The number most people check first in Google Search Console is impressions. The number that actually determines whether any of that visibility produces revenue is CTR — click-through rate. And the benchmark that feels "normal" in 2026 looks very different from 2022.
Position #1 averaged 28% CTR in 2024. By 2025 that had dropped to 19%, according to GrowthSrc's study of over 200,000 keywords. That's a 32% year-over-year decline without any change to rankings. If your CTR looks low compared to old benchmarks, the benchmarks are the problem, not your site.
CTR by Position: The 2025-2026 Benchmarks
The most reliable current data comes from First Page Sage, which runs continuous analysis across hundreds of thousands of queries. Here's what organic CTR actually looks like by position today:
A few things are immediately obvious. The drop from position 1 to position 2 is steeper than every other step on the page — 39.8% to 18.7%, more than halved. The drop from position 3 to position 4 is already marginal. Positions 8, 9, and 10 are functionally identical in terms of traffic.
Backlinko's study of 4 million search results puts position #1 at 27.6% average CTR and finds that the top three positions collectively capture 54.4% of all clicks. Page 2 and beyond receives 0.63%.
What These Numbers Mean in Practice
At StreamAlive, where I ran SEO from 2023, we tracked CTR at the keyword level across around 3,000 tracked terms. Position 1 keywords on informational queries were averaging around 25-30% CTR — broadly consistent with these benchmarks. But position 1 on navigational queries with a Knowledge Panel or AI Overview visible? Sometimes under 10%.
Query type matters as much as position. The benchmarks above are averages across all query types. Commercial keywords with multiple SERP features attached will always underperform the average; long-tail informational queries often outperform it.
The SERP Feature Effect
First Page Sage also breaks down CTR by SERP feature type — and this is where the real context sits:
| SERP Feature | CTR at Position 1 |
|---|---|
| Featured Snippet (organic) | 42.9% |
| AI Overview | 38.9% |
| Standard organic result | 39.8% |
| Paid result #1 | 2.1% |
Organic still beats paid by roughly 19x. Featured snippets add about 3 percentage points over standard results. AI Overviews at position 1 perform comparably to standard results — but here's the nuance: when an AI Overview appears and your result is at position 4 rather than position 1, the CTR story changes completely. The AI Overview absorbs a significant portion of clicks that would otherwise flow to the top organic results.
Seer Interactive found that organic CTR dropped from 1.76% to 0.61% for queries where an AI Overview appeared — a 61% reduction. That isn't a ranking problem. It's a SERP structure problem.
How to Read Your Own CTR in GSC
Open Google Search Console → Performance → Search Results. Set the date range to at least 90 days for statistical reliability. Add both Clicks and CTR to the visible metrics. Then sort by Impressions descending.
The most actionable segment is keywords where you have significant impressions (say, 500+ per month) but CTR that's materially below the benchmark for that position. If you're sitting at position 3 with 8,000 monthly impressions and a 3% CTR rather than the expected 10%, the title tag and meta description are almost certainly the problem — not the ranking.
Segmenting by Device
Add a device filter. Mobile CTR is structurally lower than desktop for most query types because of zero-click search behavior — mobile generates a 77.2% zero-click rate vs 46.5% on desktop, according to The Digital Bloom's 2025 Organic Traffic Crisis report. If your mobile CTR looks weak relative to desktop, that's partly structural and partly an optimization opportunity.
What Counts as a "Good" CTR
The short answer: good is relative to position, query type, SERP features present, and device. A more precise way to think about it:
- Position 1, no special SERP features, desktop: anything above 30% is strong. Below 20% warrants investigating your title and meta.
- Position 3-5: 8-15% is reasonable. Below 5% suggests a snippet problem.
- Position 6-10: 2-5%. If you're meaningfully below 2%, you're likely facing AI Overview suppression or intent mismatch.
- Positions 11+: 0.63% or below is normal. This is why page 2 traffic is essentially theoretical.
The 2025 GSC Impression Bug
One critical caveat for anyone analyzing CTR data right now: GSC over-counted impressions from May 13, 2025 through April 27, 2026 — 50 weeks. Clicks were not affected. The bug inflated the denominator in the CTR calculation (CTR = clicks ÷ impressions), making CTR look artificially lower during this period. Google confirmed it and did not fix historical data.
If your CTR appears to have dropped sharply after May 2025, check whether it happened alongside a ranking change. If your rankings held but CTR fell, the bug is a likely contributor. For any analysis comparing CTR across periods that include May 2025–April 2026, use clicks as the primary metric rather than CTR.
A Note on Advanced Web Ranking's Q3 2025 Data
Advanced Web Ranking found something counterintuitive in their Q3 2025 analysis: while first-position CTR decreased by 0.99 percentage points, positions 6-10 saw CTR increase by 30.63% compared to 2024. This suggests that SERP behavior is shifting — users who don't click on AI Overviews or featured snippets are scrolling further down the page before clicking. If you're stuck in positions 6-10, the opportunity hasn't evaporated — it's moved.
The Practical Takeaway
If your CTR is below benchmark for your position, the first thing to audit is your title tag. Backlinko's data shows that titles between 40-60 characters yield 33.3% higher CTR, and URLs containing the target keyword get 45% more clicks than those without.
The second thing to check is whether your query has an AI Overview. If it does, your CTR benchmark just dropped significantly regardless of what your title says. That's not a fixable problem in the traditional sense — it's a signal to evaluate whether ranking for that query still makes commercial sense.
Position is a proxy metric. CTR is the one that actually connects to traffic. Both matter, but in a SERP environment where position #1 can produce radically different click volumes depending on what else is on the page, tracking CTR at the keyword level is no longer optional.