Google Says Goodbye to Average Position

This September, Google Ads —the popular Google platform specializing in online advertising, formerly known as Google AdWords— will eliminate the average position from its system due to its lack of effectiveness in meeting Google's desired results . It will be replaced with four new metrics that will make it easier to gather information about ads in a clearer and more effective way.

But to clarify, what is the average position of Google Ads?

This metric is one of the ways to classify Google ads and see their relevance to the competition around them; concepts we discussed in previous articles if you'd like more information. To discuss this phenomenon, the ranking in which the ads are placed on a web page comes into play, that is, the order or position in which they are placed according to their relevance to Google and/or its users (or what they pay). However, this average position is not the actual one; rather, it is the position it has in relation to the rest of the competing ads found on the same website. Until now, this form of positioning has been one of the most important ways to advance Google's own campaigns and, therefore, one of the most used. It helped us position ourselves where we wanted and monitor our positioning in the SERPs .

What does Google Ads take into account when ranking your ads higher or lower?

Obviously, the main thing—as a fundamental and fundamental phenomenon for Google—is the quality of the content you offer ; the better it is, the higher your ranking will be. But that's not the only thing it takes into account. Through auctions, Google Ads assigns a position to each ad based on five basic factors . These are:

• Content quality
• Maximum bid or CPC that the advertiser is willing to pay to better position their ad
• Minimum quality of the Keywords or other minimum limits that the advertisement in question must have to participate in the auction
• User search context (their location, keywords used, search devices, intent, etc.)
• Impact, that is, how the announcement will affect Google itself.

Why is this metric being eliminated now?

What does Google have in mind for this September? How do these four new metrics differ from the ones previously implemented? We'll explain below. While it's true that until now it was one of the most important metrics, it has been proven that its results couldn't be considered 100% reliable since, as we mentioned, since 2016, the position it gives us isn't the real one. What happened starting in 2016? Basically, the metric position was no longer a reliable source on which to base our campaign optimization; being number 1 no longer guaranteed anything. This happened as Google Ads changed the way it displayed ads in search results; a fact that unbalanced the standards established until then, and therefore, the average position shown in the column began to be increasingly distant from the actual position of the ad it was analyzing. From that moment on, Google considered the information provided by this metric to be worthless since it wasn't a reliable source, and that's why it has sought alternatives to begin implementing them starting next September. This has been done to facilitate accurate ad knowledge and facilitate campaign optimization. However, Google Ads has stated that it intends to continue its previously mentioned trend of bid automation , thus saying goodbye to manual bidding and increasing automated bidding.

What new metrics will we expect at the beginning of this month?

We are talking about four new improved metrics:

1. First, we find the impression share metric at the absolute top. This metric tells us the percentage of times your ad's ranking increases more or less than your competitors'.
2. Second, we have the top impression share metric. This tells us the number of times our ad surpasses organic search results and, like the previous metric, tells us how many times our ad is ranked above others, either by being in the first position or by being above organic search results in the SERPs.
3. Third, we'll also find the metric that tells us the top impression share, as well as the absolute top (the latest new metric). The top impression share tells us the ratio of impressions our ad has when it actually appears at the top, with those estimated to have appeared above the organic search results. The absolute top impression share tells us the ratio of impressions our ad has when it actually appears at the top, with those estimated by Google Ads to have appeared above.

These metrics allow us to see, in addition to the position of our ads in a clearer and more transparent way, the potential of the keywords we use , as well as advice on which ones we can use to improve them. In short, we can see that the way we position ads has changed, leading to a significant improvement, and it has allowed us to optimize our campaigns in a more realistic and concrete way. The increased information they offer us, the security and concise tracking of our ads, and the clarity of the knowledge provided by the new metrics make our advertising campaigns an easy and effective way that we can monitor through real, daily updated results . If you'd like to learn more and learn the latest news or articles on Google AdWords, you can visit our blog or contact us. As an agency specializing in Google Ads strategy, we'd be happy to assist you.