How to measure number of visits from Google News coming from Google Universal Search (NOT referral coming directly coming from news.google.com) with google analyitcs
-
I'm running a news site, and I have a problem of accuratly measuring which traffic is REALLY coming from google news.
I analyzed a lot of individual articles and I come to the conclusion, that the visits, that come from the google news section in the universal search results are counted as "normal" search engine traffic in google analytics.
So if you do a Google search for a topic that includes links from Google news, you don't get an accurate referral count. As an example, if you do a search for "eBay", incorporated into the page 1 search results you may also see Google news results as well.
If someone clicks on that Google news link that appears in Google search, it shows up in Google analytics as a referral from Google search, when it was actually from a Google news referral.I was already checking google analytics and google news help forums and searched SEO blogs for this. But I wasn't able to find a working solution.
Can anybody help me out with this problem? Thanks so much,
Matthias
-
Thanks so much! This indeed helped
To all of you using this method: I encountered some more Codes:
Especially "QqQIo" is quite often returned. From Context that should be as well onebox traffic.
Any ideas?
-
It's possible, this is how you do it.. You're welcome: http://moz.com/blog/decoding-googles-referral-string-or-how-i-survived-secure-search?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+seomoz+%2528SEOmoz+Daily+Blog%2529
-
Hi Matthias,
Unfortunately, what you require is not possible. The harsh truth, as Brian Clifton author of Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics, states is 'that web analytics data can never be 100 percent accurate'. I'm afraid this is what you will have to come to terms with.
The only real solution, and it is not ideal, is that you will have to attribute a weighting factor to your traffic from google / referral. I'm sure with adequate market research and testing you should be able to find a somewhat accurate weighting factor that will give you some idea as to the number of referrals actually originating from Google news.
Adam.
-
You can submit a tagged URL (e.g., domain.com.page.html?src=news) through your news sitemap, and a different one (maybe untagged), through the normal site sitemap.
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=74288
-
What about adding paramters to the URLs in your Google News Sitemap (NOT onpage) using the URL-Builder?
In case they are picked up (why not?) - you could easily tell apart organic hits from universal hits. Just a thought.
-
It looks like Google is not sending Google New universal results through a redirect tracking script, so you can tell them apart.
For a Universal search result the referrer will begin with:
For an Organic result it will be:
And for Google news it will be:
Set up filters to apply a custom variable to each and you can segment easily. (Don't forget to cater for all the alternative Google domains)
-
I personally use Alexa.com or Quantcast.com to determine where clicks are from and what site they exit and land on. It also helps me determine if I lost a sale to my comptetitor or whether they've bought from me instead.
But... i must admit that i've also included tracking channels much like i do on Google adsense. This helps me narrow down the category or in this case, my channel.
works for me anyway.
-
I suggest to create a new profile for your website and add filter that includes domain having news.google.com So under this profile, you will have only those visitors who are coming from news.google.com
-
Google publishes the same URL in both news and universal search. That will not help.
-
Gustav, the poster is asking how to tell if the visit came from their site being in Google News or in a regular SERP. I don't believe this addresses that question for them.
-
Maybe my answer is to easy...
Use Url builder from google, then wrap that code in your links on the site.
When you look at Analytics the next time you will see the traffic coming from that "campaign"
Maybe not the best fix but it's an easy one.
Look at: http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55518
-
Does the news item appear always in the search results on the same position (like 10th)?
If so you have a few more workarounds:
In Google Webmaster Tools look at the "Search Query" report. Do a localization in the desired country. Click on the desired keyword and look at the details. See if the impressions on different search results positions match the news spot.
There is a filter for Google Analytics that shows you the position in search results for that clicked keyword. Search "google analytics filter keyword position" on Google and if I remember right you'll find it. Maybe you can even adjust the filter to extract info about the news clicks.
Good luck!
-
Hi Dan,
thanks for the workaround! I will try out, how much I can get with this solution...
Still hoping that google introduces a more robust way to analyze the data!
Thanks matthias
-
It might not be the best solution, but one idea would be to look at just your traffic from Google News. Take note of all the kewyords sending traffic. Then look at your traffic from Google search. Do any of those same keywords show up? If so I think it is safe to assume that traffic came from a click in a News result that appeared in normal Google search.
In other words, see which keywords send traffic from Google News, then just see how much total traffic those keywords sent and that's probably how much news traffic you received. Probably not the best or most accurate solution but it can help you ball park it if nothing else.
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
-
Is the meta referrer tag still used
Is the meta meta referrer tag still used and is it affective. I have an issue with traffic going from one of my sites to a client site and our referral is going into their direct traffic (in Googel Analytics) instead of being seen as a referral from our site. I saw that people were using the meta referral tag, but I can't find any MOZ info about it other than a blog article from 2015.
Reporting & Analytics | | dpsoftware1 -
Www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js what is this link doing on my website?
Hello Expert, I am using google tag manager and google analytic is already configured in that now i just want to confirm when i do inspect element of my home page in that i can see this link - http:///analytics.js where as if i do view source of my page then it is not visible. so what is this link - /analytics.js and what role it play? Do we really need this link to be present on website? Regards, Raghuvinder
Reporting & Analytics | | raghuvinder0 -
Drop in google.com / referral trafic
Hi, On one of our sites (after the release of a new version, including redirections), we've seen a drop in referral trafic from google.fr (france). I know that this trafic usually comes from Google Images but it doesnt seem to be the case this time. The referal path is "/" and not "imgres" as it usually is when it comes from google images. The search trafic hasnt dropped tough... The site is a job listing site. We also saw a drop from indeed.com, I guess their crawler got lost in our new site... Any idea on the possible google site it could come from? Thank you,
Reporting & Analytics | | AdrienLargus0 -
Buffer Link and Google Impressions
Afternoon, I noticed a spike in impressions over a couple of days in April, so I investigated Analytics to see where these were coming from. It appears these impressions were split between two URLs; one was a blog post, the other was the Buffer link to the blog post that we used on Twitter and Facebook. According to Analytics, this Buffer URL received 1000 impressions over two days, with an average SERP position of 16. This surely can't be right, can it? Is this just another Analytics quirk? After two days of a decent amount of impressions to this Buffer link, the amount of impressions dropped to pretty much zero. I know Tweets are now starting to rank, but this would be the Twitter URL, not the Buffer link to our blog post? Any ideas, Cheers, Lewis
Reporting & Analytics | | PeaSoupDigital0 -
Best way to measure local search keyword rank
I have several clients that have a regional or local presence and want to track their rankings for various keywords, but only in the areas they are located in. What are the best ways to track keyword rank in specific locations or regions of the US?
Reporting & Analytics | | TheURLdr0 -
Goal Totals in Google Analytics
How do I get a cumulative tally of all the goals reached in google analytics? I've been using the percentages currently, but I was wondering if there was an easier way. Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | OOMDODigital0 -
Google Analytics complexe solution?
Hello, We have Google Analytics on our website and we have started to track the conversions.
Reporting & Analytics | | lunacloud
Basically we have a goal with 3 steps: Account Details (Personal Information) Confirmation (Mobile Confirmation Code) Email ( confirmation link) On the last step (Destination Goal) we send an email to the customer with the account confirmation link, the tracking works perfectly. Our problem is with the Goal Completions on "Traffic Sources" >> "AdWords" >> "Campaigns", Analytics doesn't add the conversions. This problem is related to the email confirmation? There is any solution to overcome this problem? Thank you! yzujFZU.png f4fay1G.png0 -
Google Analytics
How can you see the conversion rates for the referral traffic? For example I want to see if any of the facebook visits to my site resulted in a purchase.
Reporting & Analytics | | EcomLkwd0