Why impressions rise without clicks

1. A link on the page counts, seen or not

Google's help page: "In general, an impression is counted whenever an item appears in the current page of results, whether or not the item is scrolled into view". For AI Overviews, "Standard impression rules apply", and "all links in the AI Overview are assigned that same position." [1][1] Search Console Help, "What are impressions, position, and clicks?", https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7042828. Opened 28 Sep 2026. A page linked in the visible part of an AI Overview can earn an impression even when the reader takes the answer and leaves.

2. Assistants search for people, and those searches get counted

Nine queries in the client's data ended with the same machine-written clause: ". my location is [city], [state], australia, australia." Nobody types that. The nine averaged position 3.2 across 33 impressions and got 0 clicks. One of them still contained unfilled template placeholders in square brackets. [2][2] Search Console, the client's property, query dimension, 28 Aug–24 Sep 2026. Totals from the date dimension for the same window. Pulled 28 Sep 2026. The numbers are small, but this is a searcher that doesn't click.

3. Page 2 still collects impressions

An impression counts on page 2 as well as page 1. A search where your page averages position 12 to 15 can collect impressions steadily while earning few or no clicks. Read those impressions as a ranking gap, not as demand you're already meeting.

4. Average position blends phones and desktops

Search Console's average position mixes every device. An average of 7 can mean 7th on a phone and outside the top 40 on a desktop, so a page-1 average isn't proof you appear in the top ten everywhere. I check the live results on both before reporting a page-1 position.

5. The query table shows about a third of the impressions

In the same 28 days, the query rows Search Console lists add up to 11,533 of the site's 35,143 impressions and 203 of its 971 clicks. [2] Google leaves out "anonymized queries", which it describes as "those that aren't issued by more than a few dozen users over a two-to-three month period". They're "always omitted from the tables" but "included in chart totals". [3][3] Google Search Central Blog, "A deep dive into Search Console performance data filtering and limits", 19 Oct 2022, https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2022/10/performance-data-deep-dive. Opened 28 Sep 2026. So impression growth can't be explained one query at a time.

What I do about it

• Report impressions next to clicks, both with their dates, and never call impressions demand or leads.
• Take totals from the date view, never by adding up the query list.
• Tag assistant-shaped queries and report them apart from human searches.
• Before a page-1 claim reaches a client, check it with a live desktop and mobile results check.

My weekly reports follow these rules: see what the retainer covers.