Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Click-through rate (CTR) is the share of people who click a search result or ad after seeing it: clicks divided by impressions.
What is click-through rate?
Click-through rate (CTR) is the percentage of people who click on a search result, ad or link after seeing it. It is calculated as clicks divided by impressions: 50 clicks from 1,000 impressions is a CTR of 5%.
In SEO, Google Search Console reports CTR per query and page. It depends heavily on position, but also on how attractive the title and description are, and on what else is on the results page: ads, featured snippets and AI Overviews can lower the CTR of organic results even at the top (zero-click search).
In paid search, CTR shows how relevant an ad is to the search. Google uses expected CTR as one component of the Quality Score, which influences costs per click and ad positions.
How to improve CTR:
- Write titles and ad headlines that match the search intent and show a clear benefit.
- Use structured data for rich results where it fits.
- In ads, use relevant assets such as sitelinks and callouts.
CTR benchmarks vary widely by industry, device, position and country, so compare like with like: the same query type, market and language over time.