Organic Click-Through Rates on Page One: What the Studies Show

The short answer

That is a fair challenge to any first page goal, ours included. This article takes it head on: what the major studies measured, how AI answers changed the picture, and why showing up in more than one place on the results page matters.

What Google CTR by position means, and its limits

Google's Search Console defines CTR as "(clicks ÷ impressions)", reports position as the topmost spot a site's link held, and counts an AI Overview as a single position shared by every link inside it [10]. The benchmarks then vary widely:

• Layout. Sistrix found the first result's CTR ranged from 13.7% to 46.9% depending on the page layout, and that search intent shapes the layout, and so how many organic clicks exist [3].
• Industry. In AWR's July 2026 US data across all devices, the first result's CTR ran from 12.2% in Law, Government & Politics to 31.2% in Arts & Entertainment, with Health & Fitness near the bottom at 13.3% [1].

If you run a law firm or a health practice, expect your clicks to sit below the all-industry averages.

What the major studies measured (method first)

Two findings deserve plain statement. First, the top of page one holds its value better than the middle. Over a decade, AWR puts the first result at 29.3% in 2015 and 25.8% in 2025, down 12%, while the second result lost 40% of its CTR, the third 44% and results four to ten 44% to 47% [1]. Even the top is under pressure: over the latest twelve months the first result averaged 20.9%, against 28.0% the twelve months before (US, all devices) [1].

Second, Backlinko found that moving up a single position increases relative CTR by 32.3% [2], and its authors wrote that "ranking on the first page" may not be a worthy SEO goal [2]. We take that seriously. Page one is where clicks become possible; the first few results are where most of them happen. A first page result is the floor, not the finish.

How AI Overviews changed organic clicks

Each study, with its method and date:

• Pew Research Center (browsing data from 900 US adults, March 2025; published July 22, 2025). Beyond the 8% and 15%, users clicked a link inside the AI summary on just 1% of visits [4].
• Ahrefs (300,000 keywords, desktop Search Console data; published February 4, 2026). Beyond the 58% correlation, Ahrefs reports that the first result's CTR on AI Overview keywords fell from 7.3% in December 2023 to 1.6% in December 2025, and the effect shrinks down the page, to 19.4% lower at the tenth result [5].
• Advanced Web Ranking (July 2026, US desktop). AI Overviews appeared on 43% of sampled results pages and cut the first result's CTR by 52%, from 20.02% to 9.69% [1].
• Seer Interactive (its own clients' data). Across 3,119 search terms at 42 organizations, organic CTR on informational queries with an AI Overview fell from 1.76% in June 2024 to 0.61% in September 2025 [6]. Its April 2026 update (53 brands, 5.47 million queries) saw a partial rebound, from 1.3% in December 2025 to 2.4% in February 2026, and found brands cited in the AI Overview got 120% more organic clicks per impression than uncited ones, though still 38% fewer than on queries with no AI Overview [7]. Seer says it cannot prove the citation causes the higher CTR [6].
• Google (August 6, 2025). Google's head of Search wrote that total organic click volume from Google Search to websites "has been relatively stable year-over-year", and called third-party reports of dramatic declines inaccurate. The post published no underlying data [8].

AI Overviews also don't appear everywhere: Pew found an AI summary on 18% of the searches in its March 2025 sample [4]. For how they pick the pages they cite, read how AI Overviews choose sources.

Page two and beyond

In AWR's table, results seven to ten earned 0.46 to 0.58% [1]. Read together, these figures suggest the real drop comes after the first few results, not at the bottom of page one. There is a measurement catch too: if your result sits on a page the searcher never opens, it gets no impression, so Search Console records nothing for that search [10]. A page-two ranking can look like no data at all, which is why how to check Google rankings starts with checking from your market.

Why presence in three places matters

When we checked 12 commercial searches from Las Vegas on September 27, 2026, the map results appeared on 11, organic results on all 12 and an AI Overview on 2. In that small sample, a local business competed in two lists on almost every search and three on a few. We found no current, independent study of how many clicks the map results take, so treat any single figure for it with care. The differences between the two main lists are covered in local SEO vs organic SEO.

That is why our first page guarantee counts each of the three places separately, and why it never promises a position, clicks or traffic. It measures presence on page one: in the map results, in the organic results and in Google's AI answer. The organic SEO work toward the top of each list carries on from there, and how long SEO takes to work sets out the timing.

Aim for page one, then for the top of it

Page one is where clicks become possible, and the top of each list is where most of them happen. Our first page guarantee promises a measured share of page one in each of the three places, never a position or clicks; see our client results for the work behind it. The free SEO audit shows where you stand today.