hi, I checked the google webmaster tools for search queries section. It says it shows the impressions of your sites listing in google results. One of my sites had almost 300 impressions and average position said #24. I changed the date range to last 2 days still the average ranking was the same. But on checking google manually it did not show my site anywhere in the top 50 results. How is this possible. and What does the impressions for a particular keyword on second page and third page or specific position actually mean.
Number of impressions count you see in the WMT means the number of times your site has been displayed to a particular keyword search. The stats we see are normally updated every 24hrs. So if you check out for the actual results as shown in the WMT, it may not exactly match to it. It is because of the Time difference between your search and Google's tracking. Also, the difference can be because of Google's personalized variations! With the latest development from Google in the form of Instant, you see good variations(either increase or decrease) in the total number of impressions to your website. Impressions according to Google Instant is counted like this: Google Instant changes the way we think about impressions. With Google Instant, an impression is counted if a user takes an action to choose a query (for example, presses the Enter key or clicks the Search button), clicks a link on the results page, or stops typing for three or more seconds. It's possible that this feature may increase or decrease your overall impression levels. However, Google Instant may ultimately improve the quality of your clicks since it helps users type queries that more directly connect them with the answers they need.