Ahrefs May 2025 study (Patrick Stox, 1M random URLs first seen Sept 2023) — only 1.74% of newly published pages rank top-10 within a year (down from 5.7% in 2017); 72.9% of top-10 pages >3 years old; avg #1 ranking page is 5 years old

Claim: Ahrefs' May 2025 study by Patrick Stox, analyzing 1 million random URLs first seen in September 2023, found:

• "Only 1.74% of newly published pages rank in the top 10 within a year (down from 5.7% in 2017)."
• "40.82% of pages that ranked in the top 10 did so within 1 month" (those that succeed, succeed fast).
• "72.9% of pages in Google's top 10 are more than 3 years old (up from 59% in 2017)."
• "The average #1 ranking page is 5 years old."

A separate earlier Ahrefs study found only 0.3% of pages ranked in the top 10 for a high-volume keyword within a year.

Source: Ahrefs, May 2025 study, Patrick Stox.

Confidence: Verified (large-N study, methodology disclosed).

Caveat: Vendor flag — Ahrefs sells SEO tooling and benefits from challenging "fast ranking" narratives that make their tools look ineffective. However, the methodology (1M random URLs, defined cohort, multi-year trend comparison) is robust and the headline finding (very low fast-rank base rate) is the strategically useful number for setting client expectations. The base rate for fast success is low.