Organic vs Paid Search Results: Organic Wins 94% of Time

Search engine users overwhelmingly click on organic results on Google and Bing by a margin of 94 percent to 6 percent. That's according to new research from GroupM UK and Nielsen, published today by eConsultancy, based on a sample of 1.4 billion searches conducted by 28 million UK citizens in June 2011. On the organic side, the research also broke down brand vs non-brand click-through rates, as well as click-throughs by vertical. On the paid side, the research revealed some demographic data about who is most likely to click on PPC results. Finally, it determined whether Google or Bing delivered more successful searches.

Organic Search Results & Click-Through Rates

Others have previously tried to gauge organic click-through rates (CTRs) for the top 10 results onGoogle and Bing, resulting in varied percentages, but with a recurring and obvious theme: the higher you rank, the more people click on your website; the lower you rank, the less clicks and traffic your site gets. Thus, ranking high on Page 1 is of ultimate value to every website.

Don't Forget About Traditional SEO Strategies

Unlike previous studies, however, the GroupM UK and Nielsen study broke down the search queries into branded and non-branded. Overall, users clicked on one of the top three results 68 percent of the time:

• Result 1: 48 percent
• Result 2: 12 percent
• Result 3: 8 percent
• Remainder: 32 percent

On branded searches, the top search result overwhelmingly received the most clicks (which makes sense, considering the search is likely navigational in nature):

• Result 1: 80 percent
• Result 2: 6 percent
• Result 3: 4 percent
• Remainder: 10 percent

This also may give you some insight as to why Google is now showing 7 results, rather than 10, on branded searches. No doubt, Google is seeing the same sort of data on their end, and realizes that 90 percent of users are going to one of the top 3 spots, so in most cases the average user won't even notice Google has eliminated three search results at the bottom of Page 1. On non-branded searches, however, the data indicates that searchers are more willing to go beyond the top 3 results (and this data is quite similar to Optify's findings on average CTR from last year):

• Result 1: 35 percent
• Result 2: 15 percent
• Result 3: 11 percent
• Remainder: 39 percent

This data seems like good news for site that don't have the luxury of ranking in one of the top three spots. There's definitely traffic and money in that 39 percent of searches (positions 4-10) to be had if you can get your site to Page 1. Natural CTRs by vertical were also examined. The highest CTRs on the top three results were on searches for airlines, broadcast media, and auto manufacturers; current events/news, home and garden, and computers and consumer electronics had the lowest CTRs for the first three positions.

Paid Search Results & Click-Through Rates

Who are those 6 percent clicking on PPC ads? Women (53 pecent of them) are more likely to click on paid search ads than men, who click on ads 47 percent of the time. Age also is a factor. Younger searches are less likely to click on paid ads – 35 percent of ads are clicked on by searchers age 34 or younger. But as age increases, so does the number of people clicking on those ads, as 65 percent of ad clicks come from searchers age 35 and older.

Google vs Bing

Google is crowned the Master of the Universe on successful search rates, with a 91 percent successful search rate. Bing's percentage of successful searches: 76 percent.