Search Console Performance report: clicks, CTR and position
Short answer: Clicks count visits from Google to your site, impressions count how often a link to your site appeared in results, CTR is clicks divided by impressions, and average position is the topmost spot your site held, averaged across the times it was seen. The numbers are most useful in combination: high impressions with low CTR usually means a title or snippet problem, and positions between roughly 8 and 20 point to pages one improvement away from page one. Read them per page and per query, not just as site totals.
The Performance report is the closest thing a small business has to a free, honest view of how Google sees its site. It's also easy to misread. A rising average position can be bad news, and a falling CTR can be good news. Here's what each number actually means, according to Google's own help pages, followed by four analyses worth doing every quarter.
Metric by metric
Clicks
Google counts a click when someone clicks a result that takes them to a page outside Google Search, Discover or News. Clicking the same result twice in one session counts once. Clicks on links that run a new search inside Google, which Google calls query refinements, don't count.
Trap: Clicks here rarely match visits in your analytics tool, because the two count different things in different ways. Use Search Console for search trends, analytics for what happens after the visit.
Impressions
An impression means a user saw, or potentially saw, a link to your site. For a normal results page, it counts if your result is on the current page, even if the user never scrolled down to it. In carousels and expandable sections, the item typically has to be scrolled into view or expanded.
Trap: Impressions are counted differently depending on grouping. Google's help explains that when data is grouped by property (queries, countries, devices, dates), several links from your site in one result count as one impression; grouped by page, each page gets its own. That's why chart totals and table totals can disagree.
CTR (click-through rate)
Simply clicks divided by impressions.
Trap: CTR falls naturally when you start appearing for more searches further down the page. A site-wide CTR drop alongside rising impressions can be a sign of growth, not trouble.
Average position
Google records the topmost position your site occupied for each query, then averages it across the queries where you were seen. Its help gives the example: one query with your site at positions 2, 4 and 6 counts as 2; another at 3, 5 and 9 counts as 3; the average is 2.5. A position is only recorded when there was an impression. A knowledge panel or carousel occupies one position for all its links.
Trap: In the chart, it's the average for your whole site; in the table, it's per row. A page appearing for many new, distant queries can see its average position "worsen" while its clicks grow.
Settings before you analyze
- Date range: the default is the last three months. Use three months for recent work and longer ranges to account for seasons.
- Search type: Google splits web (text and multimodal searches such as Google Lens), image, video and news. Look at web first, separately from images.
- Dimensions: Queries, Pages, Countries, Devices, Search appearance and Dates.
- Granularity: daily to spot sudden changes, weekly or monthly to see trends.
- Preliminary data: the newest data may still change and is shown as a dotted line.
Google also notes that you may not see your site when you run a query yourself, because results depend on time, place, device and history. Don't panic-search your own keywords.
Four practical analyses
1. Pages with titles that don't earn the click
How: Pages tab, all four metrics on, sort by Impressions. Look for pages with lots of impressions and a CTR clearly below your other pages at a similar position.
What it means: People see the result and pick something else. Rewrite the title and meta description to state exactly what the page offers. Then click into the page and check its Queries tab to make sure the page matches what people are actually searching.
2. Pages sitting just off page one
How: Pages tab, filter average position between about 8 and 20, sort by Impressions.
What it means: These pages are relevant enough to be shown but not convincing enough to rank higher. Improving the content, adding internal links from related pages, or answering the main query more directly often moves them more than starting new pages from scratch.
3. Device gaps
How: Pick a key page, then the Devices tab. Compare CTR and position on mobile vs desktop.
What it means: If mobile CTR lags well behind desktop at similar positions, look at the page on a phone: slow load, intrusive pop-ups or a title that truncates badly on small screens are common causes.
4. Query and page mismatch
How: Queries tab, click a query that matters to your business, then the Pages tab. See which of your pages Google shows for it.
What it means: If Google shows a blog post for "emergency plumber [town]" instead of your service page, the service page isn't clearly the best answer. Strengthen it and link to it from the post. If two pages trade places for the same query, consider whether they should be merged.
Sharing and exporting
The Share button gives someone a link to the current view only, without access to the rest of your property. Exports include chart and table data; Google notes that values shown as "~" or "-" become zeros in the download.
FAQ
What's a good CTR?
There's no universal benchmark; it depends on position, query type and what else appears on the page. Compare your own pages at similar positions.
Why is average position 1 but clicks are low?
You may rank first for searches nobody makes often, or for searches answered right on the results page. Check impressions for those queries.
Why does the chart total differ from the table total?
Google aggregates the chart by property, while the table aggregates by page when you group by Pages or Search appearance.
How often should I check?
Monthly for trends, quarterly for the four analyses above. Daily checking mostly shows noise.
If the report keeps showing pages with plenty of impressions and few clicks, we can rewrite their titles and test what changes.