Impressions in Google Analytics
-
I am trying to compare SERP impressions in Google Analtyics between two different time periods.
I want to compare the last two months, with the previous two months.
Now this works fine when I go to Traffic Sources > SEO > Queries.
Our analytics has been set up since early last year, so I cannot understand why, for a couple of weeks at the start of the previous two months, it is showing that I have less than 10 impressions per day, then in one day, it jumps to 22,000 impressions, and starts to show 'real' information after that...
Very frustrating when I am trying to show how effective my work has been.
Can anyone shed any light on this?
-
Worth a try, thanks!!
It will be far better when i have a full year of data
-
Miranda,
I am sure Doug is correct as to the reason for the "spike."
Now, a work around could be found in Places, especially if you did some work around their local. You could look at who is looking and coming to the site, etc. Keywords, etc.
I would certainly give that a try as well.
Best -
How about going into TRAFFIC SOURCES, All Traffic.
Set the Secondary Dimention to Traffic Sources / Keyword
Select the keyword you wish to plot from the list. and click the plot rows button.
You can plot a couple of keywords to do comparisons over time...
-
I feel your pain!
Without the historic data it's difficult to see what impact you've had. Maybe now Analytics is receiving this data it'll give us more history to go by - once enough time has passed to make it relevant.
-
webmaster tools kills me, I have to keep downloading the data every two weeks or so as they keep moving the history goal posts.
have never actually got round to trying to compare the data though
-
Not just seasonality. Our brand name is our main keyword. So even though we have had a huge jump in traffic, a lot of people come directly to the site. So in Jan it looks like our SEO is doing worse than before. We infact we are now targeting/appearing/and getting clicks for hundreds more keywords than before.
-
That looks the same as mine - think this just related to the date when the SEO data was made available in Google analytics.
You can't get historic information from Google Webmaster tools either can you.
-
Great thinking, seasonality didn't come top mind - I'll have to remember that. Possibly give you a heads up for developing niches that you should be targetting more directly too I guess.
"Then in one day, it jumps to 22,000 impressions" which seems a a bit extreme though. Once things settle down, what's the average impressions/day? Was it JUST impressions that went silly on that one day, how did this relate to clicks/average ranking?
Can you tie changes to your impressions to activity on your site?
-
This shows just as much seasonality.
Our site is very busy in Jan for instance. 1 keyword term that we always rank number 1 for, from before I started and still today... returned 6,000 vistis in first two months, and only 2,000 in last two months. Even though this term is definately appearing top in all searches.
It is quite hard to show the impact of your work sometimes on a big website I find
-
and guys, I am not trying to show total impressions, as I realised this in not accurate for what I want to show. What I am trying to show is how many impressions & click throughs we are getting from ceratin keywords, in comparison to the past.
-
-
Looking at organic search traffic too.
Impressions are great for showing the difference from appearing on page 2 to appearing on page 1.
Is there anyway to compare over time, the percentage of overall traffic that a keyword has sent. So at the minute I can see a keyword, how many visits it has sent in a given time period and how many visits it sent in the compared time period. I see a percentage change - But this change does not take into account the seasonality of my searchers. I want to see a percentage change of visits from the keyword with regards to 'total visits'
(october 11th is when my impressions start)
-
Doug,
Overall, I agree and good thinking. The other issue is impressions can be more influenced by seasonality, etc. I think she would be better served looking at site visits and the associated keywords along with time on site, and bounce rate, conversions, etc.
If she has 3 terms around widgets: Blue widgets, Green turtle widgets, and moving purple lion widgets that were all fully active during a given period, she can compare apples to apples in each time span.
Best
Edit: And I would still like to see a screen shot.
-
Miranda, Is there any way you can send a screen shot or two? I am having a bit of trouble getting what is going on in my mind.
How does the data look for the first two month period compared to the second? -
What date range are you looking at? My SEO Queries data in Google Analytics only became available in the middle of September.
Before that it looks like 0 impressions.
How sure are you that this is going to give you the evidence you need to show how effective you work has been?
Impressions are just going to show you the number of races you're running - not how well you've performed? It'll give you a view as to how broad your content is a feel for your long-tail.
You've already taking a look at organic search traffic over time?
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Cross domain tracking Google Analytics
Hi there, Got a question on cross domain tracking: We have a couple of TLD's to serve localized content to our visitors, next to our main .com TLD where our app is running as well in a subdomain. Situation is this: Local sites:
Reporting & Analytics | | jorisbrabants
marketingsite.be
marketingsite.com.br
marketingsite.fr Main site: marketingsite.com
app.marketingsite.com Conversion gets triggered when somebody ends up in app.marketingsite.com/firstuse for example. People can sign up at the local site filling in their email but they end up in app.marketingsite.com/firstuse Reading this article on cross domain tracking I'm getting a bit confused on the setup of the tracking code itself. The sample code provided shows these two lines: ga('require', 'linker'); ga('linker:autoLink', ['maindomain.com','targetdomain.com']); Now the question 🙂 Is it correct when I think that maindomain should be replaced with our local TLD's on every one of those, and that targetdomain is where the conversion happens? In this case the .com site?0 -
Linking Multiple Niche Site In Same Google Analytics Account
Hi, I am providing SEO for Local business. Is it advisable to separate out the Google Analytics into different Google account or is it ok to remain it this way? Some of the client might be in the same niche, and might be competing with the same keywords as well. What I was worried is, Google might see these sites as same owner and only rank for 1 of the site. I was thinking to get the owners to register for their own Google Analytics and share the access to me.
Reporting & Analytics | | JonathanSoh0 -
Google Analytics for example.com and www.example.com
Hello. I have had a Google Analytics account set up to track the property www.example.com for several years. In Google Webmaster Tools, I recently set the preferred domain to example.com (without the www), and we put in a rewrite from www to no-www in the .htaccess file. Should I now change the url of the property in Google Analytics to example.com (without the www), or does Google Analytics see the two urls as the same? Thank you!
Reporting & Analytics | | nyc-seo0 -
Google Analytics set up for non-canonicalized domains
Our client's website is non-canonicalized (www.example.com & example.com load the same thing). Google seems to have made a preference for the www, but canonicalizing to www breaks their Flash website. All we're really trying to do at this time is install Google Analytics for them. What's the smartest way to make sure that both www.example.com and example.com are treated exactly the same by Google Analytics? Google Developers: Domains & Directories states that by default visit data will be separately collected between the two domains, although I found no references to the common www/naked domain issue. In stackoverflow: Does google analytics combine naked domains with the www subdomain? Török Gábor says, "Yes, users will be tracked, but the same visitor coming from www.datalookups.com and datalookups.com will be counted as two different visitors." On the same page, Open SEO says, "This is completely false: www.domain.tld and domain.tld are treaded just the same, and get the same value for the HASH code (the number at the start of each __utm cookie). This an exception: every other subdomain.domain.tld will be handeld as a distinct web site". Can any Analytics experts help me sort this out? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | GOODSIR0 -
Can you re sit the Google analytics IQ test?
Damn I just failed the Google analytics IQ test with a score of 65% 😞 You need 80% to pass... My natural instinct is to resit but after 30 mins of googling around Ive got no answer to the following question: "Can you resit the Google Analytics IQ test for free or do you have to pay again". Any insights welcome...
Reporting & Analytics | | Nightwing0 -
Comparing % Change, Google Analytics
Hey Mozzers, Is there a simple way to compare the "% Change" in traffic when comparing two separate time periods in a single Google Analytics report? When comparing data from two separate time periods, an exported CSV doesn't include the % Change (booo!), and there's no option to sort by % Change within the GA report, essentially forcing you to scroll through all the results to pinpoint the major movers and shakers. I'm not averse to using spreadsheets to sort this data, but I'm thinking that I'd likely need a macro to make this work, something like this. However, none of the macros on that page are working (possibly because they were designed for a previous version of Analytics). All suggestions are appreciated. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | dangaul0 -
Google analytics advanced segments
Ok, I need help with a simple (although, for some reason, I'm having trouble with it) advanced segment. Dilemma**:** All of our techs have a backend cookie that they use to log into our website. I want a way toexclude all visites where the landing page contained this in the url:/backend/cookie.php?username= Advanced Segment: We have a lot of techs and each one of them has a different "username=example". So how can I set up an advanced segment where it will exclude any visit where the visitor came in one a landing page containing /backend/cookie.php?username=
Reporting & Analytics | | NerdsOnCall0 -
Google Analytics | REAL TIME
So I noticed today that there is now Real Time Data: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2011/09/whats-happening-on-your-site-right-now.html and I cannot figure out how to access this.
Reporting & Analytics | | joseph.chambers1