Don’t Be Fooled by CTR—Clicks Are What Matters
Evan Bailyn from First Page Sage recently wrote that the ninth organic website listing has the same click-through rate (CTR) as the number one Google ad—implying that ranking ninth organically is just as good, or even better, than running the top ad.

But… Not So Fast.
With apologies to Evan, the number one Google ad gets way more clicks than the ninth organic listing—by a wide margin.

Evan is a wizard at SEO, but he forgot some basic math.

Why CTR Alone Is Misleading
CTR without considering impressions—that is, how many times an ad or a link is seen—is meaningless.

Here’s the real data from May 2024:

📌 The #1 Google ad was seen 269 million times
📌 The #9 organic result was seen 47 million times

Now, applying Evan’s 2.4% CTR to both:

✅ #1 Google ad → 6.5 million clicks
❌ #9 organic → 1.1 million clicks

The Bottom Line?
🚨 Clicks are what matter. 🚨

And in this case, the ad wins by almost a 6-to-1 margin.