What Is Average Position?
Average position is a metric in Google Search Console that shows the mean rank of your pages across all search queries where they received impressions. If your homepage appeared at position 2 for one query and position 8 for another, your average position would be 5. Google calculates this by averaging the highest position your page held for each query in the selected date range.
It is important to understand that average position reflects rank across all queries combined, not just your best-performing ones. A single page can have dozens or hundreds of queries contributing to its average, and each one is weighted equally in the calculation. This means a page with a handful of strong top-3 rankings can still show an average position of 15 if it also ranks on page 2 or 3 for many other related terms.
Google changed how average position is reported in Search Console in 2019, aligning it more closely with the actual position on screen rather than a generalised rank number. SERP features such as featured snippets, knowledge panels, and image carousels affect where organic results appear visually, which can make the reported average position feel higher or lower than the actual user experience.
For South African businesses tracking organic search performance, average position is a useful trend metric. A consistent improvement from position 14 to position 7 over three months indicates that your SEO efforts are moving content in the right direction. However, it should always be read alongside impressions and organic CTR, because a high average position with low impressions may mean you rank well for queries very few people search.
Average Position In Practice
A Pretoria-based law firm running an SEO campaign publishes a series of blog posts targeting questions South Africans commonly search before consulting a lawyer. After three months, their Search Console data shows an average position of 18.4 for the entire site. This initially looks discouraging, but when they filter by their target keywords they see their primary landing pages rank between positions 4 and 9 for high-value queries.
The low overall average is being pulled down by dozens of informational blog posts ranking between positions 20 and 50 as Google begins to index them. This is a normal pattern for growing sites. The SEO team focuses on the queries driving the most impressions and clicks, identifies pages sitting at positions 8 to 15, and prioritises those for content updates, internal linking improvements, and title tag refinements. Over the following two months, several pages move from position 12 to position 5, which doubles their organic CTR and brings in measurably more enquiry form submissions from prospective clients.
What average position is
Average position is a metric, most familiar from Google Search Console, that represents the average ranking position of a site's pages in search results for the queries where they appear, over a given period. If a page shows in search results sometimes at position 3, sometimes at 5, sometimes at 8, its average position is the mean of those positions across the impressions. In Google Search Console, average position can be viewed for the whole site, for individual queries, or for individual pages, giving a sense of how high, on average, the content is appearing in results. A lower number is better (position 1 is the top), so an average position of 3 is stronger than one of 15. Average position is useful for tracking ranking performance over time and spotting trends, whether a page or query is climbing or slipping, and for identifying opportunities, such as queries where the site ranks on the cusp of the first page (around position 8 to 15) that might be pushed higher with improvement. However, average position must be interpreted carefully, because it is an average across many impressions, queries and sometimes personalised or localised results, so it does not represent a single fixed rank and can move for reasons that are not straightforwardly good or bad. Understanding average position matters because it is a core Search Console metric for monitoring how a site is ranking, but one whose average nature requires thoughtful interpretation rather than being read as a simple, literal rank.
Interpreting average position
Interpreting average position sensibly means remembering that it is an average across impressions, queries and result contexts, not a literal single rank, which explains some initially-confusing behaviour. A common example is average position appearing to worsen (rise in number) while traffic increases: this often happens because a page starts ranking for new, additional queries where it appears at lower positions, which pulls the average down even as the extra visibility brings more clicks, so a higher average-position number can accompany more traffic, which is actually a sign of growth, not decline. Conversely, average position can improve if a page stops appearing for the lower-ranked queries, without more traffic. Because of this, average position is best read alongside impressions and clicks, not in isolation: rising impressions and clicks with a slightly higher average-position number usually indicates expanding reach into new queries, whereas falling clicks with a worsening position indicates a genuine problem. For actionable use, average position is valuable at the query and page level: finding specific queries where a page sits just below or at the bottom of the first page highlights near-miss opportunities where targeted improvement (better content, matching intent, on-page optimisation) could lift the page into higher, more clicked positions. Tracking average position for priority queries and pages over time shows whether SEO efforts are moving them up. For a South African business, using Google Search Console's average position at the query and page level, interpreted together with impressions and clicks, is a practical way to monitor ranking performance and spot opportunities, provided its averaged nature is understood so the number is read in context rather than as a single literal rank.
FAQ
What is a good average position in Google Search Console?
A good average position is between 1 and 10, placing your page on the first results page. Positions 1 to 3 attract the most clicks. For South African businesses, even moving from position 15 to position 8 can significantly increase organic traffic and enquiries.
Why did my average position drop even though traffic increased?
Average position is a mean across all queries, including newly indexed low-ranking pages. Adding content that ranks between positions 40 and 60 pulls the average down even as more pages become visible and drive incremental clicks and traffic to your site.