Thursday, October 18, 2007 at 2:47 PM
Written by Sahala Swenson, Webmaster Tools TeamAs you know, the queries used to find your website in search results can change over time. Your website content changes, as do the needs of all the busy searchers out there. Whether the queries associated with your site change subtly or dramatically, it's pretty useful to see how they transform over time.
Recognizing this, Top Search Queries in Webmaster Tools now presents historical data and other enhancements. Let's take a closer look:
Up to 6 months of historical data:
Previously we only showed query stats for the last 7 days. Now you can jump between 9 query stats snapshots ranging from now to 6 months ago. Note that the time interval for each of these snapshots is different. For the 7 day, 2 week, and 3 week snapshots, we report the top queries for the previous week. For the 1 to 6 month snapshots, we report statistics for the previous month. And still others of you who log in may notice that you don't have query stats data going back to 6 months ago. We hope to improve that experience in the future. :)
Top query percentages:
You might have noticed a new column in the top query listings. Previously we just ranked your query results and clicks. While useful, this didn't really tell you to what extent one query was ranked higher than another. Now we show what percentage each query result or click represents out of the top 20 queries. This should help you see how well the result or click volume is distributed in the top 20.
Downloads:
Since we're now showing historical data on the Top Search Queries screen, we figured it would be rude to not let you download it all and play with the data yourself (spreadsheet masochists, I'm looking at you). We added a “Download data” link that lets you download all the stats in CSV format. Note that this exports all query stats historical data across all snapshots as well as search types and languages, so you can slice and dice to your satisfaction. The “Download all stats (including subfolders)” link, however, will still only show query stats for your site and sub-folders for the last 7 days.
Freshness:
We've improved data freshness in Webmaster Tools a couple of times in the past, and we've done it again with the new Top Search Queries. Statistics are being now updated constantly. Top query results and clicks may visibly change rank a lot more often now, sometimes daily.
So enough talk. Sign in and play around with the new improvements for yourself. As always we welcome feedback (especially in the form of beer), so feel free to drop us a note in the Webmaster Help Group and let us know what you think.
26 comments:
thanks for the nice changes
Not only do I like the search queries in the webmaster tools, but I also like that you guy show us our rankings for them. When are you going to get us a tool where we can select our own term and see where we show up? Then we wouldn't have to resort to the software out there to check our rankings for specific terms :o)
Jen
These Suggestions Were Originally made by Search Engines Web - over the course of several months.
It would be nice to be acknowleged
Good Changes!
Thanks for Sitemaps and thanks for the continual improvements.
Forgive me, however, if I ask a question: How do I analyse the Top Search Queries csv data I get when I Download Data?
In earlier versions of SiteMaps the csv file, when opened in a spreadsheet, looked exactly the same as the table on the screen - but now the Top Search Queries and Top Clicked Queries columns contain masses of data that I don't know how to isolate in order to get a meaningful table.
I'd appreciate any help!
Thanks again - SiteMaps are very useful!
Best wishes
John Studd
Of course, most of this is still meaningless to folks who use both Blogger and FeedBurner, both owned by Google. Blogspot blogs who have their feed redirected to FB have sitemaps full of errors. Webmaster tools should have an option NOT to follow the redirection.
Hi Ghosty--
Is there something about our search query data that isn't working for you? I use webmaster tools for my Blogger blog and the search query data looks fine to me...
Also, Blogger automatically adds a Sitemap for you (in your robots.txt file), but if you want to add it in webmaster tools as well you can use your Atom feed (http://example.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default).
I have a website that for the first 8 months or so was simply a one-page site. I finally added content and got it re-hosted as a greatly updated site, with all new content. Before the site was showing up on a few search terms.
Now, it's completely off the internet, not showing up on any search terms on Google.
What happened? Is there something my webmaster did that I am not aware of. I wish someone at Google would be able to tell me if a site that gets completely updated just takes awhile to reappear or if there is something about the site that is causing Google problems.
http://www.grandcanyonquotes.com
Nice idea, useless though for us with penalties. Until reasons for penalties are explained to a webmaster, everything else is just fluff. Why will Google not use the message center it created in tools to help webmasters with what they are asking for help with...penalty removals???
http://www.travel-ascending.com/
Hi Ghosty, try submitting a different URL as the sitemaps feed -- see http://forums.feedburner.com/viewtopic.php?p=54103#54103 for more details about using Blogger, Sitemaps and Feedburner without running into error messages.
I am trying to see the external links to my site. For the last 24 hours I get "Our system is currently busy. Please try again in a few minutes."
Francisco, I've been getting the same error for the last couple days as well.
Not only do I like the search queries in the webmaster tools, but I also like that you guy show us our rankings for them. When are you going to get us a tool where we can select our own term and see where we show up? Then we wouldn't have to resort to the software out there to check our rankings for specific terms :o)
Can I get some help here? Please?
http://tinyurl.com/2rzlne
I NEED HELP! If it can be offered in my case. I wrote a blog, published it, then went back to add a picture, didn't save it, and I want to know if I can get it back? Considering I had already saved it once. I don't know where or how to direct this question to anyone, so I posted it here. Could someone at least direct me to someone proper to talk to? Thank you!
I really appreciate webmaster tools and find them extremly useful for my work with my hompage.
This said, I would like to forward one suggestion in the present context: I simply do not understand the columns "Position" in the two tables "Top search queries" and "Top clicked queries". What do they really indicate? Position in relation to what exactly?
I'm pondering on that since my first login to webmaster tools and I simply don't understand what these numbers actually tell me. Could you possibly work out the significance of that term more clearly in the comments?
Thanks a lot in advance, Leo Faltin, Vienna
Hi Leo--
Did you check out the help topic linked from that feature? It explains:
"'Position' is the highest position any page from your site ranked for that query, averaged over the last week."
Thanks Susan,-
yes, I did read that. However, there are several cases in my tables that show for one and the same query term a position of, say, 2 in the left table and, say, 10 in the right table. Since both tables refer to the same time interval - how is that possible? And, in addition to that, that the "position" leading to clicks is worse than the "position" where my page simply shows up?
That doesn't make sense to me. Exactly that observation led me to the conclusion, that "ranking" (="position") in this context must mean something different from the usual meaning - which for me is position in the list of query results counted downwards from the uppermost line.
Rgds, Leo
Hi, but where has the Request for Reinclusion gone?
I agree with the guy that said 'it's all fluff'. Some feedback from Google on sites that fell off after a site update or change of web host (in the sandbox?) would be of real use to webmasters. I now have to warn potential clients that updating their sites with better content will probably have a negative effect on their traffic, unless they're a 'price comparison' site in which case they can do what they like as they will not be penalized for duplicate content, affiliate links, PPC ads or anything else. I'm all for better results from Google but without feedback, the whole internet will go stale with webmasters frightened to change content for fear of triggering penalties.
Sidwell has a point. I updated one site and it fell off the charts with Google from 1st page to no where. I have a new site that I plan on leaving alone forever (ok, maybe not that long). http://www.phoenix-life-insurance.com. However, it will make me leery about updating a website in the future. I just don't understand why changes to a site is a negative thing with Google.
I commented about three months ago how one of my sites went from page one to not ranked after adding content. Now it's back up to #236 or so, too far back to have any positive impact. I wish I knew the trouble google bots have with this site. http://www.grandcanyonquotes.com
I do not understand how the position are shown on search query. When i use the same query on google, i see that my site is far behind than the position shown on the tool. Say a query is "Query 111" it show position 6 in webmaster tool but when i do a search with same query on google.. i see that it is listed always back say between 20-30 position. Same is with all search queries listed there. I dont understand such a vast varion from the position shown on tool and live result i see. I am not sure how google is showing the position.
Shailen
This posting was really useful. I also liked how you've described it in terms of impressions and clicks. Therefore, understanding the click-through rate will show what keywords need to be analyzed so your landing page could be optimized to reflect better CTR results.
It would be helpful and interesting to find out the methods on how we can parse the data file that we are able to download out of webmaster-tools.
Hi everyone,
Since several months have passed since we published this post, we're closing the comments to help us focus on the work ahead. If you still have a question or comment you'd like to discuss, free to visit and/or post your topic in our Webmaster Help Group.
Thanks and take care,
The Webmaster Central Team
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