Average position blends the top spot your site held across many searches, towns, devices and personalised results. Read it beside impressions and clicks, filter by country and search type, and watch its direction over months.

Fourth place, apparently

An owner opens Webmaster Tools for the first time in months and clicks through to the search queries report. Beside the main service, the average position reads 4.2.

The natural reading is that the site sits fourth in Google for that search, every time. It does not, and the figure was never meant to say so.

The number is an average of many different searches, made by different people in different places on different devices. Read alone, it hides more than it shows.

How the figure is calculated

Each time a search shows your site, Webmaster Tools notes the highest position any of your pages held on that page of results. Ads are not counted.

Average position is the mean of those top positions across every appearance in the period, so frequent searches weigh more than rare ones.

When two of your pages appear on the same results page, only the higher one counts. Having several pages that match a search does not lift the average.

So 4.2 might mean fourth place every time. It might equally mean first place for nearby searchers and ninth for everyone else.

What gets blended into one number

Several kinds of difference are folded together in that single figure:

The first matters most for a local business. A searcher across town and a searcher two towns away can see very different results for the same words.

Reading it beside impressions and clicks

The report puts impressions, clicks and the click rate beside the average position. Read all four together.

Impressions say how many searches showed the site at all. A query with only a few dozen impressions gives an average that can swing widely from month to month.

Clicks show whether those appearances were worth anything. A middling position that draws plenty of clicks may matter more than a high one that nobody clicks.

A sliding average alongside climbing impressions often means the site has begun appearing in more searches, including some where it sits lower. That can be good news.

Filtering to the searches that matter

The report can be filtered by search type, such as web or mobile, and by country. For a business serving one region, filtering to Canada removes searchers abroad.

Comparing web and mobile shows whether phone searchers see the site further down. That gap often says more than the overall figure does.

The top pages view, rather than the queries view, shows which pages earn the appearances, which helps when one service page matters most.

The report can also show changes against the previous period. That is a quick way to see which queries have moved, provided the impressions are large enough to trust.

A worked example

A computer recycling depot on the edge of a mid-sized city takes old computers, monitors and printers from households and businesses, and wipes or destroys the drives.

The manager saw an average position of 2.8 for computer recycling and assumed the site was nearly first everywhere. Yet callers from the next town kept mentioning that they had found another depot first.

Filtering showed what the average hid. Mobile searches placed the site further down than computer searches, and versions of the query with the neighbouring town's name barely showed the site at all.

The depot added a page about drop-off and pickup for the neighbouring town, linked from the home page, and checked that its Google+ Local listing named the areas it serves.

It now downloads the report each month and follows each town's query separately, rather than the overall number.

A query tied to one town describes one group of searchers, which a single blended number never could.

Why the direction matters more than the number

A single reading of average position says little. The same figure measured monthly, for the same query and the same filters, shows whether things are moving the right way.

Webmaster Tools keeps only about three months of search query data. Download the report each month to a spreadsheet so the trend survives.

Treat a change of a few tenths as noise. Treat a steady drift over several months, always in the same direction, as a signal worth investigating.

What not to do with it

Do not quote average position to anyone, staff or client, without the impressions beside it. It invites exactly the misreading this owner made.

And do not chase the figure for its own sake. A search that brings the right customers matters more than one where the site happens to sit high.

Nor should one poor month cause alarm. Searches for many services follow the calendar, and a depot's busiest weeks may come with spring cleaning rather than in February.

Searching for yourself

Searching for your own business on your own computer is the least reliable check of all. Google tailors results to your location and history, and it knows you visit your site often.

If you must look, sign out and use a private browsing window, and remember that the result is still shaped by where you are sitting.

The counter-case

For a business whose searchers are all in one small town, on similar devices, the average comes close to what most of them see. There, 4.2 may well mean fourth for most customers.

The figure is still a summary, though, and its direction over months says more than any single reading. Read with the impressions beside it, it becomes genuinely useful.

Reading the next report

  1. Find the query that matters most.
  2. Read impressions and clicks beside the position.
  3. Filter by country and by search type.
  4. Compare web and mobile for the same query.
  5. Look for town names in the query list.
  6. Download the report each month.
  7. Watch the direction over several months.

Step six turns the figure into information. Webmaster Tools forgets after about three months, and a trend can only be read from a record someone kept.

Analytics hides most of these same search terms, and keyword data hidden behind not provided explains why and where they can still be found.

Frequently asked questions

Does an average position of 4.2 mean fourth place?

Not necessarily. It averages the highest position your site held across many searches, so it can blend first place for some searchers with ninth or worse for others.

How is average position calculated?

Each time your site appears, Webmaster Tools records the top position any of your pages held. The figure averages those across every appearance in the period.

Why do different people see my site in different places?

Results change with the searcher's location, device and search history. A local service can sit near the top for nearby searchers and much lower for people in the next town.

What should I read alongside average position?

Impressions and clicks. Impressions show how often the site appeared at all, and clicks show whether those appearances brought visits. A position on few impressions can swing widely.

How long does Webmaster Tools keep this data?

The search queries report covers about the last three months. Download it each month to a spreadsheet if you want to see the direction over a longer period.

Is searching for my own business a good check?

It is the least reliable one. Google tailors results to your location and history, and it knows you visit your own site, so your view is rarely a customer's.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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