Interesting read...
http://searchengineland.com/organic-click-thru-rates-tumbling-study-97338
I have to say I agree with the findings. Maybe there was a 40% click-thru rate for the top organic spot in 2006 but any discussions I've had with webmasters over the past couple of years suggests 15-20% is a more realistic figure.
Found this from one of the comments in the original article. Quite interesting also...
http://www.coconutheadphones.com/estimating-organic-search-opportunity-part-2-of-2/
That's depressing. I guess the only consolation is that the total search volume should still be increasing even though the % of organic search traffic is diminishing.
Is that true? Or is it a case of people getting more savvy erasing cookies/ tracking etc? I find it difficult to believe.
Quote from: littleman on October 23, 2011, 12:22:09 AM
That's depressing. I guess the only consolation is that the total search volume should still be increasing even though the % of organic search traffic is diminishing.
this may be the case still, and google often suggest it is, though I'm convinced organic CTR has been murdered over the past couple of years.
Not to mention the number of end sales being affected by the global economic situation.
Query volume may be up, whilst organic CTR down and total sales maybe flat?
Google is taking over more and more profitable serps with their own properties (adwords/local results/maps/lead gen etc.) and pushing organic down unbelievably far on some queries. I don't doubt those reports.
However, since these are averages, I think it is so query and serp dependent as to not be all that useful. That old AOL report was such a rough guideline and got boosted as gospel across all serps/queries which was bogus. Think of all the factors that go into what a person clicks on in a serp.
I agree JamesR - averaging CTR when the universal search changes serps from query to query and brand vs generic queries becomes meaningless as the numbers are overly smoothed.
I only ever use them for budgeting and trying to get more money to spend...a heavily caveated explanatory tool.