On 12th August 2019, Google announced that it would be removing the average position metric starting the week of September 30th, 2019. This move builds on their announcement in February 2019 explaining how the availability of new metrics released in November 2018: Impression (Absolute Top) %, Impression (Top) % would be complemented with the availability of: Search absolute top impression share and Search (Top). The average position metric is being removed as the new metrics provided a clearer view of where ads actually appear in a search engine results page (SERP). The average position metric was one of the original metrics in Google Ads when AdWords was launched back in 2000. The evolution of search advertising deems the average position metric less useful when making optimization decisions.
Google recommends “using Search top impression rate and Search absolute top impression rate. These metrics reflect the actual placement of your ad on the page, rather than the position of your ad compared to others.” These new metrics aim to make it easier for advertisers to adjust their bidding to show for the top ad slot in Google to position themselves more accurately in search results.
With the average position metric getting removed, the following features will be disabled:
- Rules using average position
- Custom columns using average position
- Saved reports that filter on average position
- Saved filters with average position
Additionally, the average position metric will also be removed from:
- Saved column sets
- Saved reports that use the average position column, but don’t filter on it
Scorecards that use average position in dashboards
