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
-
404 Status Codes in Google Search Console
Hi all, I've noticed in Google Search Console under 'Crawl errors' - 1. Why does the status code '410' come up as an 'error' in the crawl report? 2. Why are some articles labelled as '404' error when they have been completely deleted and should be a '410' - there are roughly around 1000-2000 of these. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | lucwiesman0 -
Google Analytics View Filters
Using the same GA property, I would like to set up three filtered views: 1. Tracking across one subdomain and one primary domain (example: shop.example.com & example.com) 2. Track only primary domain (example.com) 3. Track only subdomain (shop.example.com) Can this be achieved by using view filters? If so, how do they need to be set? Also, according to this article: https://moz.com/blog/cross-domain-subdomain-tracking-in-google-analytics, with cross domain tracking, I need to ignore self-referrals, which can only be done at the property level. If set up to ignore example.com referrals, will this cause problems with filter 2 and 3?
Reporting & Analytics | | Evan340 -
What is the best way to embed Google Analytics charts on our site?
We want to build out this functionality so a client can log into our site and view data. I know its possible but I can't find any articles about the steps so that my team can move forward.
Reporting & Analytics | | appbackr0 -
Keeping Google Analytics Data when Moving to Subdomain
Hey All, Against my objections a client has decided to move an existing site into a subdomain while putting up a new site on the main domain. My question revolves around Google Analytics, how do I make sure that I don't lose historical data on the domain before it moves to a subdomain? We're going to be doing a redesign of the old site and I need to keep the historical data so I can prioritize content. What do I need to do? Or will Google analytics recognize the URL's and still attribute the data to those URL's or will I have a separate set of data based on the new URL (with the subdomain). Any insight would be appreciated! Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | EvansHunt0 -
Google Analytics Organic Accuracy?
Hi, On a cool summers day, I was quenching my thirst for SEO Knowledge in the depths of Google analytics, When I stumbled upon a most troublesome sight. I was Browsing the data inside Acquisition->Keywords->Organic and comparing them to Acquisition->Search Engine Optimization->Landing Pages, to find the results quite questionable.. Since Keywords->Organic measure the visits from the organic results, and Search Engine Optimization->Landing Pages measures the clicks onto one of my landing pages from Google, I assumed they should be the same or very close, (besides Keywords->Organic having visits from other search engines) but they were not the same, as a matter of fact it was telling me that Keywords->Organic visits = 1,474, 27.19% of total(5,422) and Search Engine Optimization->Landing Pages, clicks = 1,548 154.80% of total (1000). Even worst the Search Engine Optimization -> Queries clicks = 1,123, 160.43% of total(700). I have been searching, and come up empty handed in the answer so does anyone know why Google is showing me different results and strange numbers that don't make sense? Any information is greatly appreciated?
Reporting & Analytics | | KBB_Digital0 -
Google analytics Goals and Funnels??
Hey - how's things? I've got 2 goals setup, each of which use the same thank you page but with different required funnels. The results have been identical for the last few weeks - which tells me I've got something wrong!! The first goal has a contact form on every page in the /products/ directory set up like this:
Reporting & Analytics | | agua
destination equal to: /thanks-enquiry/funnel step1 page: ^/products/.* required: yes The first goal has a form on 1 page called /on-sale set up like this:
destination equal to: /thanks-enquiry/
funnel step1 page: /on-sale required: yes Any ideas?0 -
Filter out IP address of Site Search analytics
Hi Mozzers, I have a filter that excludes all internal traffic from my sites. But this does not seem to work on site search > Search Terms See here:- http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!searchin/analytics/filter$20site$20search/analytics/pO18L31hEO4/tJ3lKVNT3YYJ Any ideas? Or is it a bug, etc Thanks S
Reporting & Analytics | | Metropolis0 -
Individual or Separate Google Analytics Accounts for Each Country Location?
We have 3 websites. USA, Germany and UK. Currently our analytics account is set up with 1 account with each domain as a Profile. I am wondering if I would see more accurate results if I have them set up individually, under the same Google account, but different Analytic accounts. The reason I wonder is because I noticed when I was going through setting this up, it asked for each Country Time Zone for each domain. I was not sure if this was for me to see the times, or if this was to provide more accurate data. Maybe this is just a personal preference topic?
Reporting & Analytics | | hfranz0