How does Google measure page position in Webmasters?
-
Does anyone know exactly how Google measures page position in Webmaster Tools?
For example: In Google Webmaster Tools, we had a product which on the 22/12/15 was at position 7, and then dropped to position 112 on the 30/12/15. It then rose back up to position 7 on the 6/01/16 and then down to position 25 on the 16/01/16.
What does this mean and why?
-
Hi Li! Did Peter answer your question? If he did, please mark one or both of his responses as a "Good Answer."
-
Page position is volatile as i can see. You need to select page and switch to query. This will return all keywords that was shown and clicks are performed for THAT url. If you select single query you can see dance for that keyword position in SERP. I make 2 screenshots with obfuscated keywords and url where you can see this. You can look them on attachment. If you wish you can digg inside grouping traffic by device (mobile/tablet/desktop) and by country.
So dancing up and down is normal. Because Google make changes each day, they releasing new algos. Also your site getting links, social signals, etc. BUT meanwhile your competitors in SERP do same. And you playing against 100 or 1000 for some keywords.
If you look Algo change history then you can see that starting from Jan a new algo has been released as "core update". No additional information was given and it shake well SERP. Probably your up/down movements are caused from it. At this time no one can give you advice what to do except "write great content and they will follow" plus "follow guidelines". You can follow SEO experts in Twitter, Facebook and G+ because they can share interesting about it. Like:
https://twitter.com/dr_pete
https://twitter.com/CyrusShepard
https://twitter.com/randfis -
Hi
Thanks for your answer.
The positions we are looking at are all showing in the graph for a particular product. Using the page position.
22/12 8.5
3/1 50
5/1 8
12/1 7
13/1 2
14/1 11
Can you or anyone explain why this rank varies so much day by day.
-
Search Analytics is only one way to check what position is your keywords and/or pages for specific queries.
There are two ways for aggregating - per site or per page. They are described here:
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6155685In first site when we have site that on one page return 3 pages on position 1,2,3 and user click somewhere - CTR = 100% because we have one click to site and average position = 1 because is calculated from highest position.
In second way (per page) - CTR = 33% (3 results and one click) and average will be 2 (1+2+3)/3 = 2.Now going back to your questions. It's normal your positions to goes up or down. Google was making changes to their algorightms - over 400-500 per year. Some of them can be seen, other was unseen. There are few ways to be informed for changes:
http://mozcast.com/ <- this is something as weather report for Google. There are sunny days and rainy too.
https://mza.bundledseo.com/google-algorithm-change <- this is one of lists with changes. Some of them are confirmed, other doesnt.
Watching SEO community - can be in Twitter, Facebook, G+
Reading SEO news sitesNow back on your question. I believe that your site was going up and down from updates on 6 Jan and 16 Jan (they are confirmed as Core update). But i don't know about updates on 22 Dec or 30 Dec. Since "core update" is still in analysis of many industry leaders SEOs (even in Moz) i can't give you advise about it.
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
-
Strange landing page in Google Analytics
Hello MOZ Community, The website in question is https://x-y.com/ When i looked at the landing pages report in GA , x-y.com is appended at the end of every URL like this. https://x-y.com/x-y.com When i open the above URL in GA interface, it shows page not found. This is obvious as there is no such URL.
Reporting & Analytics | | Johnroger
The metrics like sessions, Users, Bounce rate all look good. In the property settings, The default URL is written like this http:// cell-gate.com (Please note that s is missing in property settings). But how is traffic tracked correctly How do i solve this problem. What settings should we change to make the landing pages report look ok Thanks0 -
Google Analytics, new property or views?
Hi All We have an existing Google analytics account which was customised relatively heavily a few years back, with custom variables, e-commerce tracking and the a large number of filters. We have determined that the custom variables and e-commerce tracking, at least for now, are no longer required and actually complicating our lives. We want to simplify the account and add a fresh set of goals and events. Our initial train of thought was to create an entire new property with the usual views, raw, test, main etc. We are proposing to retain both properties (6 months) so we can still do some comparative stuff. We're now wondering if we should retain the existing property and just create new views, the downside being that whilst we can compare data with previous periods it's meaningless to some degree as the filters etc are different. The plus of more views is that we're not firing the tag twice retaining two properties. Views and opinions welcome. Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | mde9110 -
What about this (google crawl)?
Recently we did a serious effort on SEO with SEO Yoast (Wordpress). And after a few months of tweaking old articles we get this impact on crawl search.. Is this graph normal? s1TQgv9.png
Reporting & Analytics | | noodweerbenelux0 -
No Google Analytics code on page BUT reporting is active
How could Google Analytics be reporting data if my pages don't have the GA code on them? Mike
Reporting & Analytics | | Mike_c0 -
Behavior Flow vs. All Pages report in Google Analytics
In the interest of determining why our ecommerce site isn't converting, I've been spending some quality time with GA. I've suspected that our front page is part of the problem, especially where our organic traffic is concerned (we get a good deal of referral traffic from a link on an OEM's site). According to the Behavior Flow report under the Behavior section of GA, organic traffic to our home page is hemorrhaging (roughly 60% bounce rate). But when I went to the All Pages report (Behavior > Site Content > All Pages) and looked at organic traffic to our home page, then looked at the Medium as a secondary dimension, I'm getting a bounce rate of 35%. Why the massive discrepancy? Can somebody assist?
Reporting & Analytics | | ufmedia0 -
Difference between GWT and GA average position
Does anyone know why there would be a difference in average position from GA and GWT? I am seeing completely different results for the same date ranges. Thank you!
Reporting & Analytics | | bloomingB0 -
Homepage on page 2 for site:domain
Hi all, today I noticed that our homepage is located on page 2 if you do the site:domain query. As far as I know, the site:domain results mirror the importance in the eyes of Google. Some time ago, our homepage was the first result. I have to say that we do not often have changing elements or new content on the homepage, it is more like a static page. But still the most linked to page on the domain... What conclusion can I come to? Is our homepage of lower importance to Google than some time ago? Is it a problem for SEO? As we backed down our advertisments, the traffic from branded keywords fell the last months - could this be an explanation? And, most important: do I have to worry? (Besides, the SEO-traffic is fine and growing..)
Reporting & Analytics | | accessKellyOCG0 -
A lot of traffic to one page from Google referral
We recently received a lot of traffic to one page from
Reporting & Analytics | | underthesun808
google.com referral. When I look in analytics it reports that the traffic is
coming from /url that’s not real helpful. Is there a way to get more specific
information as to what the referring url was?0