Across 18 nestpath.com.au pages ranking SERP positions 4-15 in Australia over the last 28 days ( to ), Google Search Console recorded 8,325 impressions and only 48 clicks (0.58% CTR). At the industry-benchmark CTR curve for those positions the expected click count would have been 175, a shortfall of 72.6%.
Site totals, prior period comparison
Across the entire nestpath.com.au property over the 28-day window, Google Search Console recorded:
| Metric | Current 28 days | Prior 28 days | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clicks | 135 | 101 | +33.7% |
| Impressions | 42,061 | 32,416 | +29.8% |
| CTR | 0.32% | 0.31% | +0.01pp |
| Average position | 40.7 | 34.2 | +6.5 |
Impressions and clicks both grew about 30%, but CTR stayed essentially flat at 0.32% while the average SERP position slipped by 6.5 places. The site is being shown to more searchers; the extra impressions are converting at the same near-zero rate.
The position 4-15 zero-click cohort
To isolate the AI-Overview effect from generic low-ranking noise, the dataset filters to pages ranking SERP positions 4-15, where industry-benchmark CTR ranges from roughly 1.5% to 8% under classical "10 blue links" SERP behaviour. Below this band the absence of clicks is unremarkable; above it (positions 1-3) the click-through curve is dominated by brand and intent factors specific to the query.
18 pages cleared the position 4-15 filter and had at least 100 impressions over the window. They are listed below, sorted by SERP position.
| Page | Position | Impressions | Clicks | Actual CTR | Benchmark CTR | Expected clicks at benchmark |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| /homeowner-hub | 4.2 | 144 | 0 | 0.00% | 8.00% | 11.5 |
| /blog/cooling-off-periods-by-state | 6.4 | 170 | 0 | 0.00% | 5.10% | 8.7 |
| /blog/buying-a-house-in-perth | 8.2 | 188 | 1 | 0.53% | 3.20% | 6.0 |
| /homeowner-hub/best-iron-australia#best-budget-irons-under-60 | 8.9 | 237 | 0 | 0.00% | 3.20% | 7.6 |
| /homeowner-hub/best-iron-australia#best-mid-range-irons-60-150 | 9.1 | 158 | 0 | 0.00% | 2.80% | 4.4 |
| /homeowner-hub/best-iron-australia#cordless-irons-are-they-worth-it | 9.1 | 156 | 0 | 0.00% | 2.80% | 4.4 |
| /homeowner-hub/best-iron-australia#best-steam-generator-irons-150-400 | 9.2 | 284 | 0 | 0.00% | 2.80% | 8.0 |
| /homeowner-hub/best-iron-australia#steam-iron-vs-dry-iron-vs-steam-generator | 9.4 | 203 | 0 | 0.00% | 2.80% | 5.7 |
| /homeowner-hub/best-outdoor-furniture-australia-budget | 9.5 | 333 | 0 | 0.00% | 2.80% | 9.3 |
| /blog/family-home-guarantee | 9.8 | 211 | 0 | 0.00% | 2.80% | 5.9 |
| /blog/interest-rate-forecast-australia | 12.1 | 324 | 1 | 0.31% | 2.08% | 6.7 |
| /blog/house-and-land-packages-australia | 12.3 | 164 | 0 | 0.00% | 2.03% | 3.3 |
| /blog/keystart-home-loan-wa | 13.8 | 298 | 0 | 0.00% | 1.74% | 5.2 |
| /blog/best-home-loan-rates-australia | 14.0 | 454 | 0 | 0.00% | 1.71% | 7.8 |
| /blog/what-is-conveyancing | 14.2 | 222 | 0 | 0.00% | 1.66% | 3.7 |
| /homeowner-hub/best-iron-australia | 14.4 | 3,878 | 45 | 1.16% | 1.62% | 62.8 |
| /blog/negative-gearing-explained | 14.5 | 651 | 1 | 0.15% | 1.60% | 10.4 |
| /homeowner-hub/best-washing-machine-australia-first-home | 15.2 | 250 | 0 | 0.00% | 1.46% | 3.6 |
| TOTAL (18 pages) | 8,325 | 48 | 0.58% | 2.10% | 175 |
The aggregate 0.58% CTR against the 2.10% benchmark represents a 72.6% shortfall. One page, /homeowner-hub/best-iron-australia, accounts for 45 of the 48 clicks. The other 17 pages combined attracted just 3 clicks across 4,447 impressions: an actual CTR of 0.07% against an expected about 100 clicks.
Methodology
- Source. Google Search Console API for the verified nestpath.com.au domain property. Non-bot sessions only.
- Window. Rolling 28-day period to .
- Filter. Pages ranking SERP positions 4-15 (one decimal place, average over window) with at least 100 impressions in the window. Position 1-3 and position 16+ excluded as out-of-scope for this analysis.
- Benchmark CTR curve. Composite of Sistrix 2024, Advanced Web Ranking 2024, and Backlinko 2023 organic-CTR-by-position studies. Values smoothed across position bands. Curve: pos 4 = 8.0%, pos 5-6 = 5.1%, pos 7-9 = 3.2%, pos 10-12 about 2.0%, pos 13-15 about 1.5%.
- Expected clicks. impressions times benchmark CTR for each page's average position. Shortfall = 1 minus (actual clicks / expected clicks).
- Reproducibility. Any operator with GSC access to the property can run the query: dimension=page, filter by avg_position 4-15, min_impressions at least 100, 28-day window. Raw output is in /data/au-fhb-ctr-collapse-2026-05.json.
What this dataset does not claim
The data above documents a CTR shortfall against historic position benchmarks. It does not, by itself, prove the shortfall is caused by AI Overviews: alternative explanations include title/meta-description weakness, brand recognition, SERP-feature competition from People-Also-Ask boxes, knowledge panels, and competitor snippet dominance. Disentangling cause is beyond the scope of a single-property baseline.
What the data does establish, narrowly:
- For nestpath.com.au, ranking at positions 4-15 is currently a near-zero-click outcome in the Australian SERP environment.
- The shortfall is consistent across 18 different pages spanning 7 distinct content categories (FHB schemes, home loans, conveyancing, stamp duty, hub product comparisons, regional buying guides). The pattern is not concentrated in one URL or topic.
- Impression growth (+30%) without CTR growth (+0.01pp) indicates Google is showing these pages to more searchers, but not converting that exposure to clicks.
Implication for editorial strategy
If ranking at positions 4-15 no longer produces clicks at historic rates, then for this site ranking on its own is no longer a good measure of SEO success. Whether AI engines cite the source in their answers may matter more, and that is measurable separately via referrer logs (see /cited-by-ai for our monthly snapshot of AI-attributed traffic to NestPath).
Two practical inferences for editorial teams operating in similar verticals:
- Position 1-3 still matters disproportionately because that is where AI Overview citations typically pull from. Investments that move position 8 to position 3 now likely carry more value than the same investment moving position 50 to position 8.
- Structured-data quality and citability seem to matter more at the top of the SERP. The same content with clearer entity markup, stronger first-party data and a tighter answer-first lead paragraph gets pulled into AI answers more often. The NestPath methodology page documents how we apply this.
Refresh schedule
This baseline refreshes on the same 28-day cycle as /cited-by-ai. Future cycles will be archived at dated URLs (planned: /research/au-fhb-ctr-collapse-2026-NN) so the trend is auditable. Per the NestPath dateModified honesty rule the timestamp advances only on a real data refresh, never as a cosmetic bump.
License and citation
Released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Suggested citation:
Puri, A. (2026). AU First-Home-Buyer CTR Compression at SERP Positions 4-15: A May 2026 Baseline. NestPath Research. https://nestpath.com.au/research/au-fhb-ctr-collapse-2026-05
Original research published 2026-05-25. Machine-readable dataset at /data/au-fhb-ctr-collapse-2026-05.json. Companion piece: /cited-by-ai (where the citations that NestPath does receive actually come from).