Desktop CTR rises while mobile softens, reshaping agency reporting
Desktop CTR is climbing while mobile softens, and AWR’s latest data shows the split can disappear inside blended dashboards.
Branded desktop searches saw top-ten CTR gains ranging from 1.99 to 5.78 percentage points in Advanced Web Ranking’s Q1 2026 CTR report, published June 23, 2026. Desktop click-through rates climbed while mobile softened across millions of search terms and thousands of websites, and the same directional split held across all search intents and 22 industries.
Branded desktop searches saw top-ten CTR gains ranging from 1.99 to 5.78 percentage points, while the single biggest desktop lift came in Family & Parenting, where position 1 rose 7.05 points. Mobile moved the other way, with the largest industry decline in Law, Government, & Politics at position 1, where CTR fell 9.03 points. The pattern also appeared in both branded and unbranded queries, though branded desktop gains were larger and branded mobile movement was more muted.
In AWR’s earlier Q3 2025 work, branded desktop clicks were already fanning down the page, with position 1 losing 1.52 percentage points while positions 2 through 6 gained a combined 8.71 points. GrowthSRC Media found the top organic result’s CTR dropped from 28% to 19% after AI Overviews expanded, and Seer Interactive’s analysis of 53 brands, 5.47 million queries and 2.43 billion impressions showed organic CTR for informational queries with AI Overviews fell 61% since mid-2024.
By April 2026, Seer Interactive was also showing signs of recovery in AI Overview CTR itself, from 1.3% in December 2025 to 2.4% in February 2026, while pages cited in AI Overviews still drew fewer clicks than searches with no AI Overview, but more than uncited pages on the same results page.
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