Something does not add up with WMTs search analytics data

[PaddyDisplays]

we recently replatformed our main site and switched to https.  For the first 2-3 weeks after we moved organic traffic was great, we did not lose any ( increased a little), but then it dropped off significantly.  Attached is a screenshot from one of our main keywords that dropped off.

You can see click (blue) and impressions (red) dropped off, and the position became unstable, but in the last week it has stabilised to about the same position it was before, but the clicking and impressions are still very low.

The keyword is generic (for our industry) and there would not be any major seasonal changes in the search volume. I  can't  make sense of this data, could be be wrong?

Kd3p5f9.jpg

[PaddyDisplays]

Hard to match up with analytics since the landing page is the home page.  Over all there has been an drop in organic traffic, but it looks like most of it is long tail and some smaller drops on some keywords, but that keyword was the standout loss.

Yes I track on Moz, it show no major drops at any stage ( just from 2-4, but that should not have effected impressions I would have thought)

attached is an update of WMTs, which is started to show impressions and clicks starting to come back, not to what it was, but its something

I thinking John might have been on to something and that maybe that a local results or something like that had been pushing the result down

XV7KPkN.jpg

[evolvingSEO]

Thanks! Does the "click" data and trends match up with your visits from Google Organic search in Analytics?

Also - do you track rankings separately (in Moz or another rank tracker) - have those changed?

[ClaytonJ]

Paddy

Is there a "new" news feed on the SERP?

I have a site where we were in position 6 - trading ok and have now been pushed to page 2 - in position 6.  Impressions plummeted as well...

[PaddyDisplays]

I understand why you might come to that conclusion, but its very generic keyword for our industry, and the number of searches have constant for years.  For example its like saying users are not searching for "cars" anymore.

[PaddyDisplays]

yes the graph is from the https version, but I have attached a picture of the last 90 days for the http version

a5SwAGY.jpg

[evolvingSEO]

Did you register a "new" site in webmaster tools for the https version? The old account for http won't work anymore, and you should have all your new impression data in the new https version. Google calls these different "site variants".

[ClaytonJ]

Ok, nope cannot assist. There are some discrepancies between SA beta and old SA I thought that may explain it.

It maybe people are just searching less for that keyword... really only conclusion I can think of at the moment.

[PaddyDisplays]

search analytics beta, but I also checked with the old version as its showing the same thing

[ClaytonJ]

Paddy

I think I know the answer.  Are you now using the new "search analytics beta"? or the old search analytics.

[PaddyDisplays]

Hi John

My main point is that the WMTs is reporting the same position but the impression have dropped off which does not make any sense to me.

"but I am starting to get concerning on backlink issue"  what do you mean, I have done 1000s of redirects linking the correct old pages to the new pages.  Also I have been keeping an eye on the crawl errors, and most errors are for pages that have been removed off the site years ago (wmts doesn't ever give a link to where the source of the links are from)

But even if there was an issue with back links it does not explain why wmts is reporting no drop in position, but a drop in impressions

[ClaytonJ]

Paddy

Hard to work out from the data we have - but I am starting to get concerning on backlink issue. Two weeks after the site went live and time for the google bots to do a clean sweep.

I note impressions should be similar in position 2 as to 4 - it should be your CTR that changes.

Good luck not sure I can assist.

[PaddyDisplays]

There are other oddities like this  with other keywords, but nothing as extreme as this

[PaddyDisplays]

yeah, unfortunately, its the home page, which gets a  traffic from a few keywords.  But it has had a drop in traffic. Other metrics, bounce rate sightly higher, less page views, longer sessions, but no huge spikes/drops

[Linda-Vassily]

Yes, the search engine optimization part is taken from WMT--I was asking about the actual Google Analytics piece. The keyword in question is associated with a particular web page, yes? If you look at the Google Analytics stats on that page, what do you see? Presumably a big drop in sessions. Has anything else changed about the behavior associated with the sessions?

[PaddyDisplays]

Ah ok, get you.  But yeah  yeah about the same data, High impressions for the first week of so , then a drop, but yeah more impressions I got I was in position 2-4

[PaddyDisplays]

Are you talking about "Search Engine Optimisation"?  its that not use pulled from WMTs?

But yeah its showing the same type of thing

[Linda-Vassily]

I think that what John is referring to is the two ways you can look at search analytics in WMT. You can toggle back and forth between the way it used to be reported and the beta view that was more recently rolled out.

[Linda-Vassily]

Oh, and one other question, is it just this keyword, or are there others like this?

[PaddyDisplays]

The chart is from WMTs not analytics

The average impression is now 12, but before the drop it was over 100

[Linda-Vassily]

Do your Google Analytics numbers for the webpage associated with this keyword line up? They wouldn't be the same of course, but does it show the same drop?

[PaddyDisplays]

1. not sure what you are asking

2. yes I used an exhaustive list of redirects ( over 10k of redirect rules

3)  Not sure what you mean

Still its not really the drop in traffic I'm questioning, ( could be related to issue with TTFB we has and with has been addressed 2 weeks ago), but more why is wmts saying we are ranking about the same for that keyword, but the impressions (and clicks) have crashed

[PaddyDisplays]

I used $pws=0  and we are 4th

but when I used a proxy, we are not on the first page .  But moz's tracking is showing us in about 4th place too.

But no, there is now note about the certificate

[ClaytonJ]

Nothing obvious.

I noticed a possible similar problem on impressions - a few weeks ago, I looked into it - I changed from old search analytic's to the search analytic's (beta).  I found out if you have not ticked page, then impressions for keywords often dropped considerably to the old search analytic's.

Old Search analytic's counted impressions differently and would double up if the URLs was listed twice in the SERP etc.  Have you crossed checked your data with old search analytic's?

Also perhaps consider changing your title and meta description to something more clickable. 12 impressions is not much.. data, but maybe worth considering down the track.

[Chenzo]

Transitioning a site is a very sensitive build out.

1. Do you have the old URL structure and the new - I will look into a bit.

2. Did you use 301 redirects ?

3. Did you take down the old site of the server?

There are plenty more questions but this should get the ball rolling.

Web therapist,

Chenzo

[Linda-Vassily]

Have you done an anonymized search for the keyword and looked at the result? Is there anything funny there, like a note about your certificate?