MikeNoLastName - 8:18 pm on Mar 2, 2005 (gmt 0)

It doesn't really say ANYTHING concrete, or draw any conclusions about CLICKING which is what most of us are concerned about (it might say a lot about branding though if they did a memory retention study in correlation). Just because someone who uses Google all the time is TRAINED by habit to look at the same spot first, time after time, because traditionally that is the proper place to start, doesn't mean they are going to CLICK on the FIRST THING THEY SEE! As someone else pointed out, if the first two results are not what they want the 3rd will have the highest CLICKTHRU. I wouldn't run and start moving all the menus to the top left though. A different screen format, say a site which consistently places the navigation bars on the right (or an important menu, like the second toy website for instance) would likely show a totally different pattern by the third page visited by the same viewer.

The total lack of attention to the right-side paid ads is pretty interesting, though not surprising. Obviously #1 organic ranking is 6 x more advantageous than #1 paid ranking! So get off your lazy butts paying for Clicks and work on getting in the SERPS again :-).

[edited by: MikeNoLastName at 8:25 pm (utc) on Mar. 2, 2005]