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On a major search term Webmaster shows that it has achieved an average first page presence of 3.5 over last 28 days (250 impressions - no clicks)
But when I search this search term on Google the site is nowhere to be seen on at least the first 20 pages - the site does have many other lesser search term listings on 1st page.
Why would this page not show up in Google search and yet Google Webmaster Tools report that it has an average rank of 3.5?
From Webmaster Tools FAQ:
Q: The Search Queries feature says that my site ranks #5 for [cookies], but when I search for [cookies] I see it ranking #8 (or I don't see it at all). What gives?
A: Several things:
Different searchers can see different results, based on things like where they're searching from (geographic differences), personalized search factors, momentary fluctuations, etc. The Search Queries data is an average of these searches, so you may not see the same ranking when searching for that keyword right now.
You may be looking at searches done on multiple Google properties (Web Search, Image Search, Mobile Search, etc.) and from many countries (google.com, google.co.uk, google.fr, etc.). Your site may rank highly in Image Search but not in Web Search, or may rank highly in Argentina but not in the US. All of this gets averaged together on the main Search Queries page. You can filter the data shown using the drop-down menus.
https://sites.google.com/site/webmasterhelpforum/en/faq--webmaster-tools
