Click-through rates for desktop and mobile are moving in opposite directions, new data from Advanced Web Ranking.
The direction here, especially on desktop, goes against the recent narrative from recent CTR reports. Organic clicks declined overall as AI insights grew, a trend we have covered here using data from AWR as well as figures from Ahrefs and Seer Interactive, among others. For desktop, however, the first quarter data goes the other way.
What the data shows
First, note that the desktop-mobile comparison uses data from AWR’s CTR tracker, which reflects data set-specific movements rather than direct changes in Google’s algorithm or SERPs.
Across 22 industries, top click-through rates on desktop generally increased over two quarters, while mobile fell to the top spot.
On desktop, the gains mostly appeared below third place, while on mobile, the top spot fell by 2.20 percentage points, with little change elsewhere in the top ten.
As with most SERP analytics we’ve looked at, AWR also divides the data into branded and unbranded search queries, and the desktop-mobile split holds in both cases, although the gains on branded desktop are larger overall.
Desktop brand searches gained in the top ten positions, ranging from 1.99 to 5.78 percentage points. Changes to mobile brand search were mostly minor. Unbranded queries saw a 3.07 point drop in CTR in the top position on mobile, while desktop positions increased.
Beyond intent breakdown, AWR divides its data into additional categories, such as keyword length and industry.
According to the report, the split between desktop and mobile largely held steady across the 22 industries measured, with some notable fluctuations in just one position. Across the 22 industries analyzed, the largest increase on desktop was a gain of 7.05 percentage points for sites ranked highest in the Family & Parenting category. The largest decline on mobile was a drop of 9.03 points for sites ranked highest in Law, Government and Politics.
Often, AWR releases combined figures adding gains across multiple positions in the top ten, but these aggregate totals simply summarize changes by position. They do not describe what happened to a single site. To be clear, when we talk about which site ranks first in a position-by-position breakdown, the per-position numbers actually correspond to specific ranking locations.
How this fits with recent CTR history
A recent round of CTR data generally indicated a decline, alongside the growing importance of AI insights on the SERP. Ahrefs data saw a 58% drop in CTR for the top position result on queries with AI insight. Seer Interactive also measured declines in the same range and Research on the bench reported that users who saw an AI summary clicked on “traditional” links less often.
That doesn’t mean that gains on desktop cancel out months of sweetness on mobile. Looking at AWR’s Q1 data, it’s tempting to say that this fits squarely into a recovery signal we’ve started to see elsewhere.
In a April reportSeer reported that CTRs for “organic queries that have AI insights on the SERP” were rebounding strongly from the lows seen in mid-December. AWR now adds a desktop versus mobile layer to this emerging recovery signal. The difference is that Seer’s job isolates AI Overview queries, whereas AWR does not.
In AWR’s report, they monitor CTR benchmarks on different SERP positions, whether or not the SERP includes AI insights. Desktop CTR rates increased across all positions during the quarter, while mobile was lower at the top. For what? Neither AWR nor Seer explicitly attribute causality to their observed movement (e.g., due to AI insights or changing ad layouts).
Why it matters
It’s increasingly important to consider how your CTR varies across different devices. In the past, the gap between desktop and mobile wasn’t big enough to worry about using one as a replacement for the other.
Now, if we stick to single-device benchmarks, or worse, mixed estimates, we risk overestimating mobile devices and underestimating desktop.
Looking to the future
Modeling direct traffic from last month’s impressions and your desktop CTR curve works well when SERPs remain static, without AI previews, product ads, featured snippets, or other elements above organic results.
As search results change based on device, intent, and features above organic results, the original curve becomes less reliable.
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