AOL Data reveals how top 10 positions affect CTR
by DazzlinDonna
Breakpoint, an earnersforum member, calculated the AOL data from August and showed the difference in clickthrough rates for the top 10 search results. How important is the #1 spot? Pretty darn important. Here are the figures:
Total Searches:9,038,794
Total Clicks: 4,926,623
Click Rank1: 2,075,765
Click Rank2: 586,100 = 3.5x less
Click Rank3: 418,643 = 4.9x less
Click Rank4: 298,532 = 6.9x less
Click Rank5: 242,169 = 8.5x less
Click Rank6: 199,541 = 10.4x less
Click Rank7: 168,080 = 12.3x less
Click Rank8: 148,489 = 14.0x less
Click Rank9: 140,356 = 14.8x less
Click Rank10: 147,551 = 14.1x less
Interestingly, position 10 does slightly better than position 9, which is what I would have assumed, since it will be the last place for the eye to land if not satisfied with the previous results.
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I got the same numbers from my sample; 42% from all the clicks are on the #1 spot. nearly 90% of the clicks are on the first 10 results..
for more numbers see here:
http://www.seo-portal.com/aol-data-analysis-i-clicks-on-search-engine-results/2006/08/09/
Good to know. I like the graphs on your site. Helps to visualize it nicely.
Really powerful evidence of the importance of a number 1 ranking versus overall 1st page rankings. In that example #1 had more clicks than the next 6 rankings. Hmmmm. gotta look hard at where I can get #1’s and where I need ppc, and where I need to get the long tail.
Dave
I can confirm these numbers, I had a site ranked on position 1 and then on position 7, the traffic was ten times less.