How to interpret search "clicks" in GA?
-
I am trying to make some sense of the data in the "Landing Pages" report under "Search Engine Optimization" in GA versus the data under the "Landing Pages" report in "Behavior | Site Content".
For example, the SEO report says my page http://www.asiantraveltips.com/blog/bangkok-skytrain-bts-mrt-lines/ received 22,000 search impressions in the past 30 days and 900 "clicks" (12.42%). What are these "clicks" when the Content "Landing Pages" report says the same page only got 382 "sessions" in the same period???
What are these "clicks" if not clicks on the search results link that should be reflected in landing page sessions on the corresponding page?
-
Just a quick PS here Charles, this is a new segment I've added to my site called "image traffic" that looks at the traffic I receive from Google Search (inspired by your answer).
ef28008b890400b0d9938303c9df3050 d13240144d12a100dd3ff1e8868227db
-
Yes Matt, he did. I only just saw this response - I must have missed the email notification. Thank you Charles for all the work you put into this and for finding the answer. I really appreciate it. Love learning something new.
-
Hi there Customer.Insight.Team!
Did Charles answer your question?
-
Ok, my friend. I have an answer for you
I have attached three screenshots. So, #1 - the problem is that under Acquisition->SEO->Landing pages amount of clicks include not only Google Web Search, but also Google Image Search. So, you can see that you got 900 clicks on image search results from the page of skytrain lines and only 90 from web results. Google doesn't track traffic through image search. (Good post with good sources on this matter)
#2 - I checked google organic traffic for your website - it's 2268 sessions.
#3 - I filtered out images search from reporting results - I got 1900 clicks.
Here you go. Number match (at least these are normal, expected numbers). Clicks are less than sessions, because sessions include cached, repetative etc results.
Problem Solved
-
OK, I think these are the screens you want to see, but I also gave you access to my GA so you could take a look directly.
7d50a1cd02167a908c717ab7c2bd2b2c efd3fb53f6a803f49d5f7bccfe065856 d71ea821b30d58d6ca0e7c9ea72b7c7d
-
UPDATE: I might have an idea why it's happening:
All data, displayed under Acquisition->SEO->Landing Pages is taken from connected Google Webmaster Tools (or they call it now Search Console). So, if you have several properties from GMT connected to the same Google analytics account, you gonna be getting THE SUM of data from all GMT accounts.
If I look at my GA and GMT accounts now, the data (clicks and impressions) I see is matching with less than 1% margin. So, if that's not happening in your case, you might have several GMT accounts connected!(?)
Attach the screenshot of GMT too, make sure to check impressions and view by page url (radio button things).
-
Ok, my friend. Something reeeeally weird going on. My first guess - improper tagging. And this is why I think so:
I see that in all traffic by channels there were 2810 sessions for organic search. At the same time under SEO->Landing pages the number states 7549 clicks. That's like 2.5 times difference!
Please, do this: do the same screenshots as above, but with time period ending on August 18 (so those two last days, which are not included under SEO don't dilute data). Also, when you are taking screeshot of Behaviour->Site content->Landing Pages, add secondary dimension Source, so we see actual number of sessions coming from google.
If you want, you can give me restricted access to your google analytics, so I can look at it directly: [email protected]
-
Not using Adwords or segments/filters on this account. Here are the screen shots you asked for. Don't worry about the drop off in traffic, that's just a link promo ending.
34127269ea9643fa1561a37f614a01e2 9f5c97d53a4620c6a9cece8594a65f10 af8df768ea256db65bd05131b0f37a75
-
Hi there.
This is very interesting. I manage about 30 different accounts and I don't see mismatches in any of them. Now, my only thoughts on this matter are: under "Search Engine Optimization" no data is available from most recent two days, at the same time it shows data only for top 1000 daily landing pages. Also you can't use segments in this report, so, maybe your data under "Behavior" is being automatically filtered by segment?
Also keep in mind that under "Search Engine Optimization" clicks do not include traffic from adwords. So, if your website gets a lot of adwords traffic, that might be the reason.
Would you mind leaving screenshots of those three pages (Acquisition->SEO->landing pages, sorted by clicks; Behaviour->site content->landing pages;Aquisition->all traffic->channels)?
-
Is Adwords linked up?
Have you tagged the landing pages of your display campaigns using URL builder https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en-GB thereafter the correct data should be translated into GA.
Hope that assists.
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
-
Can Anyone help me with Google search console soft 404 error?
Hello everyone, I just build one site on WordPress and submitted it to the Google search console along with the sitemap. Some URLs got indexed but one of my URL is showing error in Search console. My post https://hotpass.site/create-subdomain-godaddy/ is showing soft error 404 webpage not available in Google search console. I have rechecked the site and seo settings. Nothing is there. I have even checked it with LIVE URL test. But still Search console is not accepting this URL. Can anyone help me with this? Help will be appriciated.
Reporting & Analytics | | Pauline210 -
"Display" referrals on google analytics
We have just had 200+ visits on the 'Display' channel within 5 minutes - these referrals are from all over the world and this is very out the ordinary for our business - should we be concerned? 9cHllwW
Reporting & Analytics | | RayflexGroup0 -
How to Track Button Clicks as Events in Universal Analytic using New Interface of GTM?
Hello Experts, How to Track Button Clicks as Events in Universal Analytic using New Interface of GTM? Also is there anything code we have to do on website also to track buttons? Sorry to say request please don't just share any post, please give specific answer or share very relevant post. Your input is really very valuable to me. Regards, Mitesh
Reporting & Analytics | | bkmitesh0 -
Google Analytics shows most referrers as "Direct" -- What are some better tools?
Very often Google Analytics will show 50-90% of our referrers as (direct) which is not very helpful. Are there other tools out there that will provide a clearer breakdown of what other websites are sending us our traffic? Specifically, I want to be able to be able to tell who are the top traffic referrers to my top performing pages on my site for the last 30 days. (I want to be able to study this on a per-page basis.) Thanks in advance!
Reporting & Analytics | | Brand_Psychic0 -
How can i see queries what my visitors are searching for, in my website?
Google analytics installed, but they are not showing. What additional things should i add there? I need to see most popular search queries and add more content to these pages for panda.
Reporting & Analytics | | bele0 -
An initial set up question - linking to GA
when viewing campaign it indicates there is a problem linking to our GA account but the details entered are correct. Any ideas what the problem might be - nothing on the campaign settings page gives me a clue. There is a highlighted box saying disconnect from GA but nothing else. The only thing i can think of is that the GA account was set up by a third party and we have access to view it - could it be a permissions problem?
Reporting & Analytics | | GreatGifts4Kids0 -
Switching from synchronous to asynchronous code in GA
Morning all, I'm looking to integrate GA with Webmasters tools but to do so I need to have the new asynchronous GA code implemented into my website. Now, I'm happy to just copy and paste the new code into my site footer, but will that any effect on the data that I've already tracked? Is there any reason why this is really not a good idea? Thanks for your help,
Reporting & Analytics | | theshortstack0