How much has position No1 been degraded?

[Whitey]

I've heard from a few folks that the introduction of local search , directories and maps may have reduced traffic by as much as 20% in the No1 position.

What other reports have you heard ?

[tedster]

If you're talking about a local search query term - one that triggers the Map - then I've seen more like 35% to 60% loss. Local Search is less and less about organic ranking these days.

[driller41]

Can we assume we are talking about the effect of recent changes to the number 1 position overall.

The last data I saw was something like

1 45%
2 15%
3 10%

I would love to see some proven current data.

[Whitey]

I put this old statistic up for discussion to get things rolling , but it's way out of date. Does anyone have a references to reliable sources that are more current :

A study from Cornell University in 2004 showed that 56.36 percent of the clicks were on the first result and 2.55 percent on position No. 10. Every study I saw was unequivocal — traffic drops significantly by rank. [columbiatribune.com...]

[aristotle]

I think the effect varies, depending on the search term. The new SERPs page layout that Google introduced a few months ago gives various menu options for refining a search, and these seem to vary according to the search term. Also, for some search terms Google puts up to three paid ads above the organic listings, and these push the number 1 listing down the page and reduce its CTR. But this only happens for some search terms. So the effects of the new layout vary, so that some search terms are affected more than others.

[Victor1]

I agree about 20% is what i have seen

[Whitey]

Tedster - on those drops that you're aware of , would the remaining traffic from the top organic search position still be in line that Cornell study in 2004 ( i wish i could locate some more recent data - I'm sure i've seen it somewhere )

[Whitey]

..... i did a lot of digging around since, and gee the information seems to be scarce. Here's a few references from very good sources


Red Cardinal :

Want to Know How Many Clicks The #1 Google Position Gets? [redcardinal.ie...]

1. 42.30%
2. 11.92%
3. 8.44%
4. 6.03%
5. 4.86%
6. 3.99%
7. 3.37%
8. 2.98%
9. 2.83%
10. 2.97%

Plus - [seo-scientist.com...]

But there's nothing much out there since late 2008 , so it's a bit old hat.

I wonder if the ratios still apply on the remaining positions ? Any ideas ?

[AnkitMaheshwari]

What I have seen from my Google Webmaster account of different sites, if there are no one box (maps specifically) the CTR is generally 37-40% however with maps coming in organic CTR drops to 19-25% provided the ranking for the query is 1 in both cases.

I guess other webmaster must also be seeing some co-relations in the data.

[Whitey]

Do you see positions 2 & 3 etc. dropping in the same proportions ?

[piatkow]

It varies so much on the search terms. On one of my sites "London Widgets" puts three organic results at the top, with my site second followed by the map. "Widgets London" puts the map at the top with so many results that the number one result (mine) is below the fold.

The site is too new for me to assess what, if anything, I have lost by this.

[AnkitMaheshwari]

Do you see positions 2 & 3 etc. dropping in the same proportions ?

I have never done any deep dive into this hence never looked queries beyond the position range of 1 and 1.5 (as per GWMT) for CTRs.

[Whitey]

Have conversion rates dropped on those lower CTR's or are they generally constant with before ?

[Mark_A]

But No1 is not no1 nowerdays, it may be position 4.

[piatkow]

But No1 is not no1 nowerdays, it may be position 4.

Number 4? You are doing well! On my previous example my number one position is more like the equivalent of number 7.

[doughayman]

I don't know how you guys feel about this, but I really am finding Google results more and more utterly worthless. My gosh, it's really hard to fathom how they have let things get this shabby. Even with explicit search string in quotations and the use of judicious "AND" statements in complex clauses, I have found their results are mediocre, at very best. That is why I have moved on. Right now, Yahoo seems to be the best for my search uses, with Bing coming in a close 2nd. I hope that the fusing of these 2 search engines doesn't deteriorate things much. Google is going to fall upon hard times, that's for sure.

[cien]

Yeah, the ole Google is gone. Hope they can get their act together soon.