• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. Reporting & Analytics
        4. Conflicting average position data from Google Search Console?

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        Conflicting average position data from Google Search Console?

        Reporting & Analytics
        2
        2
        1193
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • BradsDeals
          BradsDeals last edited by

          I'm looking at Google Search Console data in Google Analytics, specifically Average Position as given in the Landing Page report, and the same metric broken out by mobile and desktop in the Devices report.

          In the Landing Page report, I see an aggregated average position that's much higher/worse than an actual average of what is reported for mobile, desktop and tablet traffic under the Device reporting.

          For example:

          • Mobile: 5
          • Desktop: 5
          • Tablet: 5

          So the average still should be roughly 5, right? Why would the Landing Page then show an aggregate Average Position of 8? I wouldn't expect to see a precisely same average given that different device types have different proportions that could render differently when the buckets are combined, but this is a huge swing. In fact, the aggregate Average Position as given in the top level Devices report is closer to 5 than to the 8 shown in the Landing Pages report. (These aren't actual numbers, but are illustrative of what I'm seeing, by the way.) Unless I'm missing some vital difference in the way that Average Position is reporting for the Landing Page report versus the Device reports, it doesn't seem like this should be possible. What am I missing?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • DmitriiK
            DmitriiK last edited by

            Howdy.

            So, here are my thoughts and findings.

            The discrepancy starts in Google Search itself. So it's either algorithmical/calculational bug or there are other metrics used. And i'm inclined to believe the second version.

            Here is my idea - they use sessions or clicks as a metric together with avg position. As far as I know they use this system in other metrics as well. So, here is data for our website, which checks out with all the reports:

            I got a page https://www.regexseo.com/luxury-websites-houston.php and the avg position reported is 22. If i look at the breakdown, it's got 96% of traffic going to desktop and 22 avg position, 2% to mobile with 15 avg position and 0.05% tablet with 14 avg position.

            So, the report checks out, if you think about it like this:
            If to 96% of users your page is ranking #22, and to 2% of users it ranks in #15, wouldn't it make sense to say that on average your page is ranked #22.

            I guess it's more like a weighed avg position then pure avg position.

            Hope it makes sense 🙂

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • 1 / 1
            • First post
              Last post

            Browse Questions

            Explore more categories

            • Moz Tools

              Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

            • SEO Tactics

              Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

            • Community

              Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

            • Digital Marketing

              Chat about tactics outside of SEO

            • Research & Trends

              Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

            • Support

              Connect on product support and feature requests.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • brettmandoes

              How to Diagnose "Crawled - Currently Not Indexed" in Google Search Console

              The new Google Search Console gives a ton of information about which pages were excluded and why, but one that I'm struggling with is "crawled - currently not indexed". I have some clients that have fallen into this pit and I've identified one reason why it's occurring on some of them - they have multiple websites covering the same information (local businesses) - but others I'm completely flummoxed. Does anyone have any experience figuring this one out?

              Reporting & Analytics | | brettmandoes
              2
            • melvinwu

              Any solution to low search traffic on weekend

              Hi. all, https://www.babyment.com is content website. our search traffic always shows a dip on weekend (friday to sunday), anyone has idea why it is like this?  and is there a solution to this? or this is a just normal? Thank you.

              Reporting & Analytics | | melvinwu
              0
            • znotes

              Impression and click discrepancies in Search Console when filtering by date

              I recently filtered query information by week and day. The impression and click totals were different depending on whether I looked at totals by a full weeks or by day. So for example, the impression and click totals when I choose a date range of  monday-sunday are different when I look at impressions and clicks that same week by day and then add up the click and impression numbers to get a weekly total. At first i was expecting a slight difference since I know the data is heavily sampled but the totals were very different. Any explanations for this? Thanks

              Reporting & Analytics | | znotes
              0
            • NachoRetta

              In Google Search Console: Total Clicks differ from the sum clicks on search queries

              Hi.This may be a google technical question, but I've searched a lot and I couldn't find any certain information about that.The problem appears when you look at two stats in Search Console ( WebMasters Tools, some months ago), particulary in the Search Analysis.1- Total clicks2- Sum of clicks at every search query.I attached an image to make me clear.8IZsxs6.png

              Reporting & Analytics | | NachoRetta
              2
            • Cocoonfxmedia

              Google Analytics - Average Position

              Hi Just trying to get some clarity on Google Analytics Average Positions in "Aquistions/Search Engine Optimisation". For a very competitive keyword Google Analytics is saying i am on average position of 6.  Is this Page 6?  I am assuming position six would be 1.6?

              Reporting & Analytics | | Cocoonfxmedia
              0
            • endlessrange

              What is s.ytimg.com in google analytics?

              My clients GA reports 273 visits from s.ytimg.com.  I go to the site, it doesn't exist. I googled it, there were some code with s.ytimg.com in it, but nothing I could understand. Anybody have an idea where this comes from?

              Reporting & Analytics | | endlessrange
              0
            • johnshearer

              AW Stats vs Google Analytics

              Hey Moz Community, I am looking to get opinions on the best practice for analytics/traffic analysis. From experience I know that AW Stats reads high and Google Analytics reads low for traffic for reason in this article http://www.smartz.com/blog/2009/01/23/analytic-confusion-%E2%80%93-awstats-vs-google-analytics/ It drives me a little nuts how far off both are for some pages.  I have one article that shows 100 views (GA) and AW stats shows 5 times that number of views. Any suggestions or systems you recommend? Thanks

              Reporting & Analytics | | johnshearer
              0
            • ErinTM

              How do shortened links show up in Google Analytics?

              Hey, How do shortened links show up in GA? So if I tweet about something and use bitly, does twitter get the referral? I am thinking not. I have never seen bitly show up as a referrer, but we gets lots of clicks from those links. Hmmmm. Anyone? E

              Reporting & Analytics | | ErinTM
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            • Digital Marketers
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.