GlossarySEO
What is average position?
Also called: avg position, search ranking
Definition
Average position in Search Console is the mean of your topmost ranking across the searches where your site appeared. 1 is the top result. It's an average, so it can hide very different positions.
Average position, explained
Search Console calls position a relative ranking of your link on Google, where 1 is the topmost position. For each search where you appeared, it records the topmost position any link to your site held. If you showed up at positions 2, 4 and 6 on the same page, only 2 counts. Then it averages that number across all the searches.
Google counts positions down the main column of results first, then the side column. Results pages also include features like AI Overviews and "People also ask" boxes, so "position 4" doesn't always mean the fourth plain blue link on the screen.
The average is where people get misled. A page that ranks 3rd for one small query and 60th for a big one can show an average of 30-something, which describes neither. When you start ranking for many new long-tail queries at poor positions, your site-wide average position can get worse even as clicks go up. That's normal growth, not decline.
Use average position at the page and query level instead. Filter to one query and one page, and it becomes meaningful: you can see whether that page is creeping onto page one or sliding off it. Pages averaging between roughly 5 and 20 for queries with real impressions are the ones most worth improving. They're close enough that a better title, more internal links or a stronger section can move them.
For context, our own product Versely showed an average position of 11.8 over the three months to September 19, 2026. On a site with thousands of long-tail pages, that single number says very little about any individual page.
Why it matters for founders
Founders often read a worsening average position as failure when the site is actually growing. Knowing how the number is built stops bad decisions and points you to the pages near page one that deserve work.
Example
Your site's average position drops from 9 to 14 in a month while clicks double. Looking at queries, you find dozens of new long-tail terms at positions 20 to 40 dragging the average down. Nothing broke.
Common mistakes
- Tracking only the site-wide average.
- Reading a lower average as lost rankings without checking queries.
- Comparing average positions across date ranges with very different query sets.
- Ignoring pages stuck just off page one.
Sources
Checked
Related terms
- ImpressionsIn Google Search Console, an impression is counted each time a link to your site appears in a search result someone is shown. It measures visibility, not visits.
- Click-through rate (CTR)Click-through rate (CTR) is the share of impressions that turned into clicks: clicks divided by impressions. In Search Console it shows how often people who saw your result in Google chose it.
- SERPA SERP (search engine results page) is the page a search engine shows after a query: the list of links plus features like AI Overviews, featured snippets, videos, ads and "People also ask" boxes.
- Title tagA title tag is the
<title>element in a page's HTML. Google usually uses it for the clickable headline of a search result, and it's one of the clearest signals of what the page is about.