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
-
Tasks for Google Analytics training
Hi Mozzers, I'm delivering some Google Analytics (Fundamentals level) training, and trying to make it was fun and as interesting as possible... which is quite a challenge when it comes to GA. I was just wondering if you're aware of training tasks, or interactions, I could bring into this kind of training session? The group are particularly interested in user journeys and the effectiveness of content. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | A_Q0 -
Google Webmaster Tools, about multiple entries for your website
Hi I have a doubt about Google Webmaster Tools or Central as it is call today. I remember that google recommended to have one profile of your website for each domain structure. Let me try to be more clear one profile for http://www.yoursite.com, an other for http://yoursite.com, an other for https://www.yoursite.com, etc. Then in each of them we uploaded our sitemaps and cross our fingers. Now from my experience always the complete url have better index status from the sitemap. Now my question is, today as Google requested all our websites run under https, so conserving the other profiles is affecting how google index our pages? shall we have to delete the old profiles or is better to maintain them? Thanks. Pablo
Reporting & Analytics | | FWC_SEO0 -
Referral Traffic from Google
Hello, I have a question about my company's new website. I've worked in SEO and studied Google Analytics results for a few years now but have never really come across something like this. I started in this position in January of this year and when I started breaking down the traffic sources in Google Analytics, I noticed most of the traffic was coming from Google.com as a referral source. I had never seen Google.com as a referral source before so I looked into options for what it could be. It was not a paid ad and our organic traffic was coming through in Analytics, Before I could get any further, our new website was launched (we switched CRM's to WordPress) and the referral traffic from google went from 2,966 in January of 2015 to 22 in February 2015. for more comparison, in February of 2014, the referral traffic from Google was 2,496. I expected a drop when we switched CRM's but we correctly re-directed all pages and created a new sitemap and our organic traffic is up since the switch (not enough to cover drop in referral). I thought at first this had to do with our Google sellers account being de-activated when we made the switch, but I quickly fixed this over a month ago and no change. I'm wondering if anyone has ever seen Google.com come through as a referral source in Google Analytics and if they we're able to figure out what it actually was. This would be a great help! Thank you, Alex
Reporting & Analytics | | RASEO1 -
Google Analytics
Looking at a client's analytics - one page doesn't seem to record 'average time on page' data (it just displays 0.00 despite it receiving traffic) This isn't an issue for the rest of the website's pages. Any idea? http://www.smilestyledental.co.uk/ppc/general-dentistry-at-smile-style.html thanks for any help!
Reporting & Analytics | | dentaldesign0 -
How long does Google Analytics store data?
Hello All, How long analytics keep the data for one website? at least two years at least 25 months other I guess that they guarantee at least 25 months, but it might be more.
Reporting & Analytics | | CommercePundit
Anyone has any other suggestion? Thanks,0 -
Page Optimization score is An A but Rank is dropping
New to company in SEO and they wanted a page to rank high for certain term : knowledge management on this page: http://www.apqc.org/knowledge-management Ran SEO Moz optimizer and did suggested changes. Moved score to A and ranking was on google first page but now it's dropped considerably last 2 months as the bounce rate has gone through the roof. I'm at my wits end and don't want the higher ups on me for the drop. I'm not sure what to try next.
Reporting & Analytics | | inhouseninja0 -
Google Analytics - Referral Traffic Question
How Google Analytics determine that some particular web site referred traffic if there is no back link on that site?
Reporting & Analytics | | DiamondJewelryEmpire1 -
Google anomaly
Hi, As per Google's Keyword Tool , the exact search volume for a particular keyword is 22000. As per Google's Webmaster Tool , my SER for the same keyword is 5.8 BUT , I see only 500 impressions for this keyword in webmaster ! Can someone help decipher this behavior ?
Reporting & Analytics | | iamnew0