In a hangout, John Mueller received a submitted question from an SEO professional who was concerned about search features like Google Business Profiles or Map Packs.
They were curious about how Google Search Console includes rankings for the Google Map Packs, People Also Ask, in metrics such as average position and clicks.
If Google Search Console does not include these metrics, then what’s the best way to see if their website is ranking in those different types of features?
John answered that yes, they do include all of the features in the performance report data in Search Console.
It’s just not individually labeled.
At any time, they will try to do that whenever they show a URL from the site in the search results.
They will show that as an impression for that website for that query within Search Console. Average position also goes into play here.
Furthermore, average position is really not like the average position on a page, rather, it is the average top position.
If your page, or website, is visible in position three, four, and five, for example, they will track three as kind of the position for that individual query.
All of this comes into that already.
The one thing that Search Console does not do, however, is it doesn’t show a breakdown by individual feature type.
It’s not possible to go in and say something like “where is my website always being shown within Google business profiles, or within the map searches?” Google Search Console does not show that.
They do, however, count that as an impression for these queries individually. You could take these queries, try them out in a search, and see exactly where your website is being shown, and follow it back like that.
Then sometimes, there are different features in the normal search results that makes these kinds of metrics very challenging to track.
One example here is that, if they show the image from the website at the top in the images thumbnail in the normal search results, then this could also account for the website appearing in the rankings for that query.
If you examine the search results in a textual way, then you may not see that kind of ranking immediately.
This happens at approximately the 27:47 mark in the video.
John Mueller Hangout Transcript
John (Submitted Question) 27:47
Okay, let me run through some of the submitted questions. And I’ll get to more of the people who’ve raised their hands as well, later on.
Let’s see, the first one I have on my list: Since a number of features are increasing in search results–I guess that’s similar to before–I’m wondering if and how Google Search Console is including rankings. For example, the Google map packs, or people also ask in metrics like average position, clicks, etc.
If not, what’s the best way to see if my website is ranking in these kind of different features?
John (Answer) 28:21
So for the most part, yes we do include all of that in the performance report data in Search Console. So anytime–or at least, we try to do that–anytime we show a URL from your website in the search results, we’ll show that as an impression for that website for that query.
The average position also goes into play there. And the average position is not like the average position on a page, but the average top position. So if your page, if your website is visible in position three, four, and five, for example, then we’ll track three as kind of the position for that individual query. So all of that kind of comes into there already.
What you don’t see is, for a lot of these features, a breakdown by the feature type. So you can’t go in and say like, where is my website always being shown within Google business profiles, or within the map searches, we don’t show that. But we do count that as an impression for those individual queries. So you could take those queries, try them out and see where your website is being shown, and kind of try to follow it back like that.
And sometimes the different features in the normal search results make things tricky to track. For example, if we show an image from your website on top in the kind of the images thumbnail in a normal search results page, then we’ll also account that as your website appearing in the ranking for that query, and if If you look at the search results, kind of in a textual way, then you might not see that immediately.
But all of that should come into play. When we launch new features, where we also list a website, we do try to watch out to make sure that we also include that in Search Console. So it shouldn’t be the case that we show a link to your website and not track that as an impression with the position and kind of the clicks in Search Console.
