Did Analytics change the way to handle Google images searches on Dec 12?
-
Dear all,
One of the sites I'm monitoring receives a lot of traffic from image searches or images that appear in universal search results.
On Dec 12th, 2015, the bounce rate for these sessions went from around 30% the day before to around 87%. See screen shot below.
Did anybody notice similar bounces in the bounce rate? Did Google change something in the way that image search is handled?
Looking forward to your ideas!
-
Interesting. At this point, you have a lot more data on the subject than I do. I know the changes to how Google cached/displayed images caused a lot of headaches for enteprise SEOs in the US, but I don't know much about that situation with Google.fr. Your explanation seems plausible, given the data.
If your explanation is true, I'm not sure what you can do about it. These referrals are just inaccurate, and that bounce rate is meaningless. As you said, the design basically makes the bounce inevitable.
I would be reluctant to remove it completely, because you might want to be able to track any changes Google makes to how this is handled, but I would certainly remove it from your overall metrics somehow. You and/or your team shouldn't be judged negatively on this bounce rate.
-
I spend some time observing GA's Real Time reports and here is what I found.
I first noticed that also on Dec 12th, the source "images.google / organic" makes its appearance in GA.
If you use google.com (or probably all other versions of Google that use the same interface), GA doesn't log a visit till one clicks on either the enlarged image or the "Visit page" button. (screenshot with French flag attached, does this interface have a specific name?) The visit is logged as "google / organic", not "images.google / organic".
But if you use google.fr (or probably all other versions of Google that use the same interface, I confirmed with google.de), GA logs a visit even if you haven't really left Google, when the image is shown hovering above its host page. The source is "images.google.fr / referral" at this point.
But when you then click on the cross to close the image or on the "Site Web pour cette image" link in the side bar, hence if you really go to the site hosting the image, the source information is replaced by "images.google / organic". (screenshot with map of France attached)
So it seems quite logical that
a) the bounce rate for the source "images.google.fr / referral" is close to 100% and that
b) the source "images.google / organic" appeares at the same timeThis raises three questions for me
1. How was the behaviour before Dec 12th?
2. Wouldn't it be appropriate now to exclude entirely trafic provided by the source "images.google.fr / referral" (as well as images.google.de etc.), as this is only an enlargement in Google's search results and not a visit of the site?
3. How is it possible that the bounce rate of "images.google.fr / referral" is not 100%? Why do certain sessions still get multiple page views?I also looked into what you had suggested, if only certain images or phrases had the high bounce rates.
The answer is that for the traffic logged as referral traffic, there is no keyword data. But if I look at the landing pages, the general rule is a bounce rate between 75 and 95% for "images.google.fr / referral". The landing pages with lower bounce rates, simply have very few sessions, so that's probably just a coincidence. I noticed though that there are quite a few pages that are redirects for images that don't exist anymore that have a low bounce rate or even bounce rate 0%
How do you think, we should deal with these new settings now?
2016-01-25_images%2Bafter%2Bclicke%2Bon%2Bimage.jpg 2016-01-26_google-fr%2Bafter%2Bclick%2Bon%2Bimage%2Bin%2Bwidget%2Bfrance.jpg
-
I'm sorry - I misread the bounce rate part. So, image search is definitely driving clicks, but your bounce rates in GA skyrocketed - gotta. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of anything on the Google side that would blow up bounce rates once someone got to your site.
Have you checked out what that actual experience flow looks like right now? First thing I'd do is try a couple of your most popular image searches and make sure nothing obvious is acting up.
Do the bounces seem clustered around any particular images or phrases, or are they across everything?
-
Hello Dr. Pete,
Thank you for stepping in!
Did you see similar changes in bounce rates at the time?
Also, I am a bit confused that you speak of "image impressions" while I referred to bounce rates. My understanding was that if Analytics loggs a session with for example referring site / images.google.fr as source, it means that the user is actually visiting the site, in other words that the user has clicked on the "Consulter la page / Go to the page" button. Am I wrong?
Just to avoid misunderstandings: I am not referring to the number of sessions with "referring site / images.google.fr" as source, but to what Analytics shows as bounce rates. The number of sessions even has increased for my particular site.
Thanks for your help!
-
Here in the US, Google changed image search a few months back and started caching everything, which killed image impressions overnight. I thought that roll-out was international, but I'm not experienced enough with vertical search to know for sure. Did that potentially just hit France?
-
No sorry, I don't have a French one to check.
-
Thanks Martijn,
Did you check on a single site or on multiple site.
Is this maybe a francophone thing? In a Francophone forum, I found at least one other webmaster who reported the same observation
http://forum.webrankinfo.com/google-images-hausse-soudaine-taux-rebond-t185121.htmlDo you have a .fr site that you could check?
Best wishes
Frank
-
Hi Frank,
No we don't see it in our dataset, I've checked around 30k sessions and the bounce rate definitely isn't seeing changes like what you're seeing.
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
-
Google My Business app search report
What is the deal with the search reports in the Google My Business app? I downloaded this app so prospective customers could message my business, and when I look at the search reports on the app, the results seem nonsensical. According to google analytics my business receives pretty steady traffic every day. Why does the report say that I receive zero visitors one day and 400 the next? (See the screenshot below) 4yLRCHG
Reporting & Analytics | | RandyHT1 -
How to Configure & Tracking Images in Google Analytic?
Hello Experts, Can anyone tell me for my eCommerce site how to configure images tracking in google analytic? And where can I see the image traffic in google analytic? Not sure I am asking correct question but confuse about image traffic. Thanks! Wrights!
Reporting & Analytics | | wright3350 -
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 -
Is there a way to map your on-page SEO changes with the organic growth?
Hi Mozzers, I was just wondering if there's a way we can map our on-page SEO changes with the increase/decrease in organic traffic. For instance, I introduced brand pages' link the product page breadcrumbs and suddenly organic traffic for my brand pages increase from X to 2X in 1 couple of weeks. Now, this can be because of this breadcrumb change purely or because of some algorithm update or may be, bots started finding the content interesting and hence, started ranking them up (in case the brand pages were launched recently). So, you can't say which change should be mapped to what increase/decrease in organic traffic. Or, is there a way to map this?
Reporting & Analytics | | _nitman0 -
How can we stop Google analytics pulling in data from another site?
We have a few accounts under one Google login. They all have separate Google analytics codes but one of the sites is somehow pulling in some data from another site but the other site has not got the same analytics code on it. Not sure how this is happening and what we can do about this, is it a bug in the Google Analytics system? Any help would be appreciated.
Reporting & Analytics | | dentaldesign0 -
How do I cancel a scheduled Dashboard report in Google Analytics?
I created a few Dashboards in Google Analytics and scheduled them to be emailed for the next 6 months. Now I want to cancel those scheduled emails and am not finding those Dashboard reports/emails anywhere so I can cancel them. Do you know how to stop these emails from being sent?
Reporting & Analytics | | cindyt-170380 -
How long until changes are reflected in Google
I updated my site to remove duplicate titles and also include the rel=
Reporting & Analytics | | MartinSpence46
"next" etc tags. When can I expect to see these reflected in Google andSEOMoz? I also found out I should update my sitemap every month, when will Google pick up the new sitemap? Sorry if these are basic questions, new to the whole world of SEO. Thanks M0 -
Google Analytics' Goals and Cold Fusion
We are having an issue tracking goal completions in GA with a cold fusion site. I would like to know if anyone as had similar issues and found a solution.
Reporting & Analytics | | JamesBarry0