Glossary
What is top of page rate in auction insights?
Melvin Salas1 min readVerified 21 October 2026
Short answer
Top of page rate is a column in the Google Ads auction insights report for Search campaigns only. Google says it tells you how often your ad, or the ad of another advertiser depending on which row you're viewing, was shown at the top of the page, above the unpaid search results. Google's example: if you had 100 impressions out of which 20 impressions appear in any of the positions above the organic search results, the top-of-page rate will be 20%.
The row decides whose ad is counted. Google says the rate is for your ad or another advertiser's ad, depending on which row you're viewing. Our reading: a rival's row holds that rival's own rate, not a comparison between their ads and yours.
It is not Search top IS. Google defines Search top impression share as the impressions that you've received among top ads divided by the estimated number of impressions that you were eligible to receive among top ads. Our reading: Google's top of page rate example counts a share of one advertiser's own impressions, so the auction insights rate describes where the impressions an advertiser did get were placed, while top impression share describes how much of the top of page opportunity they won.
Google says the auction insights report provides six statistics for Search campaigns, and top-of-page rate is one of them. Search partners don't distinguish between 'top' vs 'others', Google says, so they aren't included in the auction insights data, and the report doesn't show insights when impression share is less than 10%.
Our reading: a high top of page rate on a rival's row says where their ads sat, not how many impressions they had. Read it beside the impression share and overlap rate on the same row before treating it as pressure on you.
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