Glossary /Measurement
Impressions
The number of times a site’s listing appeared in search results, counted whether or not anyone scrolled far enough to see it.
An impression is recorded when a listing appears for a query. In Google Search Console the count does not require the result to have been visible on screen — a listing at position 40 that nobody scrolled to still registers — so impressions measure eligibility rather than attention.
That makes them the leading indicator. Impressions rise before clicks when a site starts ranking for a new set of queries, and they fall first when it loses eligibility, which gives a few weeks of warning that a traffic drop is coming.
They are most useful divided by clicks. Impressions climbing while click-through rate sinks usually means new rankings at depths nobody reaches, or a results page where an AI summary now sits above the listing.