Proper Use and Interpretation of new Query/Page report
-
When I'm in WMT/Search Console -
- I start a process of looking at all of the data initially unfiltered
- Then I select a query. Let's say its a top query for starters and I filter my results by that top query (exactly)
- With the filter on, I flip over to Pages and I get about a dozen results.
- When I look at this list, I get the normal variety of output: impressions, clicks, CTR, avg. position
One thing that seems a bit odd to me is that most of the average positions for each of the URLs displayed is about the same. Say they range from 1.0 to 1.3. Does this mean that Google is displaying the dozen or so URLs to different people and generally in the 1st or 2nd position. Does this mean that my dozen or so pages are all competing with each other for the same query?
On one hand, if all of my dozen pages displayed most of the time in the SERP all at the same time, I would see this as a good thing in that I would be 'owning' the SERP for my particular query. On the other hand, I'm concerned that the keyword I'm trying to optimize a particular page for is being partially distributed to less optimized pages. The main target page is shown the most (good) and it has about a 15x better CTR (also good). But all together, the other 11 pages are taking in around 40% of impressions and get a far lower CTR (bad).
Am I interpreting this data correctly? Is WMT showing me what pages a particular query sends traffic to? Is there any way to extract the keywords that a particular page receives? When I reset my query and then start by selecting a specific page (exact match) and then select queries - is this showing my the search queries that drove traffic to that page?
Is there a 'best practices' process to try to target a keyword to a specific page so that it gets more than the 60% of impressions I'm seeing now? Obviously I don't want to do a canonical because each keyword goes to many different pages and each page receives a different mix of keywords. I would think there would be a different technique when your page has an average position off of page 1.
-
Hi Steve
Yes, it sounds like if you're looking at pages showing in search for only one query they may be ranking interchangeably, or simultaneously.
Have you manually performed searches in Google (de-personalized etc) to see if you have multiple pages showing, or if they are switching? Also - do you track daily rankings for these keywords? That's another way to see what's ranking there - rank trackers like Authority Labs will show you all URLs ranking for a query.
Would there be any other reason two different users might get a different page? Location, language?
How specific is the search query vs. how targeted/focused are your pages? Or is there overlap in content? It really depends on the types of pages and content as far as determining your next step. Normally, we do see secondary pages occasionally ranking for one query, but your percentages sound high (unless you are getting two results a page).
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
-
Duplicated page titles
Dear friends, We have a problem which occurs on our page with duplicated page titles. Landlords are posting rooms on our page and most of them are giving the same name to the rooms and after that, we are getting more and more duplicated page titles. We are applying random whit this title tag: Accommodation for students in {city.name}: {name}. English title
On-Page Optimization | | Eurasmus.com
Certified student rooms in {city.name}: {name} English title
Erasmus room for students in {city.name} | {name} English title
Student room in {city.name}: {name} English title Also our title tag is sometimes to long but there is no possibility to make them shorter. I think. If anyone would have some idea be free to comment and help us. Kind regards Miško Macolić Tomičić0 -
Impact of number of outgoing links on Page Rank of an optimized page?
What is the current best practice on preferred number of outbound links on a page you are trying to rank with: According to online resources form a pure page rank perspective a high number of outbound follow links can have a negative impact not only on child pages but also the page itself
On-Page Optimization | | thomaspro
http://pr.efactory.de/e-outbound-links.shtml Other resources suggest that particularly placing high quality outbound links on a page (nofollow) increases the trust and authority of a page Are there any other elements to keep in mind? Is the best practice to avoid any follow links on a page you want to rank well in Google for? Thanks /T0 -
Page Not Indexed
Hi Guys I wrote and published an article last night on my site but it is yet to be indexed. This is strange as articles are usually indexed pretty quickly. Could you have a quick look and see what the problem is? http://www.rankmytri.com/tomtom-running-and-triathlon-watch/ Also all my Blog posts (in the blog section of the site) are not indexed as well (and I dont think they have been for a while) yet I dont have any messages from Google in my webmaster tools. Thoughts? Thanks in advance Ross
On-Page Optimization | | ross88guy0 -
Deleted pages still registering as 404 pages.
I have a an all html site that I can only work on through the ftp. The previous marketing company ran a script that built thousands of location landing pages, but all they did was change the tags and headers and the keywords in the pages, other than that they are all duplicate pages. I removed them, but Google is reading them as 404 pages. How do I tell Google those pages don't exist? or do I just need to let the bots crawl it a few times and it will see that eventually?
On-Page Optimization | | SwanJob0 -
Duplicate Page Content for Product Pages
Hello, We have one website which URL is http://www.bannerbuzz.com & we have many product pages which having duplicate page content issue in SEOMOZ which are below. http://www.bannerbuzz.com/backlit-banners-1.html
On-Page Optimization | | CommercePundit
http://www.bannerbuzz.com/backlit-banners-10.html
http://www.bannerbuzz.com/backlit-banners-11.html
http://www.bannerbuzz.com/backlit-banners-12.html
http://www.bannerbuzz.com/backlit-banners-13.html We haven't any content on these pages, still getting duplicate page content errors for all pages in SEOMOZ. Please help me how can i fix this issue. Thanks,0 -
Boosting page authority/rank by linking from blog
We're developing several blogs and I was wondering if it would make sense to periodically create blog entries that 'naturally' link to certain pages on the main site. For example we have a large amount of 'partners' across the country, and we wanted to do an interview series on the blog, and insert a link into the interview, such as "partner bob services the Boston area", or something more elegant than that. Would have have any significant impact on the 'boston page aside from the pass through traffic from the blog?"
On-Page Optimization | | ilyaelbert0 -
New Url Structure
Hey Guys We are working on a new site and in order to implement some of the new functions we need to restructure our url's , Will redirect everything correctly but I was looking for advice on the structure we need the word product / category subfolder for speed but would there be any benefit making them shorter ? what would you guys advise ? Category Current http://www.freestylextreme.com/uk/Home/Brands/DC-Shoe-Co-/default.aspx **New ** freestylextreme.com/uk/category/dc-shoe-co Product Current http://www.freestylextreme.com/uk/Home/Brands/DC-Shoe-Co-/Mens-DC-Shoe-Co-T-shirts/DC-Black-Unwind-T-Shirt---.aspx New freestylextreme.com/uk/product/dc-black-unwind-t-shirt
On-Page Optimization | | elbeno0 -
Localised content/pages for identical products
I've got a question about localising the website of a nationwide company. We're a small dance school with nationwide (40 cities) coverage for around 40 products. Currently, we have one page for each product (style of dance), and one page for each city; the product pages cover keywords like 'cheerleading dance class' while the city pages target the 'london dance classes'-type keywords. To make 'localised product pages', I feel like we should make a page for every city/product combo 'London cheerleading classes' - but that seems like a nightmare for both writing sexy & original content, and link building/social stats. The other thing I can think of (which I refuse to do because it would look stupid & flag the page as keyword stuffed) is filling the page with the keyword phrases which are appropriate for every city. Is there another way to let google know 'this page is appropriate for these cities...'? We do currently list the cities a product is available in, but it doesn't seem to help local rankings very much. Would this just be a link building job, using hyper-targeted anchor texts (inc. city names) for each product? How do the pro's tackle this problem?
On-Page Optimization | | AlecPR0