Whenever someone puts out statistics like that they are talking about the organic positions. They are taking into account ads at the top of the page.

It's an average. A SERP with 4 ads at the top compared to a SERP with 1 ad at the top might get less clicks for the first organic position. It also depends on the niche and search term. It might still get about the same.

There are other factors too. For example, if a site at #3 gets a featured snippet at the top of the SERP, it will outperform the site that is ranked #1.

Lastly, Google never said you are guaranteed any amount of traffic based on your rankings, so Google is not fooling anyone. Your thread title is misleading.

If you are ranking #1 and not getting traffic, perhaps you are targeting a very low search volume phrase. You also might be seeing skewed search results that are tailored to you - results that the rest of the world is not seeing.

And, of course, you might not have nearly as compelling a title tag and meta description as those sites in positions #2, #3 and #4 have. If that's the case and those sites are getting clicked on more than your site, you likely will not hold that #1 position for very long.

Google isn't fooling around.

And Chitika is a Ad company which serves basically for North American or Western European countries. So, they are not getting the entire picture.

Not to mention there are myriad number of factors that are considered by google in order to get ranked or even shown in the SERP's including the ads.

There is no other competitor for Google. So they do whatever they want, we need a more good one equal to google atleast.

You can be #1 on a page with no ads and not get one visitor because the info shown in SERP's is not good enough.

The statistics you mention were done before Google put ads at the top of pages.

So, now, you'd have to look at those numbers a bit like this:
If there are 3 ads before the organic listings starts, the 1st organic listing is #4 on the page. Which means, you'd be getting something like 8% of the traffic. If you were #3 on such a page, you really are #6 and, therefore, you would be getting something like 5 or 6%. Alas, 6% is a hell of a lot less than 30%.

Not at all.

You are fist in search, that is ok.. But for how many keywords? Which keywords?
Maybe those keywords are not the one that are often used..

I am assuming you have looked on Google Analytics or similar and know that you are not getting ANY traffic from Google whatsoever? Or are you just not getting any enquiries?

Also what are you actual keywords that you're ranking for: Are they competitive? Out of interest, what are the keyphrases?

Google aren't fooling you at all, but the more information you give the more we can get to the bottom of what's going on.

Hi,
I run at the moment 5 websites and rank on the first positions.And I have actually more than 5% CTR (websites are for germany).
People watch the first positions,but they scroll often down to the organic search.
Yes the CTR is lower with lots of adwords.But the people are scrolling for organic results,because the adword positions are often not the results they are looking for.

My bigger fear is,that google release a new update and all my websites loosing their serp...

Hope I could help you

I don't think we are getting fooled by Google. We are getting fooled by not understanding the statistics.


First, what does that 33% mean? Note, using your terminology, you say the first ranked site gets 33% of traffic. It may not mean that 33% of searchers of a keyword will click the first link 33% of the time. It may mean, and that is my guess, that of all those who click, will click the first 33% of the time. There's a big difference. If only 25% of searchers click any link, 33% means that only 8% of all searchers click the first link.


So you need to understand what the numbers mean and the methodology used. By the way, that number was 42% ten years ago. If the methodology is the same, it means that fewer are clicking now.


Second, as Mike pointed out, that's an average. Presumably web-wide but for all we know, Chitika did this for just a dozen queries and for one industry. That's the methodology which you didn't report. Averages being averages, doesn't mean you will get the same results.


Third, what is your methodology? You say you are ranking in first position. It's unlikely you are showing first all the time for every one. Still, being at or near the top is good but as you believe from the stats, the click rate varies quite a bit from one position to the next. Having your rank being second instead of first just a quarter of the time will have a big impact on your number of clicks.


Fourth, what is your traffic? You say you get no traffic. None at all? Hard to believe but possible. But if so, it just means that searchers are not finding your link interesting, at least for what they have in mind. And if that's the case, as Dave said, you may not hold that position for long.


As been pointed out again by Mike, Google does not guarantee traffic in any position. It's just their algo figuring that your site merits being at or near the top, not that this will give you traffic. Nor will that traffic convert for you which is a totally separate issue.

Sorry if this is a bit obvious - but this mistake is easy to make: are you sure you're ranking? If Google search settings are set to return private results, then you may not be ranking even though it looks like you are.

Whatever you are talking about, is old...OLD news. Chitika? Yeah....like 5 years ago????

Man do you people actually keep up with the real world?

You say "we" then "he." I only assume you are some seo wannabe who is trying to figure google out.

Reading stuff that is ancient history, and trying to extrapolate something meaningful, is daft.

Seriously. Google has not fooled anyone, but seo wannabes get fooled all the time.

Google can never be analyzed like they could be in 2013....

So, where the frick have you been?

Sites on the first page, get close to 100% of the traffic.

That fact seems to get lost in the babbling.

If you are even on page one, the traffic for a good term will be terrific.....unless you are one of those poor souls left out of that "almost 100%."

And that would be up to you to fix, not google.

I'm still laughing about chitika.....

Paul

I think you need to check the search volume of the keyword ranks 1st Position.
What if the keywords's search volume is 10?

if you are ranked for highly targeted keywords with search volume on top of Google, you will surely gain some traffic there.

be sure to check on your keywords or confirm that your analytics is properly installed.