What is click-through rate, and how is it calculated?

What click-through rate measures in Search Console and Google Ads

Click-through rate (CTR) is the share of people who saw your result or ad and then clicked it, calculated as clicks divided by impressions. Five clicks from 100 impressions is a CTR of 5%. Google Search Console reports it for your organic search results, and Google Ads reports it for each ad, listing and keyword. Google says a good CTR is relative to what you advertise and where, so it has no single target number.

How an engagement works.

Sources read October 11, 2026 · by Heddle

The formula

CTR is clicks divided by impressions. An impression is a time your result or ad was shown. A click is a time someone chose it. Google Ads gives the worked example of 5 clicks from 100 impressions, which is a CTR of 5%.

CTR in Search Console

The Performance report in Search Console shows clicks, impressions, CTR and average position for your site in Google Search results. You can group the data by query, page, country, device, search appearance or date, and see which pages have the highest and lowest CTR.

How results are counted matters. The chart aggregates by property, so two of your results on one query count as one impression. The table aggregates by page when grouped by Pages or Search appearance. Google notes that this is the usual reason chart and table totals differ.

CTR in Google Ads

Google Ads uses CTR to show how well keywords, ads and free listings perform. Google describes a high CTR as a good sign that users find an ad or listing helpful and relevant. CTR also feeds a keyword's expected CTR, which is part of Ad Rank.

Sources

Each was read on October 11, 2026.

What the sources say

Google Ads defines CTR as clicks divided by impressions, with the example that 5 clicks and 100 impressions give a CTR of 5% (support.google.com/google-ads)
Search Console defines CTR as the click count divided by the impression count (support.google.com/webmasters)
Google Ads says a good CTR is relative to what you are advertising and on which networks (support.google.com/google-ads)
In Google Ads, CTR contributes to a keyword's expected CTR, which is a component of Ad Rank (support.google.com/google-ads)
Each ad, listing and keyword in Google Ads has its own CTR shown in the account (support.google.com/google-ads)
The Search Console Performance report's default view shows the past three months of click and impression data (support.google.com/webmasters)
In the Search Console chart, data is aggregated by property, so two results from the same site for one query count as a single impression (support.google.com/webmasters)
Search Console table data grouped by Pages or Search appearance is aggregated by page, so chart totals can differ from table totals (support.google.com/webmasters)

Questions

What is a good click-through rate?

Google gives no single figure. Its Google Ads help says a good CTR is relative to what you are advertising and on which networks, so compare against your own ads, keywords and pages.

Where can I see the CTR of my organic search results?

In the Performance report in Google Search Console. It shows CTR alongside clicks, impressions and average position, and it can be grouped by query or by page.

Why do Search Console chart and table CTR totals differ?

The chart aggregates data by property and the table aggregates by page for some groupings, such as Pages. Google says this difference in aggregation usually explains the gap.

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