | .eduGuru — August 22, 2008 #

  21. [...] The other is a great analysis of the 3 gigs or so of data that AOL released into the wild (briefly) a while back, showing the clickthrough rate per rank Serp clickthrough rates. [...]

    Pingback by 33 Website Success Metrics Instead of Rankings, versus SERP clickthrough analysis iknowthe.net - Internet and Ecommerce Consultant — August 26, 2008 #

  22. [...] Searchlight Digital opublikowa? interesuj?ce wyniki bada? dotycz?ce rozk?adu klikni?? w organicznych wynikach [...]

    Pingback by Blogi Seo » Blog Archive » 63% klikni?? dla Top3 wynik?w wyszukiwania — September 2, 2008 #

  23. [...] Searchlight Digital opublikowa? interesuj?ce wyniki bada? dotycz?ce rozk?adu klikni?? w organicznych wynikach [...]

    Pingback by Blogi Seo » Blog Archive » 63% klikni?? dla Top3 wynik?w wyszukiwania — September 2, 2008 #

  24. [...] Searchlight Digital opublikowa? interesuj?ce wyniki bada? dotycz?ce rozk?adu klikni?? w organicznych wynikach [...]

    Pingback by 63% klikni?? dla Top3 wynik?w wyszukiwania | Netsharing.eu — October 3, 2008 #

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