Advanced Web Ranking's CTR report for Q2 2026, covering April through June, records a combined decline of 5.27 percentage points in desktop clickthrough rates across the top two organic positions, while mobile CTRs at those same positions grew by a combined 6.59 points. The reversal from Q1 — when desktop rates were improving and mobile CTR declined at the top — coincides with the end of a Google Search Console logging error that the report itself does not mention.

The figures represent average international click-through rates by position, compared against the January-to-March window of the Q1 report. Because the numbers aggregate changes across several positions, they do not reflect any single site's performance.

Breakdown by query type

For single-word queries, desktop CTR at position one fell 4.15 points, while mobile at the same position gained 7.42 points. Every position in the top 20 for desktop branded queries dropped between 1.47 and 3.08 points each, yet mobile position one for branded queries rose 1.40 points. Informational, commercial, and location queries followed the same pattern: desktop CTRs down, mobile CTRs up.

Industry results mostly mirrored the device split, with two exceptions. Arts & Entertainment gained 2.40 points at desktop position one. Law, Government, & Politics gained at desktop positions two and three and posted the largest single-position increase among all industries — mobile position one up 17.31 points. The largest single-position drop belonged to Style & Fashion: 13.31 points at desktop position one.

The AI Overview gap widened

The Q2 report also compares CTR on results pages with and without an AI Overview, using U.S. data only. The gap is substantial and, on desktop, wider than in Q1.

On desktop, the combined CTR for positions one and two reached 29.05% on pages without an AI Overview, versus 10.04% on pages that included one — a 19.01-point difference that is 6.03 points larger than the gap recorded in Q1. On mobile, position one earned a 35.95% CTR without an AI Overview and 8.51% with one.

AWR's monthly CTR figures add nuance the quarterly report doesn't capture: U.S. desktop position one on AI Overview pages ranged from a 1.96% CTR in April to 10.23% in June. That spread suggests the quarterly averages smooth over a meaningful within-quarter shift.

A measurement break runs through the data

Here is the caveat that matters most for anyone comparing quarters. Google's Search Console help page states that a logging error caused impressions to be reported inaccurately from May 13, 2025, until April 27, 2026. The issue affected CTR and average position metrics but did not affect click counts.

AWR notes that its free CTR tool draws on Search Console data, and the Q2 report credits its tables to that tool. This means all of the Q1 data falls inside the error window, while most of the Q2 data comes after the fix. Since CTR is calculated by dividing clicks by impressions, every rate in both reports depends on impressions Google says were misreported during the error period. The report does not specify whether its figures were recalculated after the correction.

Anyone running their own Search Console comparisons should treat April 27 as a potential measurement break, not as evidence that user click behavior changed. A sudden shift in CTR around that date is more plausibly an artifact of corrected impression logging.

Confirmed versus inferred

Two things are confirmed: Google documented the Search Console logging error and its April 27 end date, and AWR published the Q2 CTR figures cited above. What remains inference is the cause of the desktop-mobile reversal. The report presents the numbers without attributing the split to the fix, the presence of AI Overviews, or any ranking system change. One quarter of data, measured across a known logging correction, is not enough to establish device-level CTR trends with confidence.

What to watch next

AWR says its Q3 report will determine whether the device split seen in Q2 is "a permanent trend or a temporary seasonal spike." Q3 covers July through September, placing it entirely after Google's correction — the first fully clean quarter in over a year of AWR's reporting. One caveat for that analysis: when comparing Q3 against Q2, remember that most of April sits inside the Q2 window, and the error was still active during that month.