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Card class: Non-Hero • Category: Device SEO

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At a glance

Position by Device breaks your average organic-search position into the three device categories Google reports: mobile, desktop and tablet. A lower number is a better ranking, so a taller mobile bar than desktop bar means you rank worse on phones. Because Google indexes mobile-first, a mobile position that lags desktop is an early warning to investigate.

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What it tracks

This card pulls the device dimension from the Google Search Console Search Analytics API and reports the average position metric for each device type as a bar chart. Average position is the impression-weighted mean ranking of your pages for that device across all queries Search Console recorded. The signal that matters most is the gap between mobile and desktop. Google uses mobile-first indexing, so the mobile ranking is the one most users actually experience and the one most tightly coupled to crawling and rendering of your mobile pages. A widening mobile-versus-desktop gap can point to slow mobile page loads, layout or content that differs between viewports, or mobile usability issues. Tablet usually carries low volume and can swing widely, so weight it lightly. Read position together with clicks and click-through rate per device: ranking well on mobile only matters if mobile users click. For the full device picture pair this card with Mobile vs Desktop, CTR by Device, Clicks by Device, Mobile Ranking Distribution and Position by Country.

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Reconciling against the source

Open Search Console, Performance, Search results, add the Device dimension and tick Average position. Search Console data is typically 2 to 3 days delayed, anonymises rare queries and the UI caps at 1,000 rows, so low-volume tablet figures in particular may differ from the API-driven value shown here.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Position by Device is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Google Search Console and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. Start for free or book a demo to see this metric running on your own data.