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?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
How to change domains in Google Analytics without losing the data
Hi there, We recently changed our domain from .COM to .NET so that all our subdomains from external pages matched. Right now in Google Console we have our new .NET website being tracked, but in GA we are still tracking .COM. It is also causing issues with MOZ crawling our site because of the .COM/.NET discrepancy. My question is what is the best way to change our Google Analytics from .COM to .NET without losing historical data and what considerations do we need to change before implementing this? Our team was concerned that just downloading the old data would be too vast and it we wouldn't be able to continue manipulating it dynamically in GA. Thanks!!
Reporting & Analytics | | cPanel-LLC.0 -
UTM Links Showing Up as Separate Pages in Google Analytics
Hey everyone, I was just looking at landing pages in Google Analytics, and in addition to just the URL of the landing page, the UTM links are being listed as separate pages. Is this normal? I anticipated seeing the landing page URL and then using the secondary dimension to see source/medium. If this isn't normal, what would I check next?
Reporting & Analytics | | rachelmeyer0 -
Splitting Google analytics data
Hi Everyone I'm not sure if this can be done but thought i would ask anyway. One of our clients has a website which is a 3 tiered website, basically this means different access levels for different users depending on their ip address. The split is as follows (business 1, business 2 and the general public all see different things and areas within the website) Now what we are wanting to do is essentially split our analytics data for each of the 3 different users on the site, Can this be done through Google analytics? Thanks in advance. ps If im not clear enough let me know and ill try clear it up
Reporting & Analytics | | TheZenAgency0 -
Expert Google Analytics: store with multiple languages and multiple sub-domians
I hope there's some hardcore Analytics shark out there, with a quick reply 🙂 I am setting up a store with multiple languages for a client and need to be able to track multiple sub-domains as a multiple languages in analytics. Example: dk.somedomain.com -> Danish language
Reporting & Analytics | | ReneReinholdt
www.somedomain.com -> English language
no.somedomain.com -> Norweigen language
.. and so on Now what the client would like is to have one single entity with multiple profiles in analytics, like this: somedomain.com
-> www.somedomain.com
-> dk.somedomain.com
-> no.somedomain.com
ex.. So if the client want's to see stats for the English language then he just vlivks the www profile and in case of danish he clicks the dk profile and so on.
problem here is I can't find an analytics help that addresses this specific issue. I have found this but that doesn't seem to cover it:. Any pointers would be greatly appreciated. 🙂0 -
Google Analytics
Hi I added one google analytics account with a third party business as an admin, and I accidentally shared all the accounts of my clients. So this business have access to all my google analytics account. How do I remove them as an admin of all the GA accounts except the one they need? A step by step process is welcomed 🙂 Thank you,
Reporting & Analytics | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Google Analytics help - exporting reports
Hey mozzers, A little help if you will. I am in traffic sources > sources > search > organic I am view keywords and comparing 1 month with another. Now I see what 1 keyword sends 1st month, 2nd month and % Change. I want to export this data to an .xls file. When I do, I end up with a file that shows what 1 keyword sends 1st month and 2nd month, but no % Change! I really need to include this in exported document.... Summary: Analytics hates me. 🙂
Reporting & Analytics | | MirandaP0 -
Un-link Google Analytics
I have set the wrong account/password details for one of my campaigns. How do I 'step back' and choose the correct settings please? Thanks Ian
Reporting & Analytics | | driansmith0 -
Google Keyword Tool versus Google Analytics
Hi I'm trying to establish a methodology to best show the gap between potential and realised organic keyword traffic. To obtain potential keyword traffic I'm using the Google Adwords keyword tool to derive local monthly search volumes for exact keyword matches. To get the realised data I'm using Google Analytics. However, to get the I'm confused as to which is the best way of getting a comparable metric from Google Analytics (GA). I was using custom reports and the 'organic searches' metric. However, this provides different values to a standard report selecting non-paid search in the default advanced segments. What is the best report/metric in GA to use for both organic and paid search volumes that would be comparable to the Google Adwords keyword tool. Thanks Neil
Reporting & Analytics | | mccormackmorrison0