Why it matters to a buyer
Average position is easy to misread on its own, since it blends every appearance, including obscure, long-tail variations of a query where a page happened to rank first with almost no one searching, together with the main, high-volume version of that query. For a buyer, a rising average position paired with flat or falling clicks is a sign to dig into query-level detail rather than celebrate the headline number, since the average alone cannot show whether it moved for a query that actually matters.
How it is measured or applied
It is calculated by Search Console as the average of the highest position a page held each time it appeared for a query, across the reporting period, and is viewed in the Performance report alongside clicks, impressions and click-through rate for full context. It is used most reliably at the individual query level, tracking a specific target term's average position over time, rather than as a single blended figure across an entire site, since a site-wide average position can mask meaningful movement, in either direction, in specific important queries.
Sources
- Search Performance report (Search Console), Google Search Console Help
