Every company wants to dominate search engine results for their target keywords. It’s a battle that will never end — the battle to woe search engines and their users.
And yes, there’s a good explanation for that. According to a recent Firstpage report, ranking at the top of search engine result pages (SERPs) in your niche generates a 39.8% click-through rate in 2023. That’s nearly half (only 10% short) the clicks all the pages in the SERPs get combined.
That’s a massive traffic share for the lucky few.
Here’s a simple breakdown of the top 3 rankings (combined):
- The Number #1 result on SERPs gets 39.8% of all the clicks
- The Number #2 result grabs 18.7% of all the clicks
- The Number #3 result snags 10.2% of all the clicks
In total, these three positions command 68.7% of all the clicks on organic SERPs.
All the other SERP pages are left to fight in the dust and share the remaining 31.3%.
But that’s not all; there are many more compelling reasons to invest in SEO and page 1 ranking. And instead of imagining these reasons, let’s work with stats and see what data has to say.
So, without further ado, here are some interesting stats on Google’s Organic Search Results:
How Many Google Searches Are Done Per Day?
According to Live Internet Stats, Google processes over 99,000 search queries each second. That’s a whopping 8.5 billion searches per day.
Now, do the math. That’s 253 billion searches each month.
The Number of People Who Visit Google.com Every Day
Google is the most visited website globally, with an estimated 85.1 billion monthly visits. That equates to between 2.88 billion and 3.09 billion people visiting Google.com daily.
The high traffic demonstrates the popularity and reliance of Google as a search engine. Google services, such as Maps and YouTube, add to the volume of searches.
For businesses, this means targeting organic SEO and aiming for page 1 of SERPs can help get in front of millions of potential customers.
Let’s put this into perspective:
ChatGPT and OpenAI are the latest hype in the world of tech. However, in December 2022, OpenAI.com only attracted 304 million visits in December 2022. That’s just 0.34% of the total visits to Google that month.
So, in a way, even with the AI frenzy, Google still reigns supreme.
About 27% of Visits to Google.com Are from the US
The United States accounts for 27% of all visits to Google.com, with UK users only accounting for 4%.
You, however, have to keep in mind that 192 countries have their own versions of Google, such as google.co.uk and google.ca.
Google.co.uk receives about 304.8 million visits monthly, while Google.co.in (India) accounts for over 237.6 million visits monthly.
Google.co.uk is the 7th most visited website in the UK, while Google.co.in is the ninth most visited website in India.
What Are the Top 10 Searches on Google?
The top 10 searches on Google are—in order—YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp Web, and Google.
Let’s put some numbers on these searches:
- YouTube — 1.1 billion searches per month
- Facebook — 1.1 billion searches per month
- WhatsApp Web — 478 million searches per month
- Google — 474 million searches per month
In the US, the top 3 searches on Google are YouTube, Facebook, and Amazon.
- Facebook — 144 million searches per month
- YouTube — 144 million searches per month
- Amazon — 120 million searches per month
These numbers show just how powerful search engine optimisation strategies can be for businesses.
In the UK, the top searches are BBC News, YouTube, and Facebook.
- BBC News — 52 million searches per month
- YouTube — 42 million searches per month
- Facebook– 38 million searches
As of July 2023, Google controls 92.66% of the global search engine market share (according to StatCounter).
It’s followed by Bing (at 2.76%), Yandex (1.17%), Yahoo (1.09%), Baidu (0.84%), and Duckduckgo (0.51%).
| Search Engine | Market Share |
| 92.66% | |
| Bing | 2.76% |
| Yandex | 1.17% |
| Yahoo | 1.09% |
| Baidu | 0.84% |
| Duckduckgo | 0.51% |
| Others | 0.97% |
Globally, Google controls an overwhelming majority of the search engine market.
In the US, Google controls 87.72% of the search engine market share, while in the UK, it holds 92.97%.
How Many Pages Do People Visit From a Google Search?
Google users spend an average of 10 minutes per day searching, visiting eight different pages from the search engine.
According to Similarweb, people spend about 10.35 minutes daily browsing 8.29 pages on average.
SEMrush has considerably different figures for this metric. It estimates that visitors spend about 21.32 minutes daily on Google, visiting an average of 3.51 pages daily.
No matter which statistic you use, it’s clear that people are spending considerable amounts of their time on Google.
How Many People Use Voice Search?
Voice search is gaining traction among Google users. According to Google in 2018, 27% of mobile searches are done through voice search.
Remember, this is the only data point Google has released regarding voice search. It might seem outdated, but it is still one of the most relevant figures.
Also, considering how quickly technology evolves and people increasingly use voice-enabled devices, this figure might be much higher than in 2018.
Thus, voice search is becoming increasingly popular among Google users, and it’s something that companies need to pay attention to.
What Percentage of Google Searches Come from Mobile Devices and Desktops?
Mobile searches are on the rise, and Google is leading the charge. According to StatCounter, mobile devices account for 55.86% of all Google searches worldwide.
Desktops still hold a good percentage at 42.22%, with tablets accounting for the remaining 1.92%.
In the US, desktop devices have a larger share at 66.57%, with mobile taking less than a third (31.7%) of all searches. Tablets take a negligible amount at 1.73%.
The UK is almost balanced, with mobile devices accounting for 50.75% of all searches and desktops taking up 44.41% of the market share. Tablets are pretty popular here, accounting for about 4.84% of the market share.
In Singapore, mobile devices take a larger share at 68.44% of all searches, and desktops take less than a third (28.68%) of the market share. Tablets account for the remaining 2.87%.
Mobile Vs. Desktop Searches on Google
| Region | Mobile Searches | Desktop Searches | Tablet Searches |
| Global | 55.86% | 42.22% | 1.92 |
| US | 31.7% | 66.57% | 1.73% |
| UK | 50.75% | 44.41% | 4.84% |
| Singapore | 68.44% | 28.68% | 2.87% |
What does this mean for companies? Mobile searches are quickly becoming the most popular way of searching the internet. Companies must ensure that their websites are optimised for mobile devices; otherwise, they miss losing more than half of all potential customers.
How Many Clicks Does the First Result on Google Get?
The first result on Google’s search engine results page (SERP) receives 39.8% of all clicks. That means that if you want to get the most clicks, you should shoot for a No. 1 ranking on Google.
The second result receives 18.7%, while the third only gets 10.2%.
These figures decrease as you move down the SERP, with the seventh result receiving only 3.4%. The last result on page one gets 0.96% of all clicks, and links beyond that seldom get clicked.
| Search Position | CTR |
| Search Position #1 | 39.8% |
| Search Position #2 | 18.7% |
| Search Position #3 | 10.2% |
| Search Position #4 | 7.4% |
| Search Position #5 | 5.1% |
| Search Position #6 | 4.5% |
| Search Position #7 | 3.4% |
| Search Position #8 | 2.6% |
| Search Position #9 | 2.4% |
| Search Position #10 | 2.2% |
The first ad gets 2.1% of all clicks in paid ads, and the second receives only 1.4%. The third ad receives only 1.3%.
That shows organic search results are still preferred over paid search results.
| Paid Search Position | CTR |
| Ad Position #1 | 2.1% |
| Ad Position #2 | 1.4% |
| Ad Position #3 | 1.3% |
| Ad Position #4 | 1.2% |
Companies should still focus on SEO and mix it with paid search for maximum visibility.
The top three organic results receive 68.7% of all clicks
Google’s SERP is a highly competitive landscape, and the top three organic results receive 68.7% of all clicks. That’s more than two-thirds of all click-throughs.
While you cannot propel every page on your website to the top of Google’s SERP, you should identify the most important pages on your website and focus on ranking those.
The idea is to identify the pages that rank well but have yet to reach that coveted No. 1 spot, then put in the extra effort to get them there.
With some hard work and dedication, you can get your pages to the top of Google’s SERP and capture a large portion of those click-throughs.
How Often Do We Use Google Search
We don’t even have to look at stats to know that we’re dependent on Google. We turn to Google whenever we need answers.
Google processes 40,000 search queries every second, or 3.5 billion searches daily and 1.2 trillion searches yearly.
So, how often do we use Google?
According to Moz (2019), 84% of the population uses Google for their search queries at least thrice daily. That’s a lot of searches.
Google search has seen tremendous growth over the years. Here’s a simple breakdown of the growth:
- 1996: Google launches. It’s a basic technology with no attachments like Gmail, Maps, or Drive.
- 2000: Google is launched in 13 new languages. They also launched Google Toolbar, which enabled users to search for information from any webpage on the internet.
- 2001 to 2004: Google launches new search categories, such as Google Books, Google News, and Google Scholar
- 2002 Onwards: The beginning of explicitly announced Google updates. They would launch the 1st Documented update, “Florida,” which laid the groundwork for their ongoing algorithm updates.
- 2008 to 2010: Google made the search engine faster. They launched Google Suggest in 2004 and integrated it into the main search page. In 2010, they launched Google Instant and Google Instant Previews.
- In 2011: Google launched the Google Panda update, a major algorithm overhaul focused on website quality and content relevancy. They announced that they’ll continue updating the algorithm.
- September 2014: They launched Panda 4.1, whose stated goal was to crack down on spam, scrapers, content farms, and websites with high ad-to-content ratios.
- In 2012: They launched the Penguin update. It focused on webspam and link quality.
- In 2012: They integrated Google Knowledge Graph into the search engine. That was a major breakthrough in semantic search and allowed Google to understand user intent better.
- In 2013: Google Hummingbird was released. This update changed how Google interprets, and processes search queries, making it better at understanding natural language queries and dealing with more complex searches.
- 2014 onward: Google Pigeon update. This major local search algorithm update focused on improving the relevancy and accuracy of local search results.
- In 2015: Google RankBrain was released (26th October 2015). That is a machine learning algorithm that helps Google better understand user queries and the intent behind them.
- 21st April 2015: Mobilegeddon update. That major algorithm update heavily impacted websites not optimised for mobile devices.
- April 2019: De-indexing bug. Google reported a bug in their indexing system, causing some pages to be de-indexed.
- 11th April: Google writes that the de-indexing issue has been fully resolved.
- 9th December 2019: BERT Update. The algorithm update focused on improving how Google understands natural language queries.
- In 2021: Vicinity Update. This update focuses on understanding the user’s physical location and delivering more relevant local search results.
- 2022 (25th May): The Core Update. The update mostly affected news and media publishers, especially generalist sites.
The Importance of Ranking on the First Page
Users hardly click past the first page of search results when looking for something online. Studies show that only 0.63% of users click on the second page of Google.
This CTR report is consistent across all industries, making it a priority for businesses to strive to rank on the first page of Google. The higher you rank in the SERP, the more likely people will click on your listing.
What’s the ideal length of a title tag? Studies show that titles with 40 to 60 characters in length have the highest click-through rates. These titles give the searchers a clear idea of what they can expect from the page without taking up too much space.
The sweet spot for title tags is right in the middle, at around 50 characters.
- 0 to 20 Characters — 27.9%
- 20 to 40 Characters — 25.6%
- 40 to 60 Characters — 33.3%
- 60 to 80 Characters — 23.6%
- 80+ Characters — 21.9%
The findings don’t change much when we look at title word count instead of character count. Titles with 6 to 9 words tend to get the highest CTRs.
- 0 to 3 words — 18.8%
- 3 to 6 words — 26.4%
- 6 to 9 words — 33.5%
- 9 to 12 words — 27.7%
- 12+ words — 22.4%
While there might be some SEO benefits of having long title tags (longer titles = more keywords), this is offset by the decrease in CTR. So, aim for titles between 40 to 60 characters or 6 to 9 words long.
Etsy conducted a study on this in 2016 and found that short titles performed better than long ones. So, try to find the right balance between including keywords and having an engaging title that doesn’t take up too much space.
#14. How Many People Never Click on a Google Search Result?
Sadly, people don’t always click on a Google search result. Perhaps they found the answer they were looking for in the snippets, or maybe none of the results caught their attention.
Similarweb analysed 5.1 trillion Google searches and found that about 64.82 people don’t click on any search results.
That’s more zero clicks than organic and paid clicks combined.
The number of zero-click searches gets even bigger if you look at mobile searches (77.2%). In fact, the number of zero-click searches on mobile is almost double that on desktop.
| Sparktoro Study | Organic CTR | Paid CTR | Zero Clicks |
| All devices | 33.59% | 1.59% | 64.82% |
| Desktop devices | 50.75% | 2.78% | 46.48% |
| Mobile devices | 21.99% | 0.79% | 77.22% |
SEMrush also did a study on this. They analysed over 20,000 users and 450,000 search queries. The findings were also similar to those of Similarweb.
| SEMrush Study | Organic CTR | Paid CTR | Zero Clicks |
| Desktop Devices | 45.1% | 1.8% | 53.2% |
| Mobile Devices | 43.1% | 0.02% | 56.9% |
What does This Mean? Google is keeping people on its website by making it easier for them to find the information they need without having to click through.
Amanda or Sparktoro recommends creating zero-click content to solve zero-click searches. A great example of this is creating an FAQ page with the answers to common questions or a comprehensive list on a particular topic that covers everything someone might be looking for.
Doing this gives you a better chance of appearing on the SERP.
Learn to produce the juiciest information upfront and use Google snippets to capture your audience’s attention.
How Many People Search Online for Products or Services?
According to the Future Shopper study report, 48% of people start their search online for products or services to buy.
That’s almost half of all searches.
Let’s break it down for you:
- Search Engines – 48%
- Retailer Sites – 33%
- Marketplaces – 25%
48% of people start their search for products or services to buy on search engines, making this an excellent opportunity to get noticed.
33% start on retailer sites, so optimising shopping results is always good.
And 25% of people search on marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay. So, it also helps to consider listing your products on these platforms.
With the right approach, organic search can be a powerful tool for any business.
Organic Search Vs. Paid Search Vs. Zero Click Search
Organic search, paid search, and zero-click searches all have their own roles in driving search engine traffic.
Organic search refers to the unpaid or “free” listings on SERPs.
Paid search, also known as Search Engine Marketing (SEM), refers to the paid advertisements that appear in the SERPs.
And zero-click searches refer to the quick answers or information presented in SERPs, which don’t require a click for more information.
Only 1.59% of people click on paid search results, while organic search earns clicks up to 33.59% of the time.
Zero-click searches take the giant share of clicks, accounting for 64.82%.
It’s important to note that organic search and paid search are not mutually exclusive – they both have their own unique advantages and can be used together to maximise traffic.
What Does This Mean for SEO Professionals?
A combination of organic, paid and zero-click search strategies is the best way to drive traffic to your website.
Organic search can be used to create long-term visibility and build a loyal customer base, while paid search can be used to capture immediate attention.
Zero-click searches are also helpful for providing quick answers and can quickly create attention around your brand.
By utilising all three of these approaches, SEOs can create a comprehensive strategy that drives maximum website traffic and provides users value.
How Long Does It Take to Rank a Webpage on Google’s Page 1?
The answer to this question depends on various factors, such as the quality of content, website authority, keywords used, and competition.
Generally speaking, it can take anywhere from a few weeks to several months to rank in Google’s top 10 results.
However, according to an Ahrefs study, only 5.7% of pages were lucky enough to rank in the top 10 Google results within one year.
Ranking the Performances of Pages within the First Year from First Seen
All Pages:
- Rank in the Top 10 Results: 5.7%
- Rank in the Top 11 to 100: 19.5%
- Not in the Top 100: 74.8%
High DA Pages (DA >= 80)
- Rank in the Top 10 Results: 10.8%
- Rank in the Top 11 to 100: 19.1%
- Not in the Top 100: 70.1%
Medium DA Pages (DA 50 to 60)
- Rank in the Top 10 Results: 7.2%
- Rank in the Top 11 to 100: 18.1%
- Not in the Top 100: 74.7%
Low DA Pages (DA < 30)
- Rank in the Top 10 Results: 3.0%
- Rank in the Top 11 to 100: 17.1%
- Not in the Top 100: 79.9%
As for the remaining 94.3% of pages, they typically took more than one year to rank.
In addition, some pages may never rank for reasons such as poor-quality content or an inadequate link profile.
What Does This Mean for SEO Professionals?
Ranking on Google’s page 1 takes time, effort, and a lot of resources. Remember, you’re competing against companies pumping thousands of dollars into their SEO strategies.
It’s a long-term investment with no guaranteed results.
Website owners can only identify lucky pages through keyword research, SEO audits, and competitor analysis.
They must be patient with organic ranking and understand that success takes time. The best way to approach organic ranking is by creating high-quality content, optimising web pages, and building a strong link profile.
The Final Word
There you have it, 17 key Google page 1 and 2 organic search statistics. SEOs can use these stats to inform their strategies and focus on the practices most likely to help them rank their pages. Again, organic ranking takes time and effort but is worth the wait if done right.
