Increased hits due to better placement in SERPs.

What percentage, roughly?

[danielm]

I tried searching for this in the forum archive, but didn't find anything based on my search terms, so I thought I'd ask.

What is the rough percentage difference in page hits from ranking (let's give a number!) number 32 in the search results on Google for a certain phrase as opposed to ranking number one?

I imagine there is a mathematical relationship of some sort, with an "interruption" of the trend for each 10 results (corresponding with the fact most people get 10 results per page). This, of course, assumes all other things are equal - so probably more appropriate for more generic search terms.

Any ideas? I don't have access to web logs that go back far enough for me to calculate it myself.

[rfgdxm1]

#32 as opposed to #1? Probably #1 will get 100 times as many clicks as #32 on average. Few people likely ever get as far down as #32. One strategy to improve number of people who click on your link is to have an appealing page title that draws human readers in. Thus, even if you are #6 on page 1, if your page title makes it sound like your page is exactly what the searcher wants, he may click on you rather than #1.

[danielm]

I wanted to see if someone could pin down that "probably". I'm participating in a field where there are a lot of flavours of "public widgets", so in our case, title doesn't make a difference other than pointing out geographic region. More important is the accompanying description, as that tends to differentiate the focus of the "public widget".

Still, I'm certain for the casual searcher of "public widget" there is probably some logarithmic relationship within each 10 results and some descending interval between each page of results.

[rfgdxm1]

Please note that my guesstimate was an average. What may be very important is how relevant the results on the first 3 pages are for "public widget" to what is on your site? If all the sites listed on page 1 have content that is satisfactory on a search for "public widget", then likely they'll never make it to page 4. I rarely have to dig that deep down in Google unless I am actually try to dig real deep on a topic.

[danielm]

Well, I just checked my web logs for that particular search term this month - 7 clickthroughs so far.

Considering there are roughly 41000 clickthroughs for the search term on Overture and Google has (who knows?) 10x the traffic, I'd say in our case we're getting in 1 in 50 000 for ranking 32nd.

As you said, the scenario is highly dependent on the search terms.

Well, I guess I'll have to continue working on that term! ;-)

[rfgdxm1]

I was being highly optimistic with my 1 in 100 estimate. The real issue would be how many of listings on the first few pages weren't very relevant. As a general rule #32 on a SERP is gonna generate few hits.