Increase in impressions reported by Google Analytics
-
Because Universal Analytics (and Google Webmaster) only stores SEO data for 3 months, I've been downloading SEO data (from the Acquisition tab of Analytics) to get a record of how impressions, clicks, CTR etc are changing in the long term (our business is seasonal, so these long-term patterns are important).
Today, I downloaded data for September, and found a very large increase in the number of impressions compared to previous months.
I looked back at the data for August, which I've already downloaded, and found that Analytics is now reporting much higher numbers of impressions than I have in my downloaded data. The total number of impressions has roughly doubled, and the increase for individual URLs varies, with some increasing by a factor of 10. The number of clicks has also increased, by about 15% in total. Because of the 3 month cut-off, I could only look back as far as the 11th of July, but the impressions for the end of July are also much higher than in my downloaded data.
I've noticed that Analytics has changed some other details in its reporting of SEO data. For example, the impressions and clicks data is no longer rounded. Could this increase in impressions be a result of those changes? Has anyone else experienced something similar?
We can go ahead and use the new data but it will throw our analysis off for past months (which have the lower numbers). If others have experienced something similar it would be good to know, so that we can adjust our historical numbers accordingly.
-
I think the API will help, but for the same date range, no filters, etc, the data shouldn't have changed. BUT Google has been known to edit their Search Console data, or they have in the past when they found discrepancies. There are any number of reasons why, but I am sorry we couldn't nail it down for you. I really do think the API will help. Best of luck!
-
Thanks, but the explanation still doesn't quite make sense because the discrepancy occurs for historical months in the downloaded data. So even if the CSV only downloads (for example) the top 1000 landing pages, it doesn't explain why the same download showed different data later. The top 1000 landing pages in that period should not have changed.
Anyway I think we will start using the API to extract the data in future as this seems to be more reliable regardless, so thanks for the help.
-
Ooohh!!!! Yes, I did misunderstand. I think the discrepancy here is that the CSV download only downloads part of the total data, the first thousand rows to be exact.
For example, in an account I have access to right now, for the last 30 days Search Console shows 35,145 clicks and over a million impressions. The download shows, upon summation of the data, 404,923 impresssions and 20,309 clicks.
You can't use the download to use as an overall view. The API should give you more accurate numbers.
-
Thanks for the further response.
However I think there has been a bit of confusion - we have already pulled the data directly from the search console by exporting the CSV.
So the discrepancy still remains, unless all of the historical data that we pulled (for every month back to April) was pulled incorrectly.
We are likely to automate the extraction of data in future to try and avoid any human error (thanks for the link, which will be helpful as we work out how to do this), but we're fairly sure that there wasn't human error this time. This is due to the fact that the data was previously rounded (in both GA and the search console) to the nearest thousand. When this rounding stopped all the impressions numbers jumped significantly, and that's the issue we are trying to get to the bottom of.
-
Yeah, there had to be something off with the dates pulled or something like that. It's always possible that the data came out wrong but more than likely something was missed in the report pulling. Human error and all. I've done it so many times myself.
If I might recommend, if you have the resources, pull this data from Search Console directly, rather than GA. Using their API, you can pull it directly: https://developers.google.com/webmaster-tools/?hl=en
This might be helpful: http://searchwilderness.com/gwmt-data-python/
-
We've been pulling the data from GA as follows:
Acquisition > Search Engine Optimisation > Landing Pages > Export CSV
We've not set up a dashboard so I guess it's "pulled by hand". I've checked and the number of impressions is the same (at least now) regardless of whether it's the Landing Pages or Queries data that is exported.
We followed exactly the same process when we first downloaded the data and so the data has definitely changed.
In the Search Console the data we've been using to cross-reference is in Search Traffic > Search Analytics.
It seems to me that we're unlikely to get a definitive answer on why it has changed and so we may need to simply start again with the past three months of data, and maybe set up a report so that we are 100% sure of the data export process. But any further advice would be gratefully received!
-
Can you add screen shots of your report download settings? Is this report automatic? Is is from a GA dashboard or pulled by hand every month?
I suspect something might be going wrong with the report pulling from GA.
-
Hi Kate,
Many thanks for the response. Margot is away this week so I'm picking this up in her absence.
The August Impressions and Clicks data in Search Console is slightly different to the SEO data in GA (it appears to differ by up to ~8% in either direction), but appears generally consistent with the current data in GA.
The GA and Search Console data are both much higher (around 3 X) than what we have in the historical data we'd previously downloaded for August.
The August Impressions data we previously downloaded shows daily impressions, and each day is rounded to the nearest thousand (i.e. each daily number ends with 000). The new data in GA and Search Console appears to be no longer rounded at all. Surely this must be related.
Any further thoughts appreciated!
Thanks
Jamie
-
That data should be straight from Search Console when you link your GA account with Search Console. Can you compare your reports from GA in August with the same data in Search Console? Is that different? What about what you see in Search Console vs what you see on screen in GA? Let's start there.
-
It's not that impressions have increased month-on-month, it's that data from August (which we initially downloaded at the beginning of September) is now showing much higher impressions etc data than when we initially downloaded it. This throws into doubt all the previous data (which we now cannot access because Analytics only goes back 3 months).
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 check which site performing well in google organic?
Hi All, Is it possible to check sites via any tool which sites performing good in google organic? Any site ... Is it possible via Alexa? My Concern is majorly for UK Ecommerce site... Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | pragnesh96390 -
Will increased pagerank increase traffic from google?
I got notified that my domain went from a google pagerank of 3 to 4. When this happens, does google raise me in the searches which can then hopefully get me more traffic, or is it a worthless number. Maybe only google knows 🙂
Algorithm Updates | | BrickPicker0 -
Google cant read my robots.txt from past 10 days
http://awesomescreenshot.com/08d1s6aybc hi, my robots.txt is http://wallpaperzoo.com/robots.txt google says it cant read and has postponed the crawl.. its been 10 days and no crawl.. please help me in solving this issue.. this is save with http://hdwallpaperzones.com/robots.txt
Algorithm Updates | | toxicpls0 -
Has Google lost its mind? I am the only link in every SERP for a query?
I run a small online debutante dress store and have been doing some onsite seo recently. Anyways, when I search for the search query "deb dress style guide" my site is the only search result for the first three pages of Google Australia (my target market). Just endless links to my site. I have competitors in my niche who all have websites worthy of listing in the SERP as shown when you google "deb dresses". Can anyone explain whats going on?
Algorithm Updates | | mydebdress20 -
How to show your ratings in the Google SERP
I've noticed that some organic search results are showing ratings just above the meta tag. How are these sites doing this? Example: If you search "cash advance", there is a result between #4 and #6 in the organic results. The site is "goldcashadvance.com". It's showing a 5-star rating in the result.
Algorithm Updates | | sparagi0 -
Home page replaced by subpage in google SERP (good or bad)
SInce Panda, We have seen our home page drop from #2 in google.ie serp to page 3 but it has been replaced in the same position @#2 by our relevent sub page for the keyword that we ranked#2 for. Is this a good or bad thing from and seo point of view and is it better to have deep pages show in serp rather than the homepage of a site and what is the best line of action from here in relation to seo. Is it best to work on subpage or home page for that keyword and should link building for that phrase be directed towards the subpage or the homepage as the subpage is obviously more relevent in googles eyes for the search term. It is clear that all areas of the site should be looked at in relation to link building and deep links etc but now that google is obviously looking at relevancy very closely should all campaigns be sectioned into relevent content managed sections and the site likewise and treated on an individual basis. Any help that you may have would be very welcome. Paul
Algorithm Updates | | mcintyr0 -
Removing secure subdomain from google index
we've noticed over the last few months that Google is not honoring our main website's robots.txt file. We have added rules to disallow secure pages such as: Disallow: /login.cgis Disallow: /logout.cgis Disallow: /password.cgis Disallow: /customer/* We have noticed that google is crawling these secure pages and then duplicating our complete ecommerce website across our secure subdomain in the google index (duplicate content) https://secure.domain.com/etc. Our webmaster recently implemented a specific robots.txt file for the secure subdomain disallow all however, these duplicated secure pages remain in the index. User-agent: *
Algorithm Updates | | marketing_zoovy.com
Disallow: / My question is should i request Google to remove these secure urls through Google Webmaster Tools? If so, is there any potential risk to my main ecommerce website? We have 8,700 pages currently indexed into google and would not want to risk any ill effects to our website. How would I submit this request in the URL Removal tools specifically? would inputting https://secure.domain.com/ cover all of the urls? We do not want any secure pages being indexed to the index and all secure pages are served on the secure.domain example. Please private message me for specific details if you'd like to see an example. Thank you,0 -
Do we have a timeline of google, bing updates
I thought it would be handy if we had a timeline with dates of any updates to the algo's.
Algorithm Updates | | AlanMosley
Does one exists here at SEOMoz or elsewhere.
Thanks3