Relative values of search engine positions

[sitetruth]

Is there any reasonably accepted ranking of the value of search engine result positions? For example, if position #1 is given a value of 1, what's the value of the #2 position? 0.5?

Is this table of relative values from Greenhouse.com considered meaningful?

[deanpowel71]

I don't think there are any Relative values of search engine positions.

[AussieWebmaster]

Looking at it from the perspective of traffic and what position gets what percentage has a relative value.

[sitetruth]

Originally Posted by AussieWebmaster

Looking at it from the perspective of traffic and what position gets what percentage has a relative value.

Right. I'm working on reducing hit data for multiple domains down to a single number, something I can graph over time. A set of relative weights allows combining SERP data for multiple domains into a single metric.

The Greenhouse data is based on that big collection of 20 million hits released by AOL a few years ago. From that, various parties have come up with info about what fraction of clicks come from the #1 position, what fraction from the #2, etc. That data set is used because it's one of the few public data sets of hit data. Crunching on that data yields this:

Relative weights of search engine result positions:
#1: 0.57
#2: 0.16
#3: 0.11
#4: 0.08
#5: 0.06

Does that data seem reasonable?

[pavkey88]

I don't think so anymore -
especially with the number one position. Of course, this depends on the search query. Brand names - probably, yeah.
for service based searches, like "plumber, chicago" - I doubt it.

The AOL data doesn't figure in the 10-pack of local map results,universal search, personalized search or the fact that there are simply a lot more good choices on the 1st page now.(usually)

I see wikipedia pop up a lot as #1 for many searches, but very rarely do I click that link.

I say as long as you're on the 1st page- preferably 1-5 - you're going to be fine. Reading the patents from Yahoo and Google, it seems like they like to bounce stuff around in those positions anyway to determine overall effectiveness.

Aaron at SEObook.com had a pretty good post on position values a while back...

[AussieWebmaster]

the impact of maps is big too