Google User Click Data and Metrics
-
Assuming that Google is using click data from users to calculate rankings (bounce rate, time on site, task completion, etc.) where does Google get the data, especially from browsers that aren't Chrome?
-
This was example with GA. I believe that they use dwell time and next or subsequent searches for this.
Because they can't fight against shopping cart abandonment's and other issues. So they have some as benchmark against other sites. If your metrics are above average in your industry then it's great. If your metrics are weak - you're in trouble. You can see benchmarking in Google Analytics. So whatever you do just try to make better metrics than them. Example - i just have seen that some of mine sites have pages/session 1.40 vs 2.99 in benchmark. Also mine session duration is 1:32 vs. 2:19 in benchmark.
Similar metrics are in PPC too - you need to be above the average for better positions, prices and conversions.
I know that all this explanation can sound little bit messy... but this is question all SEO specialists think about these days. If you know the answers you can become millionaire and retire quick.
-
But how does Google measure form completions or purchases for rankings?
Again, I'm not talking about Google analytics. We use it heavily for our ecommerce sites. I know how the UA tracking code works. Google claims that they don't use GA data for rankings, and I would tend to believe them.
-
That's tricky. There are lot of theories about Analytics, Chrome, AI, RNN, etc. Of course there also lot of speculations too!
BUT here Josh Bachynski explain that task completion is correlated with with user metrics - time on session, bounce rate and average pages per session. Also others - please note subsequent search in mine prev answer. So in theory sites with better time, less bounce are considered as high quality. You can check also other videos from Josh in YouTube where he explain this many times.
One of easiest way to track task completion is to add goals in Analytics and/or add events tracking too. Goals can be different - contact form filled, lead form filled, software download, whitepaper request, signup form, playing video, etc. Events can be - comments viewed, gallery viewed, video stopped, etc.Then you can see how many of your visitors do tasks and how many do events. This will be for your own insurance that they're inside of page and do something there.
Trick is that Google will use only SERP visitors and their metrics. I can have site with 20k visitors daily from Facebook/Twitter and only 200 from Google SERP. I don't saying that 20k visitors can be wrong, but they will be almost useless for clicking test. Things will be different if we have 20k daily from SERP and 200 from Facebook/Twitter.
So - whatever you do just when you receive SERP traffic keep it in site. This is higher priority for better ranking.
-
Thanks for the answer. Spot on.
There's been a lot of speculation on "task completion" and how it relates to ranking. If completing a task is a purchase on an ecommerce site, how is Google measuring it? Is it only through Chrome or by some other means?
how does Google measure when someone completes a form?
is that possible, or is Google just checking to make sure that the cart and the form work correctly? Was that the point of the "Zombie" update?
-
If you remember before 5 years ago all urls was unencrypted in SERP and lot of tools using this for capturing "keywords" and linking them to pages. After they introduce this in 2010 they begin rollout in few years and today only way to see keywords is in SearchConsole. Of course encryption is for "to improve your search quality and to provide better service". Original text can be seen here. Please note "provide better service" there. This is tricky!
So imagine that you search for moz and here is actual URL i can see now:
https://www.google.bg/search?q=moz&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&gws_rd=cr&ei=4wNVVpnZBYGoUZiXh4AG
you can definitely see keyword there in ?q=moz now first result is Moz.com and it's URL is:
https://www.google.bg/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjenMnUq6rJAhXIRBQKHXuVCcUQFggfMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmoz.com%2F&usg=AFQjCNHNW83KUfvLcZOMILlYW49NobxUig&sig2=nOVvQ05KIPrGB3XFAFmIGgAs you can clearly see - there isn't keyword anymore but everything comes with encrypted data (ved, usg, sig2). This link /url is actual redirector that count your click on specific result and position.Now if i click on 1st result and go in Moz.com i can scroll down and i find "this isn't MOZ i'm looking for" so within some time (few seconds) i will return to SERP. This is actual "dwell time" and bounce back to SERP. It's negative signal because it's show to Google that result he return for first place isn't correct with human verification. Now back on same SERP i can see Moz in Wikipedia:
https://www.google.bg/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=19&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwjenMnUq6rJAhXIRBQKHXuVCcUQFghhMBI&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMoz_(marketing_software)&usg=AFQjCNGCgqmsKNIdaZdGrbugf8bJk6NhTg&sig2=jS-vt68NFtD5YhgSV4lTGwIf i click this and i doesn't have return to SERP anymore this give to Google enough to calculate bounce rate for this site (only to return in SERP) so give Wikipedia some "goal completition". And time for next search can be used to calculated "time on site".And since all searches are encrypted they knows when specific user search for something and when they make new search based on already returned data. Example is "Napoleon". This can be anything - french emperor, movie, cake, drink and other things. So now i can do subsequent search "Napoleon height". This is example how one search can give me enough information to do another refined search. Other good example can be "32 us president". Then i can type "franklin d roosevelt height".
This was explained much better in closing MozCon 2015 presentation "SEO in a Two Algorithm World ":
http://www.slideshare.net/randfish/onsite-seo-in-2015-an-elegant-weapon-for-a-more-civilized-marketer
and you should see it. There also shown few tests inside with terrific results. -
I guess I should have phrased the question a little differently. This is not related to Google Analytics.
When I do a Google search, Google is able to track my actions, and is probably using the data as a ranking factor. Josh Bachynski did a Whiteboard Friday on it.
https://moz.com/blog/panda-41-google-leaked-dos-and-donts-whiteboard-friday
How is Google able to track user actions after they click on a SERP listing? Where are they getting their data?
-
Here is a good explanation.
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
-
Why Is Google Webmaster Tools Pulling Zero Keyword Data?
I just linked a Google Webmaster Tools account to Google Analytics for a client, and Search Engine Optimization reports are showing up in Google Analytics as enabled, but there is zero keyword data, landing page data, etc., in the reports themselves. Has anyone encountered this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | yoursearchteam0 -
Fetch as Google - Redirected
Hi I have swaped from HTTP to HTTPS and put a redirect on for HTTP to redirect to HTTPS. I also put www.xyz.co.uk/index.html to redirect to www.xyz.co.uk When I fetch as Google it shows up redirect! Does this mean that I have too many 301 looping? Do I need the redirect on index.html to root domain if I have a rel conanical in place for index.html htaccess (Linix) - RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^xyz.co.uk
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Cocoonfxmedia
RewriteRule (.*) https://www.xyz.co.uk/$1 [R=301,L] RewriteRule ^$ index.html [R=301,L]0 -
Is my site penalized by Google?
Let's say my website is aaaaa.com and company name is aaaaa Systems. When I search Google aaaaa my site do not come up at all. When I search for "aaaaa Systems" it comes up. But in WMT I see quite a few clicks from aaaaa as keyword. Most of the traffic is brand keywords only. I never received any manual penalty in WMT ever. Is the site penalized or regular algorithm issues?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ajiabs0 -
Bypassing Google, Data Highlighter and Webmaster tools
eLLo! Has anyone used Data Highlighter? I've had colleagues mentioning a jump in CTR after using the data highlighter on pages. Thought I'll do the same and went into my webmaster tools but I've hit a brick wall. Whenever I highlight a product page, my country selector pops up and I'm unable to highlight a product page. A colleague of mine mentioned to bypass google by basing it on user agent, this will allow you to avoid the country selector. But if I bypass Google, wouldn't it affect Google Analytics, Indexing etc?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Bio-RadAbs0 -
Does a sitemap override Google parameter handling?
This question might seem silly, but I'll ask anyway. We have an eCommerce site with a ton of duplicate content, mostly caused by faceted navigation. In researching ways to reduce the clutter, I've decided to use Google parameter handling to stop Googlebot from crawling pages with certain parameters, like: sort order, page #, etc... Now my question: If I set all of these parameters so that Googlebot doesn't crawl the grids, how will they ever find the individual product pages? We do upload a sitemap with all of the product pages. Does this solve my issue? Or, should I handle the duplicate content with noindex, follow tag? Or, is there an even better way? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rhoadesjohn0 -
Google Trends - API? Anyone Using This Data?
I'm looking for a way to track change in search volume for dozens or hundreds of keywords but Google Trends doesn't have an API as far as I can tell. Does anyone know of a good tool or method of extracting large amounts of data from Google Trends?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wattssw1 -
How to make Google forget my pages ?
Hello all ! I've decided to delete many pages from my website wich had poor content. I've made a php 301 redirect from all these old pages to a unique page (not the home page, a deep page). My problem is that this modification has been made a week ago and my position in the SERPs have crashed down... What can I do ? I believe that I'll get up again when Google will see that these pages don't exist anymore but it could take a long time 😞 (these page are in the Google cache with a date older than my modification's date) I've read somewhere that I should put a link to the destination page (where old pages are 301 redirected) but I don't understand how it could help... Can someone help me ? Tell me what I've done wrong... These pages were very poor and I've deleted them in order to boost the global quality of my site... It should help me in the SERPs, not penalize me...
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | B-CITY0 -
Adding Millions of Products to Google
What is the best way to submit all of your product pages, millions, to Google for serps? XML, RSS, Google Product Search, etc. These are products that are updated on a daily basis, and change often.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Copstead0