What counts as an impression?

[mwilliams]

Can't seem to find an answer to this on Google. If my ad is ranked low, like #20 for example....and someone searches on a term that triggers my ad, but they only look at the first page of results, does it count as an impression for my ad, which is on page 2 or 3? Or do they have to look at the page my ad is on for it to register as an impression?

Thanks.

[eWhisper]

Each time your ad is displayed, it's counted as an impression.

If someone only sees 10 ads, and you're in position 20, then you aren't counted as having served an impression.

Note, there are some people who have their settings set to display 20-100 results at a time, which does gather more impressions for those in the 20+ region without the ad actually being seen (but it's displayed on the page if someone were to scroll dwn that far).

[mwilliams]

thanks ewhisper! fountain of knowledge as usual.

[Tropical Island]

Keep in mind also that if someone searches a term that only has a few ads in it (all on one page) and then proceeds to drill down to the 5th or 6th page you get 1 impression for every page they click through.