Webmaster Tools Average keyword position
-
Hello!
For the last month i have notices a drastic change in Avg.position for a keyword on my clients site http://livoart.lv keyword: "kapu pieminekļi". According to webmaster tools it went from 13 to 4-2. The problem is that in orgranic search i keep seeing the keyword on the second page and the CTR of the keyword did not change at all. Why would webmaster tools show false data?
-
There can be lots of reasons why GWC data is different from what you see in the Google SERPs. This could be personalization that causing this problem. I mean your results can be different based on your search history and it can be different for Google based on what data center they use.
Also, If you are trusting GWC data and this is your only source of collecting information, you probably need to change this. In my experience GWC’s data is a bit delayed and not really accurate in real time. If you want to know your rankings you can use 3<sup>rd</sup> part tools like SEMRush or Ahrefs.com Positions Explorer to see what keywords you are ranking on and what your exact positions are.
Just a thought!
-
Webmaster Tools' keyword data is what they're saying: it' the AVERAGE position, whenever that keyword showed up in the search results. There are a lot of factors that can prevent you from seeing it in the position that they say it is in:
the timeframe you are looking at in Webmaster Tools (it varies day to day)
the customization or personalization factors
the data is different now than it was 2 days ago (GSC data is delayed by 2 days)
the GSC data may not reflect any penalties that the page or site may have
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
-
How Reliable is the Avg Query Position in GA?
Hi Moz Community, I wanted to know how reliable the average position data is for queries in Google Analytics search console report. I know this report is fairly new this year and the numbers are calculated a bit differently than they were in the old search engine optimization report. I want to know what the biggest differences are between this search console report vs. the old SEO report in GA. I'm also pretty confused about how GA reports on the average position. Obviously it's an average position of whatever date range your choose. But for instance, if your site shows multiples landing pages for one search query will it roll that into the average or just take the landing page that ranks higher? Does the position average take into account video or photo serp results and is this the average across mobile, desktop and tablet? This number has always been a guess since it's sampled data but I want to know how accurate it is. I read this article in 2014 (linked below) but I'm not sure if it all still applies now that that data might be presented differently. https://moz.com/ugc/testing-the-accuracy-of-avg-position-for-search-queries-in-google-webmaster-tools Any answers or discussions would be great here. Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | znotes1 -
Backlinks Tracking Websites/Tools/Software
I have multiple websites that I need to keep track of their backlinks. How do you guys keep track of your backlinks? What are some cool tools that you use ?
Reporting & Analytics | | AngelosS0 -
Mismatch between analytics and webmaster tools
Hi, I've noticed that the Queries report in analytics gives a completely different answer (for impressions, clicks, CTR, Avg. position) to webmaster tools. What gives? Which would you use? Thanks, Amelia
Reporting & Analytics | | CommT0 -
Webmaster Tools and Geolocation
Our site gets a significant amount of traffic from Venezuela, about 9% based on our Google Analytics (the US being 63%). According to Webmaster Tools we get 48% of our clicks from Venezuela. That discrepancy is massive, considering we are an English site. My theory is that they are not allowed/capable of using secure search in Venezuela for some legal reason and therefore their searches are much more 'visible'. Does anyone have any insight?
Reporting & Analytics | | evansluke0 -
Where does the organic keyword information come from in Google Analytics?
I know that Google switch to all encrypted search, but I still show some keywords. Are those keywords that slipped through? Or are they all from Yahoo/Bing?
Reporting & Analytics | | EcommerceSite0 -
Enabling Webmaster Tools data within Analytics
Hello, Im having a hard time connecting webmaster tools within Google Analytics i want to be able to see search queries in GA That's what Google tells me to do : "You can visit the Property Settings page in Analytics account management to change which of your Webmaster Tools sites' data you wish to show, and control which profiles on your Web Property have access to view the data." I cant find "Property Settings Page" in google analytics, or anything that has to do with "Webmaster tools" I was wandering if you can help me on that 🙂 Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | tonyklu0 -
Glitch in Webmaster Tools?
This is REALLY STRANGE! Ok, so I checked my website's overall impressions this AM in Webmaster Tools and it was 18,000 (usually always is in that range slightly plus or minus). I just decided to go into WMT again and now it's 2,500 HOWEVER it shows that the past days and months impressions even far back are 2,500. This doesn't make sense! All the "peaks" are the same, but just lower. Another weird thing, I had 6,000 queries this AM (now it is showing 798). Is anyone else noticing this too?
Reporting & Analytics | | ChrisTS0 -
Does prevent links from being included in Google Webmaster linking sites report?
My client has clean links in edit from nytimes.com. The links do not have nofollow tags. Google Webmaster stopped including links from nytimes.com in the external linking domains report and we don't know why since the URL is still live. The nytimes.com URL includes this tag in the source code: Are links on pages with NOARCHIVE still counted in Google Webmaster linking domains reports?
Reporting & Analytics | | ebenthurston0