> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Ranking Distribution, Google Search Console

> A histogram of how your organic queries spread across position buckets (1 to 3, 4 to 10, 11 to 20, 20+) to show the shape of your search presence. How to read it, why it matters, and how to act on it.

**Card class:** [Non-Hero](/nerve-centre/overview#card-classes-explained)  •  **Category:** [Keyword Performance](/nerve-centre/connectors#connectors-by-type)

## At a glance

> **Ranking Distribution** is a histogram showing how many of your Google Search Console queries fall into each position band (typically 1 to 3, 4 to 10, 11 to 20, and 20+). It reveals the shape of your organic presence at a glance: a healthy site has a fat page-one bulge, while a tall 11-to-20 bar marks the queries sitting just off page one, your single biggest pool of quick-win opportunity.

## What it tracks

The detail backing this card is "Ranking Distribution for the selected period." We pull your query set and each query's impression-weighted average position from the Search Console Search Analytics API (`searchanalytics.query` with the `query` dimension) for the chosen date range, then bucket every query by its average position and count how many land in each band, plotting the counts as a histogram. The shape tells the story: queries in band 11 to 20 are on page two and a small relevance or CTR push can lift them into page-one click territory, while a growing 20+ bar warns of relevance or indexing decay. Read it over time and the whole histogram should drift left (toward better positions) as your SEO improves. The card carries no time-window badge or alert; scope it to the dashboard date range and pair it with the position and opportunity siblings to turn the just-off-page-one bar into an action list.

## Reconciling against the source

Approximate this in **Search Console → Performance → Search results → Queries** by enabling the **Average position** column and counting queries within each band, or rebuild it exactly from the Search Analytics API with the `query` dimension. Note Search Console data is typically 2 to 3 days delayed, omits rare (anonymised) queries, and the UI caps at 1,000 rows, so the tail buckets are under-counted in a manual native check; positions are impression-weighted averages, so a query straddling a band boundary can sit in either bucket depending on the period.

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### Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

*Ranking Distribution* 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](https://app.vortexiq.ai/login) or [book a demo](https://www.vortexiq.ai/contact-us) to see this metric running on your own data.