why are avg. position stats so wrong?

misled me into upping my bids unnecessarily

[buenavista]

frequently avg. position reported for a KY is inaccurately LOW, i was scanning down the avg. pos. column and automatically upping my bids on ones below my desired minimum...until i started checking actual position by searching the KY.
example, avg. position supposedly 10.2, my actual
position 1!. more frequently avg. position in 3 to 4 range, my actual 1 or 2.
any ideas on this?

(my focus and KYs are targeted at one 1mm population city with the city name/variants in all KYs, if that makes any difference)

[Robsp]

The average position displays your average over all countries you run your campaign. Hence the search results and positions vary from country to country, depending on (local) competition. You can e.g. check how your add is displayed in the US by adding &gl=us to your google commandline (unless you are in the US but then us UK to test the UK).

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Also be aware that you are looking at your average position for a particular date range. (You can set this date range just above the stats, and to the right a bit.)

Let's say your Ad Group has been running for six months, and for three of those months you had a very low Max CPC, and therefore a low Ad Position. Well, if you are looking at the date range of 'all time', those very low positions are averaged into your 'Avg. Pos'. And it'll seen way lower than what you'd expect currently.

In other words, the Avg. Pos. for 'all time' can be very different than Avg. Pos. for 'yesterday'.

So keep your eye on that date range. It is a sticky setting which stays where you put it. I make it a practice to glance at the date range every time I review stats.

AWA

[buenavista]

sound advice, thank you! but......
the date is set at today or yesterday (depending upon the time of day i am checking), never back for long periods; also, the geo. area is always set at usa only, so an average of several countries is not germane

[seasalt]

AWA:

That being said, buenavista makes an accurate observation.

I have seen the same thing across many keywords that are in various positions and that have various levels of competition. And yes, the natural tendancy is to overbid. But if one looks at their actual position on Google Search and the partner sites, a more accurate assessment of an ad's placement can be obtained. The average position stats give a good general indication of placement but are about as accurate as Google's traffic estimates.

I run a country specific campaign using exact match exclusively - so it is very easy to track this phenomenon. As far as date range, I keep mine on the current 'Today' stats only, and I see this discrepancy daily.

buenavista - Trust what you actually see.

seasalt

[Robert Scott]

I agree with seasalt. Perhaps it is due to people pausing or resuming ads and Google is unable to keep up to date with what is happening.

Having said that, I found Adword's reporting to be more accurate in the early days. At some point last year they made changes to this tool and it has been inaccurate ever since.