Enjoy the Sunset: Google Has Retired the Average Position Metric

At the end of September, Google retired average position as a metric.

This was a big change. For years, clients, agencies, and advertisers have always had at least a little bit of vanity management, aiming for results page one above the fold. At some point everyone submitted a bid with the sole goal of being “number one,” without much thought to any actual business metric.

One meaningful business metric to consider is cost per click. Jason Tabeling explores this in his latest article in Search Engine Watch.

Average Position Is Meaningless in a World of Personalized Search

This change was implemented to acknowledge that the average position is not meaningful when you’re in a world of personalized search. Ending vanity bidding is just a beneficial side effect. Looking at some data, specifically CPC and CTR, it’s interesting to see how performance varies for top and side positions. An even more compelling story emerges when we compare how these metrics vary on Google.com versus search partners. Check out the whole story.

Read the complete blog on Search Engine Watch

About the Author

As EVP of Product Management, Jason Tabeling creates a unified strategic roadmap for the organization across its full suite of products. Jason joined BrandMuscle as Senior Vice President of Digital in 2016. Shortly after, he led strategic efforts to combine the digital, traditional, social media and event marketing teams at BrandMuscle into a single department and center of excellence for BrandMuscle’s clients. Today that team totals 95 and counting. Under his leadership, client demand and satisfaction have grown and employees have thrived.