The last 4 weeks of the quarter beat the first 8.
Search does not pay out evenly. The quarter that averaged position 8.8 put over half its clicks at the end.
The short answer
Search work pays at the end, not evenly. In watch.al's first quarter online, Google sent 900 clicks, and 458 of them, over half, arrived between 3 August and 30 August, the final 28 days.
The window on its own
Those 28 days alone: 458 clicks from 33.7k appearances at an average position of 9.7. The quarter as a whole averaged 8.8, so the position got worse while the clicks accelerated. The click rate went the other way, 1.1% over the quarter and 1.4% in those 4 weeks.
That pair of facts matters more than either alone. The growth did not come from ranking higher, it came from being shown for more searches, which is what Google does with a site it has decided to trust. The shares say the same thing twice: half the quarter's clicks came from 41% of its appearances, so what arrived late converted better than what came first.
Why the curve looks like this
A new site spends its first weeks being sampled. Google shows it a little, watches what people do, and widens or narrows accordingly. The clicks that arrive in month 3 were earned by work done in month 1.
Judging search work at week 6 is judging bread halfway through baking. The honest check is the direction of the curve, not the height of it.
What this means for your budget
Try search work for 2 months and stop, and you pay for the flat part of the curve, then walk away before the part it was buying. The quarter's shape says the opposite of what a 2-month invoice suggests.
Check it against your own chart
If you have Search Console, look at your last 90 days and split them in 3. A healthy new site leans the same way: the last third beats the first 2. A flat line for 90 days is the thing to worry about, and worth a conversation.
Send us your Search Console chart and we will read the curve with you, in plain words. Get a free audit.
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