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Below the Fold

Increase in CTR

         

pageoneresults

3:45 am on Mar 1, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Over the past couple of years I've become somewhat accustomed to reading and deciphering web site visitor statistical data for various industries.

I've kind of noticed a trend over the past few months with certain search engines. There are a group of phrases that I continually monitor (manually of course). They fluctuate between #1 and #15 in the SERPs.

Of course we all know that #1 through #3 positions normally have a high CTR. Those positions are usually above the fold.

Then you have positions #4 thru #9 that are between the fold. Those too can have a high CTR if titles and descriptions are relevant.

And then, we come to those that are absolutely below the fold. Position #10.

A few of those terms that I monitor are showing higher CTR sitting at position #10 then they were when sitting at #4 thru #9.

What I am getting at here? Besides being in positions #1, #2 and #3, what would your preference be thereafter? For example, do my statistics above indicate that being in the #10 position is a more lucrative spot then let's say the #6 position?

P.S. This is for those search engines that have a default of 10 listings per page although I don't think that would be a major factor if there were a reasonable number of listings per page.

georgeek

3:53 am on Mar 1, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Doesn't where the fold is depend on screen resolution? Could you be seeing a long term trend to higher screen res?

pageoneresults

4:01 am on Mar 1, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Doesn't where the fold is depend on screen resolution?

Good point georgeek. Based on statistics, the majority of users are at 800x600 and 1024x768, that represents over 90%. Then you have font size to think about. Are they at smallest, smaller, medium, larger, largest (IE).

zgb999

10:10 am on Mar 1, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



There are other sites showing the same thing.

It looks like many people are looking at the first 10 SERP anyway. So if you are number 10 and have a good title and description you are the last one they look at and BANG you got a click.

I don't really know what it depends on because other sites have a steady decrease in CTR with number 10 beeing the lowest of the first 10.

sem4u

10:13 am on Mar 1, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



It looks like many people are looking at the first 10 SERP anyway. So if you are number 10 and have a good title and description you are the last one they look at and BANG you got a click.

This looks like the most likely explanation.

How about #10 compared to #11 then?

zgb999

11:40 am on Mar 1, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



As most user only have the top 10 on the first page then #11 will always be worse than #10. The second page is to the best of my knowledge and from all stats I have always worse than the first page.