How does CTR relate to SERPS Position?
-
I'd always though that CTR would increase with SERPS position but my data doesn't really seem to show that.
I used google analytics/acquisition/SEO/Queries and looked at the top 1800 queries. Then I filtered those with a CTR of 0 and for branded keywords.
The result was as shown - a big glob with no real pattern other than a long tail of keywords with a 100% CTR
Does this tell me anything useful or am I just wasting my time?
Its probably worth stating that only 12 of my keywords had over 1000 impressions and none over 10,000 (all in top 10 though) - but thats a function of my industry sector
-
Hi Zippy-Bungle,
If your rankings improve then your CTR is likely to improve too. To affect CTR you can use the meta description and title tags - the more compelling your meta des the more likely it'll get clicks. I sometimes use high performing ad text for this if it's relevant.
As to whether an increase in CTR would relate to an increase in rankings - I don't really know. However, I did notice that our CTR dropped slightly and then our listings dropped a little too - whether this is a coincidence or not I couldn't tell you.
I think it would be very difficult for Google to use CTR, time on site and bounce as ranking signals. For example, if someone just wants my company's phone number, they may do a brand name search, find the number at the top of our pages and call us but analytics/google would count this as a bounce! So, we've been 'useful' but we've not encouraged the visitor to click into deeper pages (they found what they were looking for on the first page they visited) - so how does google know when a page has been 'useful' or not? (obviously I know links play a role here, I'm just speaking from a data perspective).
So, I suspect google doesn't use these signals, because it seems pretty darn difficult to determine what is a real bounce and what isn't (as in a real bounce would be where the site you click on is useless for the query). As for time on site... well, if you follow google's instructions and make your site faster (we halved our site speed in April) then time on site will inevitably reduce (ours did!) so, again I don't know how google would use this (unless it was in conjunction with site speed). As for CTR - that only tells one half of the story, so again, not sure how google could use it. I know they use it for adwords, but it's in their best interests for the most likely to be clicked ad to be highly prominent and any reduction in cpc as a result is easily mitigated by the fact that it gets more clicks (stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap)
However, I do think google probably uses a metric similar to bounce, when users use the back button to immediately leave a page they've just landed on and end up back on the same serp as they started from. This is just my theory, and the reason I think they use something like this is because if I was them I would. I will probably get shouted down here by everyone else, and this is just my opinion so do with it what you will!
-
Hi Tom, yes that's what I meant,. Never thought about it the other way round so I'm glad for the confusion as I learned something that I hadn't expected to learn.
Ive ve still got the issue with the data blob though not seeming to correspond with what other sources show. Is it a function of low search volumes or something else?
-
Beg your pardon, I think I misinterpreted your initial question. My answer addressed "Would an increase in CTR result in an increase in rankings" (No), but I think you meant "Would an increase in rankings result in an increase in CTR" (Usually yes)
Sorry about that, was that what you meant?
-
Thanks. That's good to know. I thought there was a case a few years ago where some Yahoo data got into the open and it showed that there was a correlation.
Checking on that I discovered this Moz article (which is more recent) which seems to imply that there is a relation - or have I misunderstood your answer, the article or both?
-
Your data shows you what is generally accepted - there is no relation between CTR and organic search.
Certainly with what Google tells us it has no baring at all - although we should always take what they say with a pinch of salt, my own tests and most other people I know agree with this. Some people think the time on site/bounce rate may have an affect, but again I don't think this is the case either.
The only time where CTR comes into play is for PPC, where it can affect your cost-per-lick and quality score.
For SEO, it's widely agreed that there is no relation.
Hope this helps.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Tracking PDF downloads from SERP clicks
For the longest time, our company policy has always been to put PDFs in a secure folder (hence they are not indexed and do not appear in search results). After evaluating this strategy, there has been clamor in recent months to allow Google to index our whitepapers. My question: Once PDFs start appearing in search results, what is the best way to start tracking clicks due to these "downloads"?
Reporting & Analytics | | marshdigitalmarketing0 -
Drop in direct traffic & spike in Adwords, any relation?
So I noticed a significant (around 50%) drop in Direct traffic in analytics to one of my websites (compared to last month). I've also noticed a spike in Adwords for around the same number of sessions. The drop in traffic is pretty much isolated to one specific page, and it is the same page involved in the spike in Adwords. Is it possible that Google was not recognizing a portion of the Adwords traffic? That's the only theory I have, but we haven't changed anything with their tracking or Adwords, so I'm a little hesitant to go with that theory.
Reporting & Analytics | | KiyoW0 -
SERPS showing wrong page
Hi there, searching Google UK for the term 'wireless alarms' returns the following page at position 39'ish - http://www.compoundsecurity.co.uk/security-information/gsm-gprs-alarm-systems The page that should be returned for that search is - http://www.compoundsecurity.co.uk/security-equipment The page being returned by Google at present is not optimised in any way for 'wireless alarms' but the page it should be showing is optimised for that term and the Moz grading tool agrees. The correct page also has a higher PA and 533 inbound links and the page being displayed has a lower PA and only 3 links. Could some kind soul tell me what i am doing wrong please? Thank you Si
Reporting & Analytics | | DaddySmurf0 -
UK SERPS update
Hi All, Anyone else seeing major changes in the google.co.uk SERPS results.Across about 12 different clients we have seen gains and loses. Sub pages seems to be suffering more than homepages. Any idea what has been targeted? With think it might be anchor text but were not sure. Noticed first dips on Monday and it has been rolling out across different niches all week. Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | highwayfive0 -
Why do we temporarily rank for highly competitive words after writing a related blog post?
I write for a blog that Google probably "likes" at this point because we update so frequently and get a decent amount of traffic. Sometimes this happens and it has always been puzzling to me: Let's use an example. Say I write a blog called "How to eat spaghetti." For the next few days, we will get a ton of traffic for people who type "spaghetti." But when I check us on rank trackers we are nowhere to be found for that term. What is happening here? Sometimes the traffic will all be international and located in some random city in Africa or something. Any thoughts? Super confused by this. We have gotten lots of traffic for extremely competitive words because of this, but it only lasts a couple days.
Reporting & Analytics | | LilyRay0 -
Subdomain and relative link paths cause crawl errors
I have a Wordpress blog on our subdomain and we use relative paths on our domain. It appears as though Google bot is crawling from the subdomain categories back to the domain relative paths. This of course results in hundreds of 404 pages. Any suggestions as to how to resolve this issue without changing the relative path structure of our domain? I can provide more information if need be. While I realize these issues are not that pressing, I'd obviously like to remove as many errors as possible. If anyone has encountered this problem, especially in Wordpress I'd really like to hear your solution or lack there of. Thank you in advance.
Reporting & Analytics | | BethA0 -
Why is a section of our website dropping in&out of Google SERPs?
In July 2011 we started a news section that has it's own 'subfolder' /news/ (http://www.chorder.com/news/new_gear/, http://www.chorder.com/news/gear_deals/ etc.) The whole news section is dropping in&out of Google SERP's since late October, as show in attached graph. All news texts are real deal, written by our own staff, linked from homepage. Any idea why this happens and how to prevent it? cmqky.png
Reporting & Analytics | | imventurer0 -
Google vs Bing/Yahoo SERP results?
I see large differences in Google and Bing/Yahoo SERP results for many keywords. Google shows many of our primary keywords in their top ten, while Bing/Yahoo rank the same one 40-50 or above. Do you have any insight on their differences that might account for this variation? We are legitimate, long time, white hatters at a small manufacturer that is one of the leaders in our industry. The only thing I can think of that might describe this issue is PPC advertising. Their algorithms wouldn't be that inconsistent would they? (We do much more paid advertising on Google) But generally this should have no affect, right? Thanks, George...
Reporting & Analytics | | rhawk0