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.
Google Search Console - Why is my average mobile position better than my average desktop position?
-
I'm wondering why my average mobile position is much better than my average desktop position. I'm wondering if Google is comparing the same queries for both mobile vs desktop or if they're only showing me the top ranked for each type of search.
Is it example 1 or 2?
Example 1: Desktop may have 5,000 ranking queries that average to 21.6
Mobile may have 1,500 ranking queries that average to 8.5OR
Example 2: example.com has 5,000 total ranking keywords, those queries' average ranking in a desktop search 21.6 and mobile search 8.5.
I'm curious to know exactly what I'm seeing in Google's Search Console.

-
Sounds like you rank for a lot more terms on desktop than mobile, and probably not as well for a lot of those terms. In addition, it could be that a lot of the mobile searchers are in your area, which tends to make you rank higher because of the localization.
-
One factor could be your competition is not considered mobile friendly, so they are excluded and that would bring your rank up.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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.
Related Questions
-
Strange landing page in Google Analytics
Hello MOZ Community, The website in question is https://x-y.com/ When i looked at the landing pages report in GA , x-y.com is appended at the end of every URL like this. https://x-y.com/x-y.com When i open the above URL in GA interface, it shows page not found. This is obvious as there is no such URL.
Reporting & Analytics | | Johnroger
The metrics like sessions, Users, Bounce rate all look good. In the property settings, The default URL is written like this http:// cell-gate.com (Please note that s is missing in property settings). But how is traffic tracked correctly How do i solve this problem. What settings should we change to make the landing pages report look ok Thanks0 -
Moz reports way fewer backlinks than google search?
My site is only 11 months old but has steadily (if not slowly) been gaining backlinks. My question, is why Moz shows me at 303 backlinks and Google search console is showing at 1,237? I am more than a little suspicious that this could highlight the reason Moz shows such an unfavorable DA ranking for our site at a DA12. Other competitors that rank for similar keywords to mine are DA 42, DA 65, DA 73, etc. If the largest ranking factor is links, and they have mine reported incorrectly - is this the issue with DA as it relates to sites like mine? Any answer from someone who has experienced similar, or has a definitive answer is more than welcome to chime in! Thanks, Kevin
Reporting & Analytics | | kvncrll0 -
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 | | melvinwu0 -
How can I track my rankings on Google Images?
I noticed a small amount of traffic coming from a particular very generic keyword. Being pleasantly surprised that we are ranking for this, and after some digging, I found that we are actually ranking in Google images, rather than in the web results. How can I track whether other keywords are ranking in Google images? I use Rank Checker to track keywords in the main web results, but this doesn't have a function for Google Images. Help please - thanks.
Reporting & Analytics | | TheJewelleryEd0 -
Google Analytics shows most referrers as "Direct" -- What are some better tools?
Very often Google Analytics will show 50-90% of our referrers as (direct) which is not very helpful. Are there other tools out there that will provide a clearer breakdown of what other websites are sending us our traffic? Specifically, I want to be able to be able to tell who are the top traffic referrers to my top performing pages on my site for the last 30 days. (I want to be able to study this on a per-page basis.) Thanks in advance!
Reporting & Analytics | | Brand_Psychic0 -
How do I manually add transactions to Google Analytics
We are seeing Google Analytic's drop transaction on our site so therefore all the figures are skewed. Is there a way I can manually add transactions to GA to cover the missing one?
Reporting & Analytics | | Towelsrus0 -
How can i see queries what my visitors are searching for, in my website?
Google analytics installed, but they are not showing. What additional things should i add there? I need to see most popular search queries and add more content to these pages for panda.
Reporting & Analytics | | bele0 -
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 | | johnshearer0