Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
New GSC Search Analytics report: position mixes web and image
-
Dear all,
I am auditing a site in Google Seach Console (GSC, formerly Google Webmaster Tools) and find the Position data in the new Search Analytics report very, very improbable.
I suspect that even if you filter by "SearchType = web", the Position data does count the ranking of images in the Image search widget as a search position.
Has anybody observed this as well?
Here is the case: the site targets a quite broad search query in the bath room domain. I have made a number of searches with private browser sessions, different browsers, alternative IP address via a VPN, etc, and the look of the search result in the relevant geographical market is consistently the following.
- Three Adwords ads
- #1 organic result
- Images universal results widget
- #2-10 organic results
The site’s first page ranks consistently around #15 of the organic results, hence on the second SERP. But it also consistently has an image in the Images universal results widget (usually #2 or #3).
This is consistent with the data I have in Moz Analytics.
Yet, the GSC Search Analytics report shows 2.2 as average position with the default SearchType=Web setting.
I have done the search over and over, and never has a PAGE of the site ranked that high.
Is there any public information how exactly the position is calculated? I mean, something more precise than the very general information on https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6155685?hl=en
Is there any way to get the correct position/ranking?
Thanks for sharing your experience!
-
Thanks for your observations!
That'd be a really biggy, wouldn't it, if the Position data was really biased by Image boxes?
Did you find any statement by Google on this topic?
Schöne Grüße nach Berlin
Frank
-
When I compare image and web, I can see that image searchers aren't counted as web searchers.
When I check positions, I can see that some search querries of one of my sites are at positions 1.1 to 1.9 based on web and 3.1 to 45.4 based on image search. Thats working - as long as it is picture search vs. web search. And as long as the search querry has no image-box.Now your question - I checked another side wich has a lot of rankings in image boxes in web search. And I think you are right:
- Search Console is telling me I am on the web at postion 1.1
- When I Google it, my picture is the first one in a picture box at the top of the Results.
- Than there is a website (wich is not mine)
- And finally I am on Positon 2 (Picture Box, other Website, my Website)
- the same with a lot of querries. Google is here counting my image result (first result) in a picture box @ web search.
Tried to find some clients - found one. A search result he simply couldn't have with his website. But he had - it was a picture somewhere in the middle of the SERPs. I also saw that google seems to count each image as one result.
So finally you are right. If you have a Picture somewhere in an Image Box (wich is displayed in a Web Search) is a Web Search Position in Google Search Console.
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
-
Strange landing page in Google Analytics
Hello MOZ Community, The website in question is https://x-y.com/ When i looked at the landing pages report in GA , x-y.com is appended at the end of every URL like this. https://x-y.com/x-y.com When i open the above URL in GA interface, it shows page not found. This is obvious as there is no such URL.
Reporting & Analytics | | Johnroger
The metrics like sessions, Users, Bounce rate all look good. In the property settings, The default URL is written like this http:// cell-gate.com (Please note that s is missing in property settings). But how is traffic tracked correctly How do i solve this problem. What settings should we change to make the landing pages report look ok Thanks0 -
Moz reports way fewer backlinks than google search?
My site is only 11 months old but has steadily (if not slowly) been gaining backlinks. My question, is why Moz shows me at 303 backlinks and Google search console is showing at 1,237? I am more than a little suspicious that this could highlight the reason Moz shows such an unfavorable DA ranking for our site at a DA12. Other competitors that rank for similar keywords to mine are DA 42, DA 65, DA 73, etc. If the largest ranking factor is links, and they have mine reported incorrectly - is this the issue with DA as it relates to sites like mine? Any answer from someone who has experienced similar, or has a definitive answer is more than welcome to chime in! Thanks, Kevin
Reporting & Analytics | | kvncrll0 -
Google Analytics Goals - Button Tracking
Does anyone know if there is a really easy way to track a button in Google Analytics yourself? It seems that most button click goal setups involve some use of tricky code and I'm wondering if there is a much easier way to do this that will allow us to simply setup and track certain button clicks as goal conversions in Analytics. Your help here is much appreciated!
Reporting & Analytics | | Gavo0 -
Google Analytics SEO Queries Not Showing
Hi All, This might be a silly question, but for all the properties I monitor in Google Analytics, I'm now showing no data for SEO Queries under Acquisition for the past 6 days. Normally I would expect a few day delay in queries, but nothing for 6 days is somewhat peculiar especially as it was functioning fine prior to November 12th. Does anyone have insight into what might be going on? Thanks! URaNMa3
Reporting & Analytics | | amichaels0 -
Google Analytics - Organic Search Traffic & Queries -What caused the huge difference?
Our website traffic dropped a little bit during the last month, but it's getting better now, almost the same with previous period. But our conversion rate dropped by 50% for the last three weeks. What could cause this huge drop in conversion rate? In Google Analytics, I compared the Organic Search Traffic with previous period, the result is similar. But the Search Engine Optimization ->Queries shows that the clicks for last month is almost zero. What could be the cause of this huge differnce? e9sJNwD.png k4M8Fa5.png
Reporting & Analytics | | joony0 -
Why are plus signs (+) suddenly showing up in Google Analytics organic search keywords reports?
Since June 13, 2013, the number of organic search queries containing a plus sign (+) has gone up over 1,000% compared to the previous period on my site in Google Analytics. These plus signs appear to be taking the place of spaces in these search queries (i.e. "word1+word2+word3"). This appears to be almost (or completely) Google organic traffic, not other search engines. Since I highly doubt searcher behavior would change so suddenly, I'm trying to figure out why Google is replacing spaces with plus signs. Is anyone else seeing this? Any ideas?
Reporting & Analytics | | RCF0 -
Google Analytics and DNS change
Our new alumni application is going be tested at domain uva.imodules.com . We are going to collect traffic data with a Google analytics account number UA-884652-XX. So going to uva.imodules.com/myPage.html would send its data to Google Analytics with that account number. Then when it is ready for production we are going to just change the domain name of the application and switch the DNS over to dardencommunity.darden.virginia.edu . So going to dardencommunity.darden.virginia.edu /myPage.html would send its data to Google Analtics with that SAME account number. Aside from having the testing domain data in the same profile are there any other issues/problems we may run into?
Reporting & Analytics | | Darden0 -
AW Stats vs Google Analytics
Hey Moz Community, I am looking to get opinions on the best practice for analytics/traffic analysis. From experience I know that AW Stats reads high and Google Analytics reads low for traffic for reason in this article http://www.smartz.com/blog/2009/01/23/analytic-confusion-%E2%80%93-awstats-vs-google-analytics/ It drives me a little nuts how far off both are for some pages. I have one article that shows 100 views (GA) and AW stats shows 5 times that number of views. Any suggestions or systems you recommend? Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | johnshearer0