We love being able to help clients move their sites up in Google search using organic methods with search engine optimization and through purchasing Google ads to reach the top of page. Together along with a great social media campaign, you can see some great results – all of which we’d love to help with.
There’s a big change that Google unveiled several months ago that goes into effect in September 2019 that you’ll want to know about. Google plans to “sunset” the average position metric in favor of four new search metrics.
Top of Page
We hear it mentioned a lot…What’s my position on the page or I want to be top of the page. Google in the past delivered this metric to let you know the average position which many found useful.
Don’t worry though – they are replacing it with four new metrics that you’ll start seeing in your monthly reports for our current Google ad clients. These four metrics Google believes will give you a much clearer and more accurate insight into where your ads appear on the search results page.
Google’s Four New Metrics
- Impressions (Absolute Top) % – percent of ad impressions shown as the first ad above organic search results
- Impressions (Top) % – percent of ad impressions shown anywhere above the organic search results.
- Search (Absolute Top) IS – impressions received in the absolute top location (the very first ad above the organic search results) divided by the estimated number of impressions you were eligible to receive in the top location.
- Search (Top) IS – impressions you’ve received in the top location (anywhere above the organic search results) compared to the estimated number of impressions you were eligible to receive in the top location.
Absolute top and top impressions are the ones you’ll be looking at to determine where you are showing up on the page.
Search top and absolute top show eligible top impressions. You can look at these as indicators of the opportunity to show your ads more prominently.
In Conclusion
In conclusion, it’s a change, but not a bad change. These metrics can actually help to tell a better story and also help with finding additional opportunities.
As always, we stand ready to help. Shoot us a note so we can get started.
Source: https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9140484?hl=en
