How much is a #1 position on google worth to your business?

Several years ago... And I know in internet time, that seems like forever, but hear me out.

AOL accidently released some information about the click rates for the top 10 positions in their search results. The sample size is large enough and broad enough that we can infer that this average holds true across many verticals and most likely this data is still relevant today.

With that being said, the data really shows the value of position #1 vs. being in position #2 through #10. This means the difference between each position. And this is great data as can be seen below:

Results in:
Total Searches:9,038,794
Total Clicks: 4,926,623

Click Rank1: 2,075,765
Click Rank2: 586,100 = 3.5x less
Click Rank3: 418,643 = 4.9x less
Click Rank4: 298,532 = 6.9x less
Click Rank5: 242,169 = 8.5x less
Click Rank6: 199,541 = 10.4x less
Click Rank7: 168,080 = 12.3x less
Click Rank8: 148,489 = 14.0x less
Click Rank9: 140,356 = 14.8x less
Click Rank10: 147,551 = 14.1x less

Click Rank1: 2,075,765
Click Rank2: 586,100 = 3.5x less than ^
Click Rank3: 418,643 = 1.4x less than ^
Click Rank4: 298,532 = 1.4x less than ^
Click Rank5: 242,169 = 1.2x less than ^
Click Rank6: 199,541 = 1.2x less than ^
Click Rank7: 168,080 = 1.2x less than ^
Click Rank8: 148,489 = 1.1x less than ^
Click Rank9: 140,356 = 1.05x less than ^
Click Rank10: 147,551 = 1.05x more than ^

I believe that people who think it’s better to be anything other than #1 are just fooling themselves….click through rates and conversions aside, The fact lies that you’ll get 3 1/2 times more traffic being #1 as opposed to #2, and the numbers keep sliding from there.

Someone in the comments then pointed out that the percentage of total clicks was as follows:

Results in:
Total Searches: 9,038,794
Total Clicks: 4,926,623

% of clicks
Click Rank1: 2,075,765 42.13%
Click Rank2: 586,100 11.90%
Click Rank3: 418,643 8.50%
Click Rank4: 298,532 6.06%
Click Rank5: 242,169 4.92%
Click Rank6: 199,541 4.05%
Click Rank7: 168,080 3.41%
Click Rank8: 148,489 3.01%
Click Rank9: 140,356 2.85%
Click Rank10: 147,551 2.99%

However, I am looking to delve into this a little more and attempt to obtain some additional information to find out how many clicks (visits) I can get from being in a certain position. If I know the number of searches a term receives, which is fairly easy data to obtain today in 2010, how can I determine the number of click-thrus.

According to the data above, Total searches were 9,038,794. Of that, 2,075,756 actually clicked #1 . That is a 23% click through rate to the number 1 result. If we take this data as accurate (and we most likely cannot at this time, but will continue to prove the point) we could assume the following click-thru percentages:

Click Rank1: 2,075,765 = 23%
Click Rank2: 586,100 = 6.5%
Click Rank3: 418,643 = 4.6%
Click Rank4: 298,532 = 3.3%
Click Rank5: 242,169 = 2.7%
Click Rank6: 199,541 = 2.2%
Click Rank7: 168,080 = 1.9%
Click Rank8: 148,489 = 1.6%
Click Rank9: 140,356 = 1.5%
Click Rank10: 147,551 = 1.6%

Now to just find out if the actual number of clicks is accurate. I can imagine that this will vary greatly based on the search term and the engine providing the results.