SEO facts
SEO facts worth knowing
Figures from published studies and from Google itself, each with its source. They're the references behind many of the findings in an audit report.
- Sources last checked in September 2026
03 Speed
05 AI search
01
Search results
What people search for, and what Google does with your titles and descriptions.
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44%
of Google searches include a brand name. The other 56% are generic.
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33.4%
of pages in Google's top 10 are shown with a different title from the one in their title tag.
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50.8%
of the titles Google replaces are taken from the page's H1 heading.
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62.8%
of meta descriptions are rewritten by Google in the search results.
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+8.5%
organic traffic after moving the location to the start of the title tag on clinic location pages. The gain came from more clicks, not higher rankings.
02
Content and headings
What the data says about length and structure.
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96.6%
of pages get no traffic from Google at all.
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1,447
words is the average length of a top-10 result, with no relationship between length and position on the first page.
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+4.5%
organic traffic after the first H2 on travel listing pages was changed to an H1, in a controlled split test.
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53.4%
of pages cited in Google's AI Overviews are under 1,000 words. Length and citation showed almost no correlation.
03
Speed
Where speed makes its difference: what visitors do after the click.
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2.5 s
or less is Google's threshold for a good Largest Contentful Paint, measured at the 75th percentile of real visits.
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+21.6%
more visitors reached the form submission page on lead-generation sites after mobile load times improved by 0.1 seconds.
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3×
higher conversion rate for B2B sites that load in 1 second than for those that take 5 seconds.
04
Local search and reviews
What decides the map results, and what reviews do for the business behind them.
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#1
ranking factor for the map results is the primary category on your Google Business Profile, according to 47 local search specialists.
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47
Google reviews on average for businesses in the top 3 local results, against 39 for local businesses overall.
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270%
higher purchase likelihood for a product with five reviews than for one with none.
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4.0-4.7
stars is where purchase likelihood peaks. It falls as ratings approach a perfect 5.0.
05
AI search
How AI answers are changing what people click.
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18%
of Google searches produced an AI summary in March 2025, roughly one in five.
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8%
of visits with an AI summary ended in a click on a regular result, against 15% without one. Only 1% clicked a link inside the summary.
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0.61%
organic click-through rate on queries with an AI Overview, against 1.62% on queries without one.
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+35%
higher organic click-through rate for brands cited inside the AI Overview than for brands that aren't.
06
What Google has said
Three common questions, in Google's own words.
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Word count
“From our point of view the number of words on a page is not a quality factor, not a ranking factor.” John Mueller, Google
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H1 headings
“Your site is going to rank perfectly fine with no H1 tags or with five H1 tags.” John Mueller, Google
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Keywords in URLs
“I believe that is a very small ranking factor. So it is not something I'd really try to force.” John Mueller, Google