My name is John Siebert, the premier Tampa Web Designer and SEO expert. In my quest to getting 100s of web sites to #1 on Google for over 10 years I have always wondered what the difference was from being #1 to #2 , #3 and so on. Since search engines guard their statistics on this matter with an iron fist I was only able to rely on statistics from users web site. Since the slipped from #1 to #2 or other places in the middle of the night without much alarm it was always hard to judge the effectiveness of their placement. Statistics always revealed it was best to be #2, but I myself have skipped over the #1 spot countless times and always figured there was somewhat of an equivalent of being in the top 3 spots. It wasn’t until AOL accidentally leaked some of their search engine statistics to the internet.
AOL accidentally leaked their search data and we were able to compile these statistics from their huge array of data. This gives some really solid insight into clicking habits. You might be as surprised as I am. Here are their findings:
AOL Leaked Search Data:
Total Searches: 9,038,794
Total Clicks: 4,926,623
Click Rank1: 2,075,765
Click Rank2: 586,100 = 3.5x less
Click Rank3: 418,643 = 4.9x less
Click Rank4: 298,532 = 6.9x less
Click Rank5: 242,169 = 8.5x less
Click Rank6: 199,541 = 10.4x less
Click Rank7: 168,080 = 12.3x less
Click Rank8: 148,489 = 14.0x less
Click Rank9: 140,356 = 14.8x less
Click Rank10: 147,551 = 14.1x less
This means that you’ll get 3 1/2 times more traffic being #1 as opposed to #2, and the visitors do a virtual nose dive on their downward spiral to the bottom of page 1. Let me put those statistics in another way:
Searcher Click Statistics:
Click Rank1: 2,075,765 42.13%
Click Rank2: 586,100 11.90%
Click Rank3: 418,643 8.50%
Click Rank4: 298,532 6.06%
Click Rank5: 242,169 4.92%
Click Rank6: 199,541 4.05%
Click Rank7: 168,080 3.41%
Click Rank8: 148,489 3.01%
Click Rank9: 140,356 2.85%
Click Rank10: 147,551 2.99%
Here are the subsequent page statistics:
1st page: 4,425,226 89.82%
2nd page: 501,397 10.18%
So 42.13% of searchers are clicking number one. That’s almost half. The next highest position #2 is only 11.90%. You will also notice that only 10% of people click through to page 2. So page two and anywhere after that start to become useless positions.
Forget being #2. If your SEO guy is happy with #2 you might want to search for another SEO guy. It pays to be King of the Hill.
August 26, 2011
