Desktop and mobile click-through rates are trending differently, according to new data from Advanced Web Ranking.
The direction here, especially on desktop, contradicts the latest story in the latest CTR report. Organic clicks have eroded overall as AI Overview has increased, a pattern we’ve compiled here using AWR data and statistics from Ahrefs and Seer Interactive, among others. On desktop, however, the Q1 data points in the opposite direction.
What the Data Shows
First, note that the desktop-mobile comparison uses data from AWR’s CTR tracking tool, which reflects dataset-specific movements rather than direct changes in Google’s algorithm or SERPs.
Across all 22 industries, desktop click-through rates generally increased over two quarters, while mobile dropped to #1.
On desktop, gains came in at the bottom of third place, while on mobile, the #1 spot fell by 2.20 percent, with little change elsewhere in the top ten.
Like many of the SERP analyzes we looked at, AWR also splits the data into branded and unbranded search queries, and the mobile-desktop split held true for both, although the gains for branded desktop were greater overall.
Searches with the desktop name gained all of the top ten positions, from 1.99 percent to 5.78 percent. The changes in mobile-branded searches were minimal. Unbranded queries saw a 3.07 point drop in CTR in the #1 spot on mobile, while desktop spots gained.
Beyond objective classification, AWR divides its data into additional categories, such as keyword length and sector.
According to the report, the desktop-mobile divide is widely held across 22 industries, with significant variation in one area. Of the 22 industries analyzed, the biggest desktop increase was a 7.05 percentage point gain for sites ranked first in Family & Parenting. The biggest decline for mobile was a 9.03 point drop for sites ranked first in Law, Government, and Politics.
Generally, AWR releases aggregate statistics that add up gains across several positions in the top 10, but those aggregate statistics simply summarize individual position changes. They don’t explain what happened in one place. To be clear, when we’re talking about the top-ranked area in any rank-and-file breakdown, the stats for each area actually refer to specific ranked areas.
How This Fits into the Recent CTR Story
The recent string of CTR data has generally pointed downward, alongside the rising prominence of AI Overview in the SERP. Ahrefs data found a 58% drop in CTR for position-one results for queries with AI Display. Seer Interactive similarly measured a drop in that range and Pew Research reported that users who saw an AI summary clicked on “traditional” links less often.
That doesn’t mean desktop gains cancel out months of mobile softness, however. Looking at the Q1 AWR data, it’s tempting to say that this fits well with the recovery signal we’ve started to see elsewhere.
In an April report, Seer reported that CTRs for “organic queries with AI review in the SERP” were up significantly from the mid-December they saw. AWR now adds a desktop-versus-mobile layer to that emerging recovery signal. The difference is that the Seer function separates AI Overview questions, while AWR does not.
In AWR’s report, they monitor CTR benchmarks for all different SERP positions, regardless of whether the SERP includes an AI Overview. Desktop CTR rates increased across the board during the quarter, while mobile was weak at the top. Why? AWR or Seer does not clearly assign a reason for its movement (eg, due to AI Overview or changing ad properties).
Why This Matters
It is increasingly important to consider how your CTR varies across different devices. In the past, the gap between desktop and mobile wasn’t wide enough to worry about if you were using one as a stand-in for the other.
Now, if we stick to single device benchmarks, or worse, combined benchmarks, we risk overestimating mobile and desktop.
Looking Forward
Modeling forward traffic from last month’s impressions and your desktop CTR curve works well if the SERPs remain static, with no AI Overviews, product ads, featured snippets, or other features beyond organic results.
As search results change by device, intent, and factors beyond organic results, the actual curve becomes less reliable.
Featured Image: No_one/Shutterstock
