Position--Do I care?

If I have impressions, what's the difference?

[aplusses]

I have some keywords that are pretty broad, they are getting Positions of in the 40's and 50's. But they're getting more impressions than most of my narrow keywords, where I'm positioned in the single-digits.

So, is position particularly important by itself, or is it just a way it estimate impressions, which can be forgotten about when I can see the actual impressions coming in regardless?

And finally, what's the difference (that is, how much difference IS it) between being, say, position 4, and position 7? I figure that ads get shown at ANY position, it's just that higher-ranked ones get a higher percentage. Is that right? And if so, what's the breakdown? Does #1 get 50% chance of showing, #2 gets 25%, #3 gets 12.5%, etc., or what? It can't be that #1 always gets shown, because when you refresh, they change.

Sorry if this is a noob question. But I'm a noob. :)

[skibum]

Welcome aplusses:)

For most of us, it's all about ROI so if you're getting clicks and sales at position 50, they are just as valuable as if you are appearing on the first page. Just have to find the sweet spot in terms of cost per click to maximize your profit, cost per lead or whatever the conversion metric is.

There are generally 8-10 ad shown on each page (depending on whether there are any ads in the top-2 premium spots), so an ad in position 1 should get the same number of impressions as an ad in say, position 5 unless the top 1 or 2 ads are in the premium position, in which case they tend to stay there as the consumer scrolls through the pages and they rack up more impressions. The limiting factor, if the ads don't get full delivery and the keywords are all active is usually the daily budget.

[wayne]

There are generally 8-10 ads on a page on
Google, but on their search network there are
many times less than this per page.

[MovingOnUp]

For searches on Google, the first 8-10 will all get the same number of impressions since they will all show on the first page of every search. But impressions aren't want you want. You want clicks. An ad in position 1 will get a higher CTR than the same ad in position 2, which will get a higher CTR than the same ad in position 3, and so on. So, the higher your position, the better your CTR will be. That means that you'll get more clicks as your position goes up.

There's really not a lot of difference between 30 and 35, but there's quite a difference between 3 and 7 or even between 1 and 3.

[aplusses]

Thanks for all of the replies.

Now, so far I have no content impressions, but when that starts for me also, how does the position work? Some sites may only be showing one ad, other may show several. When I go to sites using AdSense, the ads change when I refresh the page. So, the #1 position isn't always getting on there every time. How does that work?