Google Ads To Sunset Average Position Metric In September

Google announced that they are going to be sunsetting one of the oldest AdWords (Google Ads) metrics – average position. They are sunsetting it in September 2019 and it has been replaced by four new metrics they launched last November named Impression (Absolute Top) % and Impression (Top) % and Search (Abs Top) IS and Search (Top) IS.

Google wrote “With the availability of these new metrics to understand prominence, we plan to sunset average position in September of this year. If you currently use average position, we recommend that you start using these new metrics when measuring and optimizing for prominence.”

Ginny Marvin at Search Engine Land wrote “Change is constant in search advertising, but average position has one of the few constants for more than 15 years. Yet, with the removal of right rail ads, in particular, its utility has sharply declined in recent years.”

Forum discussion at Twitter.