What is the AVG CLR of #1 position in Google?

Going to vary greatly depending on how well the site is setup for the clients

40% if you dont have a good title

Much higher is you design your title to get attention

Hi Shap,

According to the largest dataset to ever have been made public, AOL Leaked data, The average CTR for the #1 position is about 22.96%, 6.48% for position#2 and around 4.63% for position#3.

Here's the breakdown of top 10 positions and their CTRs:

Results in:
Total Searches:9,038,794
Total Clicks: 4,926,623

Rank 1: 2,075,765 = 22.96% CTR
Rank 2: 586,100 = 6.48% CTR
Rank 3: 418,643 = 4.63% CTR
Rank 4: 298,532 = 3.30% CTR
Rank 5: 242,169 = 2.67% CTR
Rank 6: 199,541 = 2.20% CTR
Rank 7: 168,080 = 1.86% CTR
Rank 8: 148,489 = 1.64% CTR
Rank 9: 140,356 = 1.55% CTR
Rank 10: 147,551 = 1.63% CTR

From my own data, I can tell you that it varies a great deal from one keyword to another. Searches for branded terms can be much higher, and average CTRs for generic keywords are typically much lower.

For most keyword research you should use numbers that are more conservative than these, since you are usually targeting generic keywords. When you remove the relatively higher CTR data from branded searches, your CTRs for generic keywords a quite a bit lower.

When I first got into IM I read where Position #1 has a CTR average of 36%. To be honest I have not seen a #1 CTR of less then 50% though in my first hand experience. I do agree with Becker though it does come down to title and how well your title answers that initial glace after the SERP displays.

I agree that 40% for the #1 SERP position is a close average, at least from what I've seen on my own sites data.

Keep in mind any paid Ads above the #1 organic SERP position will probably drop that CTR average lower.

It all depends in how catchy your title tag and meta description is, as well as how targeted your page is for the query.

It depends on your keyword i guess, the more commercial the keyword is with lot of adwords ads, the lower your CTR will be.

Many variables like niche, title, description e.t.c will play a great role in your click through rate
and no surefire way to give any real report.

However, if you want to receive a significant amount of visitors from your keywords you
have got to be on position 1 to 3.

A year or two ago I read a reputable source that claimed slot #10 was better than any of the slots 7-8-9. People it seems are too lazy to click next page, so they are more likely to click on item #10 if nothing else in the top 10 strikes them as being any better.

Of course, trying for slot 10 would be very dicey.

As IM'ers, and those here in the adsense forum here, we now how to look for paid ads in the search. Google now have the shaded box around their ads that it is almost impossible to see, when straight on on a LCD monitor. Effectively this makes the SEPS a paid search engine for the op spots, as they are tricking the normal public.

It relies on your keyword and key phrase i think, the more professional the keyword and key phrase is with lot of for each ads, the reduced your CTR will be.

dBurk's figures are pretty close to my research into this a few years back. I assume he's talking about the AOL data from 2006 although the number of searches he mentions are three times what I've got so maybe not the same data.

The number thrown around at that time was 42% but that was on the raw, un-clean data. What I did was analyze and removed the noise and got 25% for the top position of those clicking any link at all. More than half the searches resulted in NO links clicked, mostly one-word searches so not surprising.

Note that those are AVERAGES so take them for what they are worth. Your own mileage will vary. Also, this was on AOL, not Google or any other search engine. Back in 2006. Things have changed a lot since then. People may have got smarter on how they search (I somehow doubt it however), and search engines themselves have changed in how the SERPs are displayed which will affect the percentages. And of course, numbers will be different on different search engines. So I would not really worry about any published average by anybody. Work on getting yourself higher in the rankings and getting people to click your link. Don't dismiss other ways to get people to your site as well.