How SERP Features Change Click-Through Rates

Why the Same Position Earns Different Clicks

Position on a search results page is only half the story of how many clicks a result receives. The other half is the composition of the page itself. A result ranking first on a clean, text-only results page behaves very differently from the same result ranking first on a page topped by a shopping carousel, a featured snippet, or an AI Overview. The features that surround an organic listing change how many searchers ever reach it, and how many resolve their query before scrolling at all.

This is one of the most consequential and under-appreciated facts in modern search behavior. Average click-through-rate (CTR) tables that report a single number for "position 1" obscure a range that, in practice, spans from roughly 11% to nearly 47% depending entirely on which features Google has assembled onto the page. SISTRIX, which analyzed more than 80 million keywords and billions of search results, concluded that the search intent behind a keyword determines the SERP layout, and the layout in turn determines how many organic clicks are realistically available to capture.

Understanding this distribution matters for two reasons. First, it changes how target keywords should be evaluated: two keywords with identical search volume can deliver vastly different traffic depending on their SERP composition. Second, it bears directly on how Google's NavBoost re-ranking system interprets clicks, because the "expected" click pattern NavBoost compares a result against is itself shaped by the features present on the page.

The Baseline: CTR by SERP Layout

The most cited dataset on this question comes from SISTRIX, whose study measured position-1 CTR across distinct SERP layouts rather than averaging all results together. The headline finding is that the layout matters more than almost any other single variable. The following table summarizes position-1 CTR by the dominant feature present on the page.

Figure 1: Position-1 organic CTR by SERP layout. Source: SISTRIX (80M+ keywords); AI Overview range reflects composite 2025–2026 measurements. A pure-organic baseline of 34.2% is the reference point for all comparisons.

Two observations are immediate. First, the spread is enormous: the most click-rich layout (sitelinks) sends more than three times as many clicks to position 1 as the least click-rich (AI Overview). Second, nearly every feature suppresses organic CTR below the pure-organic baseline — the lone exception being sitelinks, for reasons examined below. For the underlying position-by-position benchmarks that these layouts modify, see CTR by Google search position.

Navigational Features: When CTR Rises

Sitelinks are the clearest case of a feature that increases rather than decreases organic CTR. When SISTRIX measured position-1 CTR on SERPs displaying sitelinks, it reached 46.9% — almost every second click on the page goes to the top result, well above the 34.2% pure-organic baseline.

The reason is intent, not the feature itself. Sitelinks appear almost exclusively on navigational and branded queries, where a searcher types a brand or site name with the clear intention of reaching one specific destination. Google awards the dominant result an expanded listing with multiple internal links precisely because it is confident about the searcher's target. The feature does not create the high CTR; it reflects an underlying query intent that was already going to concentrate clicks on a single result. This is a useful reminder that SERP features are often downstream of intent, and that search intent shapes click signals before any feature is rendered.

For NavBoost, navigational queries are also where click signals are least ambiguous. When nearly half of searchers click one result and stay, the resulting goodClicks and lastLongestClicks overwhelmingly favor that destination, reinforcing its dominance in a self-perpetuating loop. Branded search and navigational dominance are explored further in the discussion of how NavBoost weights user behavior.

Answer Features: Featured Snippets, Knowledge Panels, and PAA

The largest category of SERP features are those that answer the query directly on the results page. These consistently suppress organic CTR because a portion of searchers get what they need without clicking through to any website.

Featured Snippets

A featured snippet extracts an answer from a ranking page and displays it at the top of the SERP, often called "position zero." SISTRIX measured position-1 CTR at 23.3% when a featured snippet is present — roughly five percentage points below the average for that position, and well under the 34.2% pure-organic figure. The snippet position itself, however, captures a disproportionate share: analysis attributes roughly 42.9% of clicks to the snippet result when one is shown. In other words, the snippet consolidates clicks at the very top while resolving the query for everyone else, leaving less for the conventional listings below. There is also a redistribution effect lower down: SISTRIX observed that on featured-snippet SERPs the second organic result rises from roughly 15.7% to 20.5% and the third from about 11% to 13.3%, because the page that supplies the snippet does not always recapture the click, sending some traffic to the results beneath it. The mechanics of this trade-off are examined in detail in featured snippets and CTR.

Knowledge Panels

Knowledge panels present structured factual information — typically about a person, place, organization, or entity — in a boxed module, usually on the right side of desktop results. SISTRIX recorded a 16.7% position-1 CTR on SERPs with a knowledge panel, less than half the pure-organic baseline. The mechanism is straightforward: many entity queries ("when was X founded," "X headquarters") are fully answered by the panel, so the searcher never needs to click an organic result at all.

People Also Ask

People Also Ask (PAA) boxes present a set of expandable related questions, each revealing an answer drawn from a ranking page when clicked. PAA appears on a large share of searches and absorbs a meaningful slice of interaction that never reaches a standard organic listing. Measured as its own clickable element, PAA receives roughly a 3.0% CTR — comparable to a result ranking around position 7. Because PAA answers expand in place and PAA clicks are not captured in standard clickstream data, the feature both satisfies intent on the page and routes an unknown volume of clicks to the sites cited within it, depressing aggregate organic CTR for the queries where it appears.

Commercial Features: Ads and Shopping

On transactional and product queries, paid features push organic CTR to its lowest levels. SISTRIX found that SERPs with Google Ads at the top return an 18.8% position-1 organic CTR, while SERPs led by a Google Shopping carousel set the floor among conventional layouts at just 13.7%. Both displace organic listings further down the visible page and divert a share of commercial-intent clicks into paid placements.

Google Ads suppress organic CTR fairly uniformly: SISTRIX found that the paid block at the top of the page pushes position-1 organic CTR roughly ten percentage points below its average, with no offsetting gain for the results beneath it. Shopping carousels behave similarly, displacing organic listings down the page and routing transactional clicks into the product block.

Visual and Local Features

Several features occupy vertical space and reroute clicks toward specialized result types rather than standard links.

Video Carousels and Image Packs

Video carousels — horizontally scrollable rows of video results — appear in a substantial share of searches; Semrush Sensor data places video carousels in roughly 28% of searches overall, rising well above 40% in categories such as hobbies and leisure. Image packs appear especially often on mobile, where they show up roughly 13% more frequently than on desktop. Both features insert a visually dominant block into the results flow, pulling clicks toward Google's image and video properties and pushing standard organic listings further down the page. The net effect on text-result CTR is suppressive, though the magnitude varies by query category and by how high in the page the feature is placed.

Local Pack

The local pack — the map-and-three-listings module on queries with local intent — has a distinctive click profile. Roughly 42% of users click a local pack result when searching with local intent, and the CTR curve within the pack is notably flat: dropping from first to third position inside the map block loses only about 2.5 percentage points, compared with a far steeper falloff in standard organic results. For local businesses, this means inclusion in the pack matters far more than exact ordering within it — a dynamic explored in NavBoost and local SEO, where geographically segmented click behavior carries particular weight.

AI Overviews: The Newest Disruptor

AI Overviews (AIOs) are the most significant recent change to SERP composition. When present, an AIO occupies the top of the page with a generated, multi-paragraph answer that frequently resolves the query without any click. Composite 2025–2026 measurements place position-1 organic CTR at roughly 11–15% on AIO-present SERPs, the lowest of any common layout, and Ahrefs found an approximately 58% reduction in clicks to the top organic result when an AI Overview is shown.

The aggregate effect is reflected in zero-click data: roughly 83% of searches end without a click when an AI Overview is present, versus around 60% without one. The full mechanics of this shift, including how clicks redistribute toward lower positions as users scroll past the overview, are covered in how AI Overviews changed CTR and in the broader analysis of zero-click searches.

How Glue Assembles the Page

The system responsible for combining these heterogeneous features into a single ranked page is described in the leaked documentation and antitrust testimony as Glue. Where NavBoost re-ranks the standard web (text) results, Glue extends the same click-and-interaction logic to the full universal results page — featured snippets, PAA, image packs, video carousels, knowledge panels, and the rest.

Glue ranks these blocks using their own engagement signals. Each feature competes for vertical position based partly on how users have historically interacted with it for similar queries: hovers, swipes, expansions, and clicks on the feature itself, not just on organic links. This means the SERP layout a searcher sees is not fixed by query type alone; it is itself a click-shaped outcome. A feature that consistently draws engagement on a class of queries will tend to be assembled higher on the page, which in turn shapes the click distribution available to every organic result below it.

The practical consequence is that SERP features and organic clicks are not independent. The features present on a page are determined in part by the same kind of behavioral data that NavBoost uses to rank organic results, and they then constrain how that organic ranking translates into actual traffic. For more on how these re-ranking layers stack, see the broader treatment of Twiddlers and re-ranking.

Features and NavBoost's "Expected" CTR

A central idea in click-based re-ranking is that NavBoost does not reward raw click volume in isolation; it evaluates whether a result performs better or worse than expected given its context. The presence of SERP features changes that expectation directly.

Consider two results, each ranking first and each earning a 25% CTR. On a pure-organic SERP, where the expected position-1 CTR is 34.2%, a 25% result is underperforming — a possible signal of a weak title, a mismatched snippet, or a query the page does not satisfy well. On a featured-snippet SERP, where the expected position-1 CTR is 23.3%, the same 25% result is slightly overperforming. Identical raw CTR; opposite implications. This is why the expected-CTR curve must be conditioned on layout, a point developed in the CTR curve and expected CTR by position.

The evidence indicates NavBoost evaluates clicks within the context of the SERP they occurred on rather than against a single universal benchmark. The system's strongest positive signal, lastLongestClicks — the final, longest-dwell click in a session — is also largely feature-agnostic in a useful way: regardless of how cluttered the SERP was, it rewards the result the searcher ultimately settled on. A page that wins the lastLongestClick despite competing against an AI Overview, a snippet, and a shopping block has demonstrated genuine preference under adverse conditions, which is arguably a stronger endorsement than the same outcome on a clean page.

Strategic Implications

Several practical conclusions follow from the layout-dependence of CTR.

Evaluate keywords by SERP, not just volume

Keyword research that stops at search volume systematically misjudges traffic potential. A query that triggers a feature-heavy SERP has a lower clickable ceiling than its volume implies, while a query returning a pure-organic page may over-deliver. Layered into any keyword evaluation should be a simple classification of the live SERP: pure organic, snippet-led, answer-led, commercial, or AIO-present.

Target the feature, not just the ranking

On SERPs where a feature captures the majority of attention, the most valuable real estate may be the feature itself rather than the first conventional listing. Earning the featured snippet, appearing within the PAA set, or ranking inside the local pack can outperform a hard-won position-1 organic ranking on the same page. The optimization target shifts from "rank first" to "occupy the element that holds the clicks."

Defend post-click satisfaction regardless of layout

Whatever the SERP composition, the clicks a result does earn must be satisfied. A feature-suppressed CTR is survivable; pogo-sticking on the clicks that remain is not, because it generates badClicks that compound the disadvantage. Reducing pogo-sticking — through fast pages, clear above-the-fold answers, and intent-matched content — is covered in how to reduce pogo-sticking. The harder it is to earn a click in a feature-rich SERP, the more each earned click is worth protecting.

SERP Feature Summary

The following table consolidates the major features, their typical effect on organic CTR, and the strategic response each invites.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do SERP features lower organic click-through rate?

In most cases, yes. SISTRIX data on more than 80 million keywords shows position-1 organic CTR falling from 34.2% on a pure-organic SERP to 23.3% with a featured snippet, 16.7% with a knowledge panel, and 13.7% when a Google Shopping carousel sits at the top. The main exception is sitelinks, a navigational feature, which raises position-1 CTR to 46.9% because the SERP is dominated by a single intended destination.

Why does a featured snippet reduce the click-through rate of the result below it?

A featured snippet answers many queries directly on the results page, so a portion of searchers never click through. SISTRIX measured position-1 CTR at 23.3% when a featured snippet is present, below the 34.2% pure-organic figure, while the snippet position itself captures roughly 42.9% of clicks. The snippet effectively consolidates clicks at the top and resolves the query for everyone else. See featured snippets and CTR for the full breakdown.

Which SERP feature increases organic CTR?

Sitelinks are the only common feature that raises organic CTR. SISTRIX recorded a 46.9% position-1 CTR on SERPs with sitelinks, well above the 34.2% pure-organic baseline. Sitelinks appear almost exclusively on navigational queries where the searcher already intends to reach one specific site, so the dominant result captures an outsized share of clicks.

Does NavBoost account for SERP features when measuring clicks?

The evidence indicates NavBoost evaluates clicks within the context of the SERP they occurred on. Because the expected click distribution differs sharply by layout, a result that earns clicks despite a feature-heavy SERP demonstrates stronger user preference than the same raw CTR on a pure-organic page. NavBoost's strongest signal, lastLongestClicks, is also feature-agnostic in that it rewards the result a searcher ultimately settles on, regardless of how the SERP was assembled. See What is NavBoost? for the foundational overview.

How does Glue relate to SERP features and clicks?

Glue is the system the 2024 API leak and antitrust testimony describe as assembling the universal results page from many candidate blocks, ranking features such as featured snippets, People Also Ask, image packs, and video carousels alongside the standard organic links using their own click and interaction signals. Glue is, in effect, NavBoost applied to the full mix of SERP elements rather than to organic results alone. See Glue and click signals.

Should SEO strategy account for SERP features before targeting a keyword?

The data strongly supports reading the live SERP first. Two keywords with identical search volume can deliver very different traffic depending on whether the results page is pure organic, snippet-led, shopping-led, or topped by an AI Overview. Because position-1 CTR ranges from roughly 11% to 46.9% by layout, the SERP composition is often a better predictor of clickable traffic than volume or rank alone.

Further Reading

• CTR by Google Search Position — the position-by-position benchmarks that SERP features modify.
• Featured Snippets and CTR — how position zero consolidates clicks and resolves queries.
• How AI Overviews Changed CTR — the newest and most disruptive SERP feature.
• Glue: Ranking Universal Search Results — the system that assembles features alongside organic links.
• Zero-Click Searches — the broader trend of searches that end without a click.
• What is NavBoost? — the foundational overview of Google's click re-ranking system.