On 10 September 2026, John Mueller, Search Advocate at Google, wrote on the r/SEO forum on Reddit that "the old 'position 1 - 10' is hard to map, or to make useful for site owners". Google tracks generative AI placements as a block, with no individual position, and that data does not appear in the Search Console generative AI report. Any company steering its SEO on an average position is now following an indicator that Google itself calls hard to make useful.
The facts
- The statement answers a question asked on Reddit on 10 September: how are impressions from generative AI results counted in Search Console? Mueller points to the help page, explains that position for these placements is hard to do in a way that makes it useful, that Google therefore tracks it as a block, as it does for many search features, and that it is not separated out in the generative AI report. He ends by asking SEOs what would be useful for tracking position, and says he is happy to discuss it with the team. Search Engine Roundtable reproduced the exchange the same day.
- The help page he refers to, "What are impressions, clicks and position?", already documents that logic: an AI Overview occupies a single position in the results, and every link inside it receives that same position; AI Mode follows the methodology of a standard results page; a click on an external link inside an AI Overview or in AI Mode counts as a click. Those clicks go into the total of the standard performance report, mixed in with organic clicks.
- The generative AI report itself was launched on 3 June 2026 for a subset of UK sites, under pressure from the UK competition authority, then extended to every site on 31 August. According to its help page, it shows impressions by page, country, device and date, with no clicks, queries or position, does not distinguish AI Overviews from AI Mode, and only appears above an impressions threshold.
- The day before, on 9 September, two independent data providers, AlsoAsked and Allintitle, measured 97% to 100% of AI-generated answers in the People Also Ask block, up from 12.6% in July 2025. An external measurement and an internal statement describe, one day apart, the same results page: blocks selected by AI, with no rank from 1 to 10.
Why is average position no longer enough to steer SEO reporting?
A Google results page in 2026 stacks an AI Overview whose citations share a single position, a People Also Ask block filled with generated answers, featured snippets, carousels, and then an organic list whose order varies with personalisation and layout tests. Asking what position a site holds assumes a single queue. That queue no longer exists on most commercial queries. Mueller does not propose a replacement indicator: he asks the community what would be useful, which means nothing has been settled at Google at this stage.
For a company, the consequence shows up in its monthly reporting. An average position curve can stay flat while a site loses clicks to an AI Overview, or while it gains citations inside that same overview without moving a single rank in the organic list. We have re-read reports of this kind for clients who came to us with a stable position and falling traffic: the curve showed nothing, because the movement was happening in a block it does not measure. Average position is still calculated for standard results, but it no longer says where visibility is decided.
What Search Console already lets you track: the impressions in the generative AI report, by page and by country, which say whether the site is visible in AI Overviews and AI Mode without saying at what rank; the clicks and impressions of the standard report, read page by page, bearing in mind that traffic from AI answers is mixed in; and the gap between stable impressions and falling clicks, the signature of an answer now given on the results page. What Search Console does not measure: the share of answers that actually name the company, in Google as in ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity. That share is measured with a panel of queries replayed at regular intervals, the method described in our GEO guide.
AIxH's view
A monthly report built on a single position curve reassures without saying where visibility is decided. Our SEO agency in Luxembourg now reads Search Console by page and by country, with the impressions of the generative AI report next to standard clicks, and our GEO team completes that reading with a panel of queries that measures actual citations in AI answers. If your SEO reporting still rests on an average position, a free GSO audit, requested through our contact form, shows within days what that curve cannot see.
