Anyone understand GA SEO stats??
- SEO |
Hi,
I'm trying to understand why I see the Google Analytics statistics I'm seeing. They just don't make sense to me. So, either I'm just not understanding what is being shown to me, or the numbers just aren't right. I've read through the Google help on these reports. But, the help doesn't go into enough detail.
I've seen many articles and opinions that state GA is crap. I'm not looking for a bunch of opinions like that. What I'm trying to understand is what each of the stats might mean. Or, is supposed to mean And, some possible reasons why the numbers I see don't seem to add up when comparing to other numbers within GA.
Most of my questions are under the Acquisition->'Search Engine Optimization' tab. So, first of all, some questions about exactly what I'm looking at.
I'll be using the following abbreviations:
SEO - Obvious
Q - Queries report
LP - Landing Pages report
GS - Geographic Summary
1. On all 3 reports under SEO (Q, LP, GS), there is a "% of clicks" number. It is on the left side of the report, above the graph, right above the tab named "Explorer", and just below the Menu choices (Customize, Email, Export, and Shortcut). On the Q report, I always see a number around 30%. But, when I go to the LP and GS reports, the number changes to 100%. I don't change anything else. The dates stay the same. But, that value changes.
What is that number?
2. And, why is it a partial percentage number on my Q report, but not my LP and GS reports? My Q report Impressions are MUCH lower than the Impressions totals on the LP and GS reports. My assumption here is this 30% number is only showing 30% of the results and is why my Q report totals are so much lower. How can I get it to show 100% on the Queries report?
3. Also, when I hover my mouse over these values, I see "5 out of 12" on the Q report. But, "12 out of 12" on the LP and GS reports. What is "12" in this context? What is the "5" in this context?
4. On each SEO report, the Impressions and Click values are almost ALL multiples of 5. Not all of them are multiples of 5. But, such a large percentage as to not be statistically possible. For example, one of my sites that is still less than two months old is showing 20 different keywords on the Q report. Only three of the Impressions are not multiples of 5. And, 16 of them are exactly 5. This isn't statistically possible. There is no way that the keyword "unroasted coffee" only shows one of my URLs 5 times. But, the keyword "ihsl" is also showing one of my URLs exactly 5 times. I don't even know what "ihsl" is. If Google was somehow limiting the number of times my URL shows up, I shouldn't see my URL show up when I manually search (private tab to limit local changes). But, I when I manually search I always find my URL approximately where the Average Position says it should be.
5. For Clicks, they are also either 5 or 0. For the Q report, I have two keywords that supposedly had 5 Impressions, and 5 clicks (100% CTR). So, for the reported period, I had 15 total clicks. But, 10 of those 15 came from only 2 of the 20 keywords? I don't think so.
6. Maybe if someones explains #1 above this might make more sense. But, on my Q report, I currently show 216 Impressions. But, on the LP and GS reports, they each show 2,615 and 2,800 Impressions. Why wouldn't the number of Impressions be exactly the same across these three reports if they are using the same data? Clicks are also off in this same way.
7. What is "Google Property"? It has values of "Web", "Images", and "Mobile (smartphone)". I can guess that "Mobile (smartphone)" means the keyword was entered into Google on a mobile phone. And, maybe "Web" means using Google on a "non-mobile" phone platform. But, what is "Images"? And, why does Google only show you "Web" by default? And, why would my "Images" numbers be so much higher than the others? My numbers look MUCH better when I change the report to include "All" instead of the default of "Web" only.
8. On the Q report, under the "Impressions" column title, I see a "% of Total" number. What is the total here? Is the "Total", the total of ALL Impressions for the selected keywords? For example, does the mean that for a single user, if they typed in "abc", and they viewed the first 5 pages (50 results), and one of my URLs appeared once in those 5 pages, that the total would be 50 and my URLs would be 1/50? That's what would make sense to me. But, if that's the case, then why is my percentage up around 16%. I shouldn't really ever be over 10% (1 out of 10) if I only have one ranking URL that might show up on a single page (1 out of 10).
Thanks in advance for any help describing those fields. Or, for explaining how these numbers might be derived.
Regards,
Jaggerware
I'm trying to understand why I see the Google Analytics statistics I'm seeing. They just don't make sense to me. So, either I'm just not understanding what is being shown to me, or the numbers just aren't right. I've read through the Google help on these reports. But, the help doesn't go into enough detail.
I've seen many articles and opinions that state GA is crap. I'm not looking for a bunch of opinions like that. What I'm trying to understand is what each of the stats might mean. Or, is supposed to mean And, some possible reasons why the numbers I see don't seem to add up when comparing to other numbers within GA.
Most of my questions are under the Acquisition->'Search Engine Optimization' tab. So, first of all, some questions about exactly what I'm looking at.
I'll be using the following abbreviations:
SEO - Obvious
Q - Queries report
LP - Landing Pages report
GS - Geographic Summary
1. On all 3 reports under SEO (Q, LP, GS), there is a "% of clicks" number. It is on the left side of the report, above the graph, right above the tab named "Explorer", and just below the Menu choices (Customize, Email, Export, and Shortcut). On the Q report, I always see a number around 30%. But, when I go to the LP and GS reports, the number changes to 100%. I don't change anything else. The dates stay the same. But, that value changes.
What is that number?
2. And, why is it a partial percentage number on my Q report, but not my LP and GS reports? My Q report Impressions are MUCH lower than the Impressions totals on the LP and GS reports. My assumption here is this 30% number is only showing 30% of the results and is why my Q report totals are so much lower. How can I get it to show 100% on the Queries report?
3. Also, when I hover my mouse over these values, I see "5 out of 12" on the Q report. But, "12 out of 12" on the LP and GS reports. What is "12" in this context? What is the "5" in this context?
4. On each SEO report, the Impressions and Click values are almost ALL multiples of 5. Not all of them are multiples of 5. But, such a large percentage as to not be statistically possible. For example, one of my sites that is still less than two months old is showing 20 different keywords on the Q report. Only three of the Impressions are not multiples of 5. And, 16 of them are exactly 5. This isn't statistically possible. There is no way that the keyword "unroasted coffee" only shows one of my URLs 5 times. But, the keyword "ihsl" is also showing one of my URLs exactly 5 times. I don't even know what "ihsl" is. If Google was somehow limiting the number of times my URL shows up, I shouldn't see my URL show up when I manually search (private tab to limit local changes). But, I when I manually search I always find my URL approximately where the Average Position says it should be.
5. For Clicks, they are also either 5 or 0. For the Q report, I have two keywords that supposedly had 5 Impressions, and 5 clicks (100% CTR). So, for the reported period, I had 15 total clicks. But, 10 of those 15 came from only 2 of the 20 keywords? I don't think so.
6. Maybe if someones explains #1 above this might make more sense. But, on my Q report, I currently show 216 Impressions. But, on the LP and GS reports, they each show 2,615 and 2,800 Impressions. Why wouldn't the number of Impressions be exactly the same across these three reports if they are using the same data? Clicks are also off in this same way.
7. What is "Google Property"? It has values of "Web", "Images", and "Mobile (smartphone)". I can guess that "Mobile (smartphone)" means the keyword was entered into Google on a mobile phone. And, maybe "Web" means using Google on a "non-mobile" phone platform. But, what is "Images"? And, why does Google only show you "Web" by default? And, why would my "Images" numbers be so much higher than the others? My numbers look MUCH better when I change the report to include "All" instead of the default of "Web" only.
8. On the Q report, under the "Impressions" column title, I see a "% of Total" number. What is the total here? Is the "Total", the total of ALL Impressions for the selected keywords? For example, does the mean that for a single user, if they typed in "abc", and they viewed the first 5 pages (50 results), and one of my URLs appeared once in those 5 pages, that the total would be 50 and my URLs would be 1/50? That's what would make sense to me. But, if that's the case, then why is my percentage up around 16%. I shouldn't really ever be over 10% (1 out of 10) if I only have one ranking URL that might show up on a single page (1 out of 10).
Thanks in advance for any help describing those fields. Or, for explaining how these numbers might be derived.
Regards,
Jaggerware
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mkgg -
Thanks
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