The Week in Search is a weekly column produced by the Studio team to keep marketing professionals and ecommerce merchants up to date on changes in the search industry, and provide valuable context on what it all means. If you have questions or think we missed something, email us directly.

First Organic Position Now Receives 28% of Clicks in Google

Google CTR for pure organic SERPs

A recent study by Sistrix has discovered that the first organic position in Google now receives slightly more than 28% of clicks in search.

Here is the breakdown of CTR for the first 10 positions, according to the study:

  • Position 1 – 28.5%
  • Position 2 – 15.7%
  • Position 3 – 11%
  • Position 4 – 8%
  • Position 5 – 7.2%
  • Position 6 – 5.1%
  • Position 7 – 4%
  • Position 8 – 3.2%
  • Position 9 – 2.8%
  • Position 10 – 2.5%

The study also found that CTR for position 1 has a wide range, from 13.7% to 46.9%, and the most important factor that determines your click through rate is the SERP layout.

It is interesting to note that the CTR average is dropping. According to studies from other reputable sources that looked at first position’s CTR:

  • From Backlino – 1st organic positions got 31.7% (source)

Studio Takeaway: Google has been slowly but surely eating away at the allure of the position 1 ranking. They’ve doubled down on rich results, sometimes allowing users to get the information they want without clicking anything at all. They’ve added countless knowledge graph features like People Also Ask, Shopping Carousels, Relevant Images, Relevant Videos, and carved out more space for ads to appear.

There have been instances where the first organic result is actually sitting 8 or 9 slots down the page below ads and other Google search features. Its getting to the point where your typically shopper can no longer tell what is or isn’t an organic listing.

Google Tells You Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Crawl Budget

In another installment of Google’s new SEO Mythbusting video series, hosts Martin Splitt, Google Developer Advocate, and Alexis Sanders, Merkle Senior Account Manager, dug in deep on crawl budget.

They discussed what it actually is, what it means, who should be concerned about it, and more. We recommend watching the video in its entirety, but here are some of the takeaways:

  • Crawl budget is a term that refers to how much information Googlebot can get from your site quickly without putting stress on your servers
  • Crawl rate and crawl demand are determined by how often content is being updated and topics that the site is about
  • Only very large sites (millions of pages) should be concerned about crawl budget
  • The best way to set up your site for efficient crawling is to maintain and up to date sitemap
  • Ecommerce and publisher sites are 2 industries that are often impacted by crawl budget

Google’s John Mueller Rant on the “Science” of SEO

Google Webmaster Podcast - Search Off The Record

In the most recent episode of Google’s Search Off the Record podcast, John Mueller goes on a rant about the “science” behind search rankings and how SEOs try to understand ranking factors. Here’s the gist of what he is saying:

“I think that’s really important to keep in mind in the sense that there is no absolute truth out there with regards to which page should be ranking for which query…”

“So it’s not that every site has to do the same thing, but rather there are multiple ways to get there and you don’t have to blindly follow just one ranking factor to get to the end result.”

You can listen to the podcast here.

Other Interesting Links

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