Average position
What is average position?
Average position is the average ranking of your site in Google Search results, weighted by impressions. In Search Console, each time your site appears, Google takes the position of your topmost result on that results page, then averages those positions across all impressions. Position 1 is the top; lower numbers are better.
Positions are counted from the top of the page and include some SERP features. A link inside a featured snippet or an AI Overview gets the position of that element. Elements such as a carousel share one position, so every item inside it has the same position number. Searches where your site does not appear at all are not counted, which is why average position can improve even as visibility falls.
Why average position matters for SEO
Average position is a useful trend line, not a ranking. It blends every query, device and country together. If you start ranking at position 60 for hundreds of new long-tail queries, your average position gets worse even though your traffic grows. If you lose those rankings, it gets better.
Read it per query and per page, and alongside impressions and clicks. For a precise position on one query in one place, use rank tracking, which checks the live results instead of averaging what users saw.
How to read average position
- Filter the Search Console Performance report to one query, or one page plus one query, before reading the number.
- Split by device and country. A position of 5 on mobile in the UK and 15 on desktop in the US averages to something meaningless.
- Check impressions at the same time. A better position with far fewer impressions usually means you stopped appearing for deep queries, not that you climbed.
- Use positions 5 to 20 with good impressions as a list of striking distance keywords.
Average position example
A page appears 3 times for one query: once at position 2, once at position 4 and once at position 9. Its average position is (2 + 4 + 9) ÷ 3 = 5. If the same site had two URLs on one of those pages, at positions 2 and 7, only position 2 counts for the site.
Average position FAQ
Why did my average position improve but traffic drop?
Most often because you lost impressions for queries where you ranked low. Fewer deep rankings pull the average up while total visibility shrinks. Many sites saw this in September 2025 when Google stopped honouring the num=100 parameter.
Is average position the same as my ranking?
No. It is an average across every time you appeared, for every user, location and device. Your ranking for one query in one place at one moment can be quite different.
Related SEO terms
Rank tracking is checking where your pages rank in search results for chosen keywords over time, by device and location, to measure SEO progress.
A keyword ranking is the position a page holds in search results for a given query, in a given place and on a given device.
Impressions count how often a link to your site appeared in search results that someone viewed, whether or not they clicked it.
Search Console Performance report
The Search Console Performance report shows clicks, impressions, CTR and average position for your site in Google Search, by query, page and more.
Striking distance keywords are queries a page ranks for just off the top spots, roughly positions 5-20, where small improvements can bring big gains.