Buffer Link and Google Impressions
-
Afternoon,
I noticed a spike in impressions over a couple of days in April, so I investigated Analytics to see where these were coming from. It appears these impressions were split between two URLs; one was a blog post, the other was the Buffer link to the blog post that we used on Twitter and Facebook. According to Analytics, this Buffer URL received 1000 impressions over two days, with an average SERP position of 16. This surely can't be right, can it? Is this just another Analytics quirk? After two days of a decent amount of impressions to this Buffer link, the amount of impressions dropped to pretty much zero.
I know Tweets are now starting to rank, but this would be the Twitter URL, not the Buffer link to our blog post?
Any ideas,
Cheers,
Lewis
-
Thanks for the response, guys. The Buffer URL that is driving organic traffic is:
It looks like you're right; it's the Google+ Buffer link that's ranking. There's no canonical on the blog post as we're using BlogEngine and they don't automatically add one. I'll have to check with the developers to see if we can manually insert one.
Cheers,
Lewis
-
Greetings Lewis
So yes URL shortners can and will get indexed if there are enough links to them, there are 71.8 million bit.ly links currently indexed in Google... I did a check of my travel site and noticed this Buffer UTM link in GWT Top Pages report http://travel-network.co/review/aggelika?utm_content=bufferebb76&utm_medium=social&utm_source=plus.google.com&utm_campaign=TravelNetwork.net.au it was indexed and getting impressions but it was only a small amount last month and I checked and now only the canonical version remains indexed.
But it was only the Google+ version being indexed as Buffer creates a unique URL for each share on a social network, so the only question is did you manually share the Buffer link on Facebook & Twitter so it was actually the same link? Also did you check to confirm your page has the correct canonical tag in place so it reduces the chances Google will get confused and indexed the Buffer link instead of the actual blog post link.
But I couldn't find any other examples of Buffer links being indexed, if you are worried about the situation would could use the Buffer settings and select "No Shortnening" option.
Hope that helps a little.
David
-
I had a whole answer and lost it due to a cookie faux pas.
It looks like there are about 2 million buff.ly URLs in the Google index, so as long as you are seeing the buff.ly URL as a referral and not a page on your site, this looks possible. It is weird indeed and I don't know if it's intentional on the part of Bufferly, but it is happening for sure.
The URLs could be being indexed and then dropped from the index after a few days. And it's a social URL, so the drop makes sense there as well.
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
-
Unsolved Google Analytics (GA4) recommendations for SEO analysis?
Guides on Moz and elsewhere mostly refer to Google Analytics' Universal Analytics (UA). However, UA is being replaced with GA4, and the interface, options, and reporting are very different. Can you recommend a clear, thorough, and effective walkthrough of how to set up useful SEO reports in GA4? Is there a simple tool you recommend that will help connect historical data from UA to GA4 when GA4 is the only option available? If there's no simple tool, what values do you recommend retaining from UA for effective historical reporting? How would you use them? At minimum for reporting, I'd want to show month-to-month changes and year-to-year changes (in percentages and in real numbers) for the following: all site visits all organic visits organic visits as a percentage of all site visits organic visits that led to a specific goal completion organic visits that led to any goal completion Thanks in advance for your help!
Reporting & Analytics | | Kevin_P1 -
What would be causing our linking domains and inbound links to decline?
I am noticing a decline in the number of our linking domains and inbound links from month to month. It isn't drastic but looking like a trend. Any reason why this would happen? I'm not sure where to start. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | amanda_feagle0 -
Google Cookies
Without Google Analytics, how would we be able to identify visitors who are from Google Organic? What's the cookie?
Reporting & Analytics | | AMHC0 -
Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools Setup for Agencies
Hi, As agencies, what are people finding to be the best practices for allowing multiple members of the agency's team to access client WMT and GA data? Have a generic "analytics@myagency.com" account that's used for the shares, that anyone in the agency can use as needed (limited, of course, not admin). Have the individual person at the company use their company email for the share for each particular client? employee@agency.com. Yet what happens when we need someone else to check the GA or WMT data? Any advice is much appreciated.
Reporting & Analytics | | Titan552
Thank you!0 -
Find 404 Broken Links
We are looking for tools to help us repair broken backlinks, those with 404 error. We have used the Open Site Explorer tool to create a CSV file from our client's URL. We read the "Fixing Crawl Diagnostic Issues", but don't see how to "find the 404ed URL", nor do we see a "referral column" to scroll to. What steps should we take to locate the broken 404 linkages? What steps can we take to streamline repairs?
Reporting & Analytics | | jamie_netsitemarketing.com0 -
How do I best segment tablets on Google Analytics
I would like to find a way to best segment out my tablet traffic to measure performance; however I'm finding that there are road blocks. It doesn't seem that device operating systems or screen resolutions have clear cut differences in the tablet/mobile versions. Has anyone here found a good way to create a "tablet" segment in Google Analytics? Right now I'm having to lean on solely the ipad traffic to get indicators of tablet performance. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | lvstrickland0 -
Transferring Google analytics accounts
Hi, Does anyone know if you can transfer an Google Analytics account. We are looking to take over a new clients existing website and the analytics account is registered to their current web designers. Is it possible to transfer it to the client so that their existing web company no longer has access and they keep all their historical data, or do we have to start from scratch. Thanks Fraser
Reporting & Analytics | | fraserhannah0 -
Ideas Why Our Google News Traffic Disappearing?
The traffic to our major market newspaper website from Google News has dropped nearly 100% in the past ten days. Any ideas why might be happening?
Reporting & Analytics | | wlis990