Counting unique landing pages in Google Analytics: social vs organic channels
-
Remember the technique Rand posted for counting the unique indexed landing pages on a site?
http://moz.com/blog/indexation-for-seo-real-numbers-in-5-easy-steps
I'm using Google Analytics to compare this result for the "social" channel vs. the "organic search" channel. The idea is to see whether social or search delivers people to more unique landing pages.
I would expect organic search to yield a significantly higher count, due to long tail searches for relatively obscure terms. We have an archive of over 500k pages that Google could be indexing, even if only a fraction of a percent of those might be getting social mentions. But that's not what the numbers show -- I'm seeing roughly 10% higher numbers for the Social channel than for Organic Search. Again, I'm counting unique landing pages here, not the total pageviews or visits.
If anyone else here is monitoring these metrics, please chime in with your results. What's the baseline expectation for a large website with hundreds of thousands of pages of issue-centric user-generated content? Should search traffic provide 2x more landing page exposures than social? 5x? 10x? or 0.9x, as in my case?
In short, I believe these numbers are pointing to an indexing/ranking problem following a recent site redesign.
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
-
What is a good benchmark social share rate?
What is a good benchmark social share rate? Does a benchmark exist? For instance, on a Zillow home profile, what % of people share that home listing on social media? Or on a NY Times article, what % of people share that article on social media? Thanks.
Social Media | | NicheSocial1 -
Finding authoritative sources on Google+ - is there a tool?
I'm looking for a way to find authoritative sources on Google+ on certain subjects. I define an authoritative source as someone who is in a lot of people's circles, and the content they curate gets shared, +1, and commented a lot. The subjects are variable, but for an example: What's the best way to find authoritative sources on Google+ on the subject of auto technology. Does anyone know of a tool that can do this?
Social Media | | reidsteven75
If you can't recommend a tool, how would you approach this?0 -
Using BUFFER in Social Sharing
Hello everyone, I am inclining to use a platform from which to post my social content. I use mainly facebook, twitter, linked in, google +. I used Hoot, but found it difficult to include Linked In, and several other social media sites. Somebody has experience using BUFFER? Ive read about it, and it seems great! Would you recommend it? Thanks for your comments,
Social Media | | JesusD0 -
Personal & Business Google+ Pages - which gives SEO juice?
Hi i set up a personal Google+ page and added a business page for my website www.over50choices.co.uk. The business page is linked to my site, but my personal profile "James Price" has the authorship and my blog, youtube, twitter accounts for over50choices linked to it - do i need to link all these accounts to my Google+ business page to get maximum SEO juice or will my personal page get picked up? Do i need to transfer all the social accounts to my business profille - help!? Thanks James
Social Media | | AshShep11 -
Facebook Page likes vs Webpage facebook likes - Social Media Query
I have a website and a facebook page. I have the Facebook Social Plugin on my website which shows my facebook page likes - This is currently at approx 140 likes. Is there a difference between facebook page likes and webpage likes? For SEO purposes, should I be concentrating less on the Facebook page and more on building facebook likes for the website? Are there any guides on this? What gets people to like a website as opposed to a web-page?
Social Media | | MangoMM0 -
Social Sharing - Reducing Button Size
I'm looking at implementing social sharing buttons throughout a site that I'm working on. I've souced the icons from one of the well known providers however when I test the pages with Firebug I get this: <colgroup><col width="303"> <col width="58"> <col width="86"></colgroup>
Social Media | | GrouchyKids
| Version | File Size | Transfer Size |
| | | |
| Home Page With Social Media Buttons | 1.02MB | 487.7kB |
| Home Page Without Social Media Buttons | 238.3kB | 218.8kB | As you can see the buttons alone have a rather alarming impact on the file/transfer size. I want to reduce the size, has anyone got any ideas/been here before? Justin0 -
Simple google plus question
Hi, My client www.nlpca(dot)com wants to know if we can just place the google plus button on their website or do we have to have a profile and such and share things regularly? Thanks!
Social Media | | BobGW0 -
Google does not index individual facebook posts often?
It looks like google (regular organic) does not index individual posts from facebook pages often, more likely the wall of the page itself or separate pages. Can someone confirm this?
Social Media | | qlkasdjfw0