Glossary
What is Search lost abs. top IS (rank)?
Melvin Salas1 min readVerified 9 October 2026
Short answer
Google's definition: Search lost absolute top impression share (rank) estimates how often your ad wasn't the very first ad among top ads due to poor Ad Rank. Its partner column, Search lost abs. top IS (budget), estimates how often the same thing happened due to a low budget.
Search abs. top IS, the share it explains, is the impressions you've received in the absolute top, the very first ad among top ads, divided by the estimated number of impressions you were eligible to receive among top ads. Our reading: a loss here can mean the ad showed among top ads but not first, or not among top ads at all. The column does not separate the two.
Ad Rank has more than one input. Google says it considers ad quality in establishing your Ad Rank, and that the amount you bid may affect your Ad Rank but doesn't impact the assessment of your ad quality. Our reading: the column names Ad Rank as the constraint, not which of its inputs to change.
Read it next to Search lost top IS (rank), which Google says estimates how often your ad didn't show anywhere among top ads due to poor Ad Rank. Our reading: a large loss on the absolute top column with a small one on the top column points at the first slot, not at a place among top ads.
Two scope notes. Search partners don't distinguish between 'top' and 'others' and won't be included in impression share data, Google says. And for Shopping campaigns, Google describes absolute top impression share as the percentage of your Shopping ad impressions shown in the most prominent Shopping position. Our reading: that Shopping figure is a different measurement from this Search column.
Reading these columns is daily work for us
Riibon watches every campaign daily and holds a baseline for each metric, so a move in impression share or Quality Score is judged against what is normal for that account, not against a rule of thumb, before anyone acts on it.
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