Click-Through Rate (CTR)

The click-through rate (CTRThe click-through rate (CTR) indicates how many users click a search result relative to the number of times it is shown (impressions). It reflects how appealing a listing appears in search.Open glossary entry →) is the ratio of clicks to impressionsImpressions indicate how often a website's search result was shown in Google Search, regardless of whether it was clicked. They are a core Google Search Console metric and reflect a page's raw visibility for given queries.Open glossary entry → in search. If a result gets 100 impressions and 5 clicks, the CTR is five percent.

CTR depends heavily on position: top spots usually receive far more clicks. But it is also influenced by:

• the title tagThe title tag is an HTML element in the page <head> that defines the page title. It appears in the browser tab and can be used as the clickable title in search results.Open glossary entry → and meta descriptionThe meta description is an HTML element in the page <head> that briefly summarises the page's content. Google can display it as the description in the search result.Open glossary entry →,
• the match with search intentSearch intent is the goal behind a search query: does the user want to learn something, buy something or reach a specific page? Content only ranks well if it matches this intent.Open glossary entry →,
• SERPThe Search Engine Results Page (SERP) is the page a search engine returns after a query. Besides the organic listings it often contains extra elements such as ads, featured snippets or AI Overviews.Open glossary entry → features such as featured snippetsA featured snippet is a highlighted answer excerpt that Google displays above the classic results. It answers a query directly and is often called position zero.Open glossary entry → or AI OverviewsAI Overviews are AI-generated answer boxes from Google that appear above the classic search results. They summarize information from the web and can change click distribution.Open glossary entry →,
• the number of ads.

An important distinction: if the CTR drops while the position stays stable, the problem usually lies not in the ranking but in the snippetA snippet is the compact display of a result in the search results, usually made up of a title, URL and description. It is what users see before clicking.Open glossary entry → or the SERP layout. Better titles and descriptions are then often a quick lever to win more clicks from existing rankings. CTR is measured most reliably over a longer period in Google Search ConsoleGoogle Search Console (GSC) is a free Google tool that shows how a website performs in organic search, with data on impressions, clicks, click-through rate and average position, plus indexing and technical issues.Open glossary entry →.