WMT data vs. Analytics
-
Hi
Each month I export my data from WMT and go through analytics.
I also export our non brand queries from analytics and not WMT - I haven't had an issue before, but this month the impression data is quite different. In the hundreds of thousands different for keywords, everything seems to have taken a big jump and it seems strange.
However, not everything is different, I've spot checked some and its; consistent in both, I'm not sure what's going on?
One example would be:
<colgroup><col width="281"> <col width="72"></colgroup>
| industrial shelving | 1016 |
| industrial racking | 999 |These appear as impressions from Query data in analytics, but they appear nowhere in my WMT query data.
Analytics query data shows:
| industrial equipment | 670 |
WMT Data:
| industrial equipment | 143 |
Anyone have any idea? Perhaps some kind of tracking issue?
Also I've triple checked dates etc...
-
Hi Ruth
This is great thank you. I feel the same way about monitoring keywords, however as we work on thousands of pages I have started to report on traffic to content groups set up in analytics which seems to make things easier.
I'll definitely take your advice on looking at our homepage topics in console
Thanks!
-
In my opinion, monitoring every phrase your page ranks for isn't a sustainable goal - there are too many variations and long-tail phrases being searched for. In terms of rank tracking, I tend to focus on the one or two higher-traffic terms I'm really targeting for a page, trusting that that ranking will translate into a halo effect of longer-tail terms and topical authority.
Rather than focusing on finding all of the phrases driving traffic to your page, try focusing on how much organic traffic each landing page is getting, and whether or not that traffic is doing what you want people to do when they reach that page. This will help you discover if the page matches the intent of the terms people are searching for. You should also take a look at the query data in analytics/search console to see if there are topics that your home page is appearing on page 2 or 3 for that you could create a more specific piece of content around - it's a sign that Google already understands your site is related to a topic, and just doesn't have a good page to send people to.
-
Hi
Thats great thanks for the info
How can I easily monitor where the pages rank? Rather than looking at it by keyword?
Is there a tool which would tell you, these are all the phrases your page ranks for? At the moment I have to input all the KWDs I want to monitor into AWR, however this won't tell me the entire picture.
Becky
-
In terms of the correlations between rankings and traffic, one indicator is to look at how individual pages rank and then how much organic traffic each page gets - if it's ranking for some high-traffic terms, you can safely assume that those terms are driving some traffic. As for reporting in general, Bill Sebald just wrote a great post on this for the Moz blog: https://moz.com/blog/are-your-analytics-telling-the-right-story Hope that helps!
-
I think it's worth looking at WMT query data - you should just keep in mind that that information is more useful as a directional indicator, as in "in general, here are the types of terms driving impressions and clicks" rather than an absolute indicator, "this is exactly how many impressions and clicks we're getting for these terms."
-
does anyone have any good reporting tips for SEO?
I use advanced web ranking, analytics & Moz dashboards but reporting takes be some time. Is there anything I can try to report on correlations between rankings & traffic?
-
Great thank you.
I've been using it to report on for a few months and now my results are skewed. I use analytics too so will stick with that for now.
Thanks!
-
HI
Thank you for the feedback. Would it still be worth looking at the WMT query data in analytics or just to stick with new users/sessions?
-
Hi,
In addition to this it can be that the data is missing completely in Google Search Console as they're limiting most of the data you'll see in both tools.
-
Hi Becky,
Google mentioned very clearly that Search Console data may differ from the data displayed in other tools including analytics.
Here you will find all the possible reason @ https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1213138?hl=en
FYI Google Webmaster tools does't really provide super accurate info. You'll find that your Google analytics is much more accurate of the two.
You can also check this @ http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2015/08/05/google-search-console-clicks-vs-google-analytics-sessions/
Hope this helps.
Thanks
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
-
Mismatch between analytics and webmaster tools
Hi, I've noticed that the Queries report in analytics gives a completely different answer (for impressions, clicks, CTR, Avg. position) to webmaster tools. What gives? Which would you use? Thanks, Amelia
Reporting & Analytics | | CommT0 -
Moving data between Google Analytics Properties
Last summer we setup another Google Analytics property for us with Universal Analytics and have been running this alongside the old Google Analtyics property. is there a way of exporting all the old data from the old property into the new Universal Analytics property?
Reporting & Analytics | | ese0 -
How many users completely block Google Analytics cookies ?
Hello everyone! In your experience, how many of your visitors' browsers completely block cookies including those of Google Analytics ?
Reporting & Analytics | | Masoko-T0 -
Analytics oddity
This one has me a bit puzzled... I was just conducting a bit of routine analysis on a client's site, when I noticed avg. traffic doubled on one particular day. Now, this was easy to spot, since avg daily traffic for this site is 100 per day. The site also has approximately 100 pages of content. Here is the odd part... the spike was clearly attributed to Direct traffic and from a specific network in Palo Alto. The Bounce Rate was 100% and it appears that every page on the site was visited - very briefly. Any clues as to what may have triggered this? A competitor maybe? An unkown bot? I am looking forward to your thoughts.
Reporting & Analytics | | SCW0 -
How to Track Google Local Places in Google Analytics?
I have read many articles on how to track google local places through google analytics. Each article I have read show a different way of setting up google analytics and using tags in google local places. Wondering if anyone as up to date information on this and what would be the best practice to track data from google local lisitngs in google analytics Thanks Arthur
Reporting & Analytics | | VivaArturo0 -
Tracking analytics on several domains
Hello, I am looking for some advice. I am working with a real estate client. They have a main website, and then several separate agent websites. The agent sites share some content with the main site, as well as having some unique content. My question is what is the best way to track visitors? Should I have separate Google Analytics accounts for each site, or should I use one account and separate profiles?
Reporting & Analytics | | ukao0 -
Google Analytics - my continuing adventures
Hello I'd appreciate views of the various metrics I'm struggling with in GA: I've run 2 different reports that provide 2 different outputs. 1. In Standard Reporting you can report in Traffic Sources on Organic Search by Keyword, which returns the number of Visits. 2. In Custom Reporting you can define the Keyword dimension and the Organic Searches metric, which returns the number of Organic Searches. This returns 2 different numbers. For example, over the last month for a given term report 1 returns 77,306 visits whilst report 2 returns 52,589 organic searches. I have found some definitions: "Visits represent the number of individual sessions initiated by all the visitors to your site." "Organic Searches: number of organic searches that happened within a session. This metric is search engine agnostic." My understanding of these definitions is that report 2 should return a larger value than report 1 rather than what is happening (i.e. report 1 returns a greater value than report 2). Does anyone have a greater understanding of what these mean and relate to? Does anyone have any views on which metric is more useful? Thanks Neil
Reporting & Analytics | | mccormackmorrison0 -
Does Google Analytics use your data against you?
I couldn't find this question answered anywhere in Q&A, so I apologize if it's a duplicate of another post. I heard, about a year ago on either Web Pro World, or Warrior Forum that Google uses your visitor data in your Google Analytic account to rank your site. Someone said that when they took out the Google code, their site went from the third to the first page within 48 hours. That was then verified over the next couple of weeks by others. Their thought was that regardless of the optimized page and incoming link, if the site wasn't getting visitors, then it would be penalized. Since Google has the data, they would be able to use it. I then started using another, paid, solution - getclicky.com. While I like clicky, there is some info Google has that clicky doesn't, everyone integrates with Google analytics - like SEOmoz, and I'm paying a monthly fee. Now that I'm a part of a community of experts, what do you think? Have you noticed Google ranking you based on your analytics data? Has anyone experienced this, or heard about it before? Because I'd like to go back to using Google analytics. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | DallasBonsai0