This study was designed to help SEOs make the right choices when optimizing and get better return on investment from the search campaigns. The study focused on the CTR curve for organic U.S. results for the top 10 positions in Google and Bing results. What followed once the data was collected was to compare the two curves and the amount of long-tail click-through can a key word have, while enjoying a stable search ranking.

When it came to user behavior, it was studied what impact do images, videos, news, places, and shopping results have.

The Results- Bing Lags Behind:

According to the study of over 170,000 searches, Bing has:

• A 26.32 percent total CTR for the home page


• The top result gets 9.66 percent CTR


• The second position getting 5.51 percent CTR


• The three one receiving 2.74 percent CTR

Google is ahead in the race, with:

• A 52.32 percent total CTR for the home page.



• The top result gets 18.2 percent CTR


• The second position getting 10.05 percent CTR


• The three one receiving 7.22 percent CTR

The respite for Bing:



The silver lining for Bing is that even after a lower overall CTR for each position, the top search positions on Bing have more relative value. Here are the numbers to support the same:

• 36.7 percent of CTRs on the first page go to top organic result.



• 20.9 percent of CTR will go to the second result.

Where as in the case of Google, the top entry gets 34.8 percent CTR while the second result gets a 19.2 click through ratio.

The Big Question- Why Does Bing Have Lower Click Through?

The study points out that if Bing has lower CTR, that does not mean that the engine fails its users with poor results. The users are simple going somewhere else, as the report says, "Possibilities include 'related searches' on the sidebar, re- queries, Page 2, one of the tabs at the top, a paid result, or the images, videos, news, shopping, local listings results within the SERP."

The report also brought to light the fact that Bing is used by users who have it as their default engine. It has older and more female users. And the term Google is searched 117 million times on Google, while 4 million search for the term "Bing" on Google.

Why Should You Optimize For Bing?

Even after this reports and the other comparisons you have studied, it is important for you to optimize for Bing as their algorithm touches on demographics unreachable by Google. Also, Bing runs the back-end of around 30 percent of searches done.

What do you think? Do you optimize for Bing? Do leave your comments behind.