Do Google Know What People Are Doing On My Site?
-
I run an ecommerce site and am keep to increase the time on site and reduce bounce rate. I have had some good results from writing good articles and advertising them on Outbrain and Twitter; both of these metrics have improved. However, I am wondering if Google will see this. Clearly if people land on the pages from the SERPS and return there they will know what is happening but will they know if people get there from an advert?
-
I honestly believe that Google probably knows what users are doing on your website with or without GA, and that GA is just a way for them to show it to you.
-
Google owns the Chrome browser and if they wanted to get information about the behavior of visitors on websites, they would have designed a way to collect that data. Also, if you are running Google analytics on your site, you have no idea what bounty they are reaping about what your visitors are doing. You can bet that these two tools, at minimum, are a pipline sending lots of data into their databases.
I've not heard anyone from Google say exactly what info they get from the Chrome browser or from analytics or what they do with it but Google is well known not to say stuff about how they get their info. They are also well-known for putting out bad info about what they are doing.
It's best not to worry about what Google is doin' or thinkin' and just work your ass off making a better website.
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 changing my Title
I noticed today that Google is showing a different Title in searches for the homepage. It is showing a title which I believe was active as of late last year or early January. The new title is in the title tag, in Google cache and in MOZ crawls as well. Not sure why it would still be showing a different title in the search and wanted to see if anyone can explain the reason. Thanks
On-Page Optimization | | campaigneast0 -
Pre-launch site or not
We are going to set up a new site in four months. Historically we always set up a simple Wordpress "Pre-launch-site" with relevant texts to start ranking in the SERP. Anyone with experience of doing/not doing this and what is had led to? A site with relevant texts also should have incoming links, which needs more work.
On-Page Optimization | | fredrikahlen0 -
Flickr v. On-Site Images
My apologies in that I have searched for this, have seen discussions on it and haven't seen a definitive answer on the question of hosting & displaying on-domain images v. using a source like flickr to host all of your images. I have a client that is mostly a local search play in a very tourism heavy area. I'm investigating this option for a few reasons. 1. Ease of use. The new flickr app is brilliant. So if he's out giving a tour, takes a picture, it can be seamlessly integrated to his account & then shot off to all of his portals (website, facebook, twitter, etc.). It's a small client & he's not tech savvy, so this option suits him very well. 2. SEO. With all of the tagging, geo components, and it playing nice with Google Images search, I thought this was a viable option in hosting the majority of his on-site images. I've seen opinions on this before. But I was wondering if there any further opinions on the subject. Not sure if there's anything 'definitive', but any help or insight would be appreciated.
On-Page Optimization | | BrianWhitaker0 -
What are the best eCommerce sites from an SEO perspective?
We're working hard on improving our website right now, and would love to get the community's examples of the best eCommerce sites out there, from an SEO and a general customer-centric design perspective...
On-Page Optimization | | reddogmusic0 -
Suggestions on plans to optimize my site? (NOOB)
I am currently trying to plan how to optimize my site based on keywords. I read and I understand site architecture and usability http://www.seomoz.org/blog/site-architecture-for-seo , but I am still somewhat confused about how to target each keyword per page or when http://www.seomoz.org/img/upload/splitting-keyword-targeted-.gif Let me give you an example. We build databases for SME's using 3 different technologies. One of them is MS Access. Based on PPC campaigns and keyword research some of the possible keywords might be ms access programmer ms access consultants access database experts According to the link provided, should these be separate pages? I feel if they were, our site nativigation would be cluttered and clients would not be benefiting from them at all. It might even lead to some redundant data which I believe is bad right? My feeling is to make one page and target one keyword, but I'm not sure. For example, see one of our top ranking competitors http://www.justgetproductive.com/content/access-programmer/index.php Please, look at the footer? Is that actually how I should structure my links? I hope the answer is NO! Then again, if I do just have one page targeting one keyword, what do I do about the others? Do I just try to use blog posts/articles addressing those keywords? Do I not target them at all? Thanks for any advice, please keep in mind I am just getting started. My approach is to create a plan to outline everything before I put a lot of time into it.
On-Page Optimization | | emcacace1 -
Do images on a CDN affect my Google Ranking?
I have recently switched my images to a CDN (MaxCDN) and all of the images within my post are now get loaded directly from the CDN. Will this affect my Google ranking? Do Google care if the image is hosted physicaly on the domain?
On-Page Optimization | | Amosnet0 -
Customer Review Capture / Google Approved Review Sites
We are interested in showing customer reviews on our website (in UK for seo purposes- UGC) and are initially reluctant to use a 'What customer say' or Testimonial page as we think customers may think we have just made these reviews up? I wanted to ask what methods you folks use to capture reviews? If you use 3rd party providers do you have any recommendations? (I found this link but it seems a little outdated as it doesn't include for example eKomi:http://www.seomoz.org/blog/how-to-rank-well-in-google-products-search-a-big-list-of-places-to-get-reviews) Thanks in advance.
On-Page Optimization | | jannkuzel0 -
Best way to optimize site for Google Maps?
I am working with a site right now and they are ranked #1
On-Page Optimization | | WhiteHat12
for many keyword phrases based on their location and service. Their service is an
Insurance agency, so they rank #1 for many keywords like “Miami Insurance” or “South
Florida Insurance Agency” (their not actually ranked for Miami
just giving an example). I also include their address on every page of the site
(maybe that better helps Google maps?). Problem I am having is when searched
just the keyword phrase they rank number 1 but when searching say “insurance”
while being logged in to the area they rank for they do not come up. I hear that
there might be specific ways to optimize for this. What I would like to know is
what would I have to do to optimize for Google maps and what’s everything I possibly
can do. I am good with search engine optimization but have never really dabbled
much with Google Maps, I always thought they just ranked you based on your
address.0