New Study on Clicks by Google Rank 2011

Optify released a new click study attempting to quantify exactly how many people click on Google search results based on what rank the result is, for the first and second page of Google search results. We’ve discussed this kind of data before, including the old AoL Leaked Click Data and the Cornell Research on clicks by Google rank. But this is the first time we’re seeing one in 2011.

Interestingly, Optify’s research shows the lowest percentage of traffic for the number one position of any studies I’ve seen to date, with the number 1 position in Google garnering 36.4% of the clicks. Compare this to 42.3% from AoL’s data, and 56.36% for the first Google position in Cornell’s study.

Here’s what Optify’s research shows:

Google click through rate by search position

Optify’s research was looking at US search results in Dec of 2010. They analyzed data from 250 randomly chosen sites with a set of 10,000 keywords, and a total of 1,224,383 click-throughs. Here are the big data points from the Optify study:

  • First Google position: 36.4%
  • Second Google position: 12.5%
  • Third Google position: 9.5%
  • 10th Google position: 2.2%
  • Top three positions in Google earned 58.4% of all clicks.
  • The top 10 positions in Google earned 81.1% of all clicks.
  • The second page of Google earned 14.4% of all clicks.

Interestingly, their research showed a bump for being position 11 (top of the 2nd page) but after that all of the positions on the second page were statistically identical. In other words, being position 13 isn’t really better for clicks than being position 17 — suggesting that by the time users reach the second page they’re looking at all results before making a click decision.