better to be #3 in SER than #1?

[AffiliateDreamer]

could it possibly be more profitable to come up #2 or #3 in the search engine results compared to #1?

Why? In some cases the top 3 results are all promoting the exact same affiliate program, so its better to be last in the results so your cookie is the last one to visit the affiliates page...

is this true?

[Procyon]

I'm no authority on the matter, but I'd think you could drive yourself crazy if you analyse things down to that sort of level. :)

[gopi]

its still better to be in #1 , #2 and #3 with different sites :)

[ThomasB]

From what I know it depends on the product.

Over here in Germany we have the so called "Buchpreisbindung" which means, that books have to have the same price in every shop. This has the effect that many people buy the book on the first or 2nd site because they see that there's no price difference and remember that unusual market regulation.

For products where the competition is mainly made via the price the position is less important as people tend to compare prices of the first 3-x results first and decide to buy then.

As I said this info is not 100% proven but for me it seems quite logical. But as already pointed out being #1 - #10 is the best way to sell some stuff. ;)

[JeremyL]

I'll trade you my #3 for your #1 anyday :)

[esllou]

not related to sales sites but in normal google serps, I click number one site about 20% of the time and the other 80% is pretty evenly distributed over next four or five results. All depends on the excerpt of the site's content that google shows....

[AW_Learner]

I think the CTR goes down the further down you go but the conversion rate starts to go up because you are not getting so many unserious clickers only clicking on you because they see you first. You start to get people who did some comparison and serious searching first because they really want to buy. So you pay for less unprofitible clicks. Of course if your main advantage is the lowest price you want it a little higher. But not #1. Let them see some higher prices first then find your lower price.

Actually when I search on Google I usually read all the titles, ads and URL Displays on the first page before deciding which ones to go to and usually click on a few different ones. It doesn't matter to me if they are #1 or #5 or #8. As long as they are on the first page and the ad sounds the most relevent for what I was really searching for. So I'd say anything on the first page is good. But maybe other people search differently then me. I know other people have much lower screen resolutions and sizes which makes for far less of the page (top half only) show. So there eye will be drawn there first. But people don't buy the first thing they see usually when they are ready to buy. They comparision shop. So I don't think there would be a big difference in #1 or #3. They are both on the top half of the page.