Average position is Google Search Console's ranking metric: the average of your site's topmost position across every impression for a query or page, where 1 is the top result and lower numbers are better. It is an average over all countries, devices and days in the range, not a single live rank.
Why Average Position matters for SEO
Misreading average position causes more bad SEO decisions than almost any other metric. A query at 'position 9' can rank 3rd in one country and 40th in another; a site-wide average falls every time you start appearing for new queries, which is good news reading as bad. It only becomes trustworthy after segmenting by query, country and device.
Pro tip on Average Position
Judge position per query, never site-wide. Segment before investing in a keyword, watch for the step-pattern that signals two of your pages swapping (cannibalization), and in BigQuery exports remember the stored value is zero-based: divide sum_position by impressions and add 1.
Average Position vs Keyword Rankings
Average position is Google's blended average across every impression, country and device. A tracked keyword ranking is one position, for one term, in one location, at one moment. The first tells you trends over your real demand; the second tells you where you stand in a specific race.
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CrawlRaven segments position data per query and flags the swaps and slides worth acting on, so an average never sends you chasing a ghost.
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