Google Search Results: Position #10 Gets More Clicks Than 8 & 9 Combined

After years of anecdotal evidence and speculation, Google has finally confirmed what many suspected… that the #10 spot in the search results isn’t actually that bad of a place to be.

At SMX West yesterday, Paul Haahr was talking about the Google search results from an engineering perspective, and he dropped some interesting tidbits about the search results and positions.  He revealed that the #10 spot in the Google search results actually sees more clicks than the results in positions #8 and #9 combined.

Haahr revealed that people hate having to go through to a second page of search results, so that #10 result is actually clicked significantly more, almost like a last resort click to actually see some content versus more results.

But what about position #7?  It actually does better than position #10.  So there is a limit on the “how high in the rankings does a site need to be before it outranks #10.

While this interesting tidbit isn’t exactly actionable, since it would be difficult to try and rank #10 if you are sitting at #8 or #9.  And people want to be ranking much nearer to the top, which would counter this kind of situation.

Position 10 gets more clicks than 8 and 9 together. No one wants to click next page. But 10 is worse than position 7. @haahr #smx

— Jennifer Slegg (@jenstar) March 3, 2016

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Jennifer Slegg

Founder & Editor at The SEM Post

Jennifer Slegg is a longtime speaker and expert in search engine marketing. When she isn't sitting at her desk writing and working, she can be found grabbing a latte at her local Starbucks or planning her next trip to Disneyland. She regularly speaks at Pubcon, SMX, ClickZ and more, and has been presenting at conferences for over a decade.

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