Track SEO rankings with Google Analytics
Some months ago I created a Google Analytics filter that enables you to track your Google rankings. I blogged about it on my own Dutch analytics blog and saw there was more interest in it then usual. Joost walked by and offered me to do a guest post on this subject. So here he goes:
Track SEO rankings?
Well, you can't specifically track the exact position of the keyword that was clicked like you can do with AdWords. But it is possible to determine the page he was on. A ranking tool can tell you over and over again that a certain keyword is around position 15 in Google while Google Analytics claims he is on page 1 (position 1 to 10). This effect can come from 'personalized search' or 'local results' that can influence the Google rankings dramatically. People see other results than you see with your ranking tools. And therefore you need Google Analytics to do the real ranking.
Setup the filter
To get the rankings in your Google Analytics reports you have to create a new filter:
The title of the filter contains a 3, that's because filter 1 and 2 take care of filtering out everything else than Google Organic traffic. So yes: you also have to create a new profile to apply these filters on to be sure you don't screw up your main profile.
This filter only works for Google. if you want it to work for Yahoo and Live Search also, make sure you change the filters 1 and 2 so they accept Organic from all three of them. Then setup the filter like this:
The ranking results
After a while the "User Defined" report will look like this (ignore the language):
What you see are not the actual rankings, but the number of the first result of the page the keyword was on. So when you see 20, it means the keyword was on the third page, and a 50 means the sixth page. (Yahoo and Live Search will report 21 and 51 in stead of 20 and 50).
When you don't see a number but only "(page: ): it means the keyword was on the first page. So perhaps it is better to change "page:" to "minimal position;", I leave that up to you.
If you want to filter the list of keywords on keywords with at least a page 2 position you can use "\(page: \d{2,3}\)" in the filter field below the list. The \d stands for digits, and the 2,3 for the amount of digits you're looking for.
Enjoy.
This post was written by: André Scholten
Web Analytics Consultant and SEO specialist. For more info check my Web Analytics and SEO blog.
See all posts by: André Scholten.
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Wauw what a great tip!! Extremely valuable. I'm setting it up right now, thanks a lot!
@ Andre
Thank you for posting this filter! I implemented it to our company's analytics report 2 days ago (on July 1st) and have a few questions. We seem to be getting a lot of (not set)'s. Since Wednesday, we've gotten 99 in total. Is this normal? Also, the results we are getting show a lot of #1 placements, which seems a little unrealistic. I entered the code exactly and was wondering why this might be happening? Please advise.
Thank you!
Whoaaa, this is a great post. I will set this up tonight and let you know how it goes. This should work for what I need it for!
Woooah! Great tip for a dummies like me. I'll try it tonight. Thx a lot and good 2009 to all
This is awesome information, except you didn't tell people where to go to create a new filter...you can find it here:
http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?answer=55492&hl=en
I quickly modified the regular expressions to work with Yahoo and MSN too. I just started testing it so use at own risk.
Field A (Google and MSN use q for query parameter, Yahoo uses p):
(\?|&)(q|p)=([^&]*)
Field B (Google=start, Yahoo=b, MSN=first):
(\?|&)(start|first|b)=([^&]*)
Fantastic tip! I too am setting it up right now, thanks.
You have a great post here mate... this is a must read for everyone - will be writing about it for Search Engine Watch
OK, that is super cool! This totally solves the problem of correlating GA data to 3rd party ranking software.
Thanks so much for publishing this. I know of at least one company for whom this data is their business model.
Will
Regexp and google analytics ... what can I say, I am in love. ;)
Cool, thanks a lot!
this is great; I understand it but I don't know how to do filters 1+2 (to filter out all but organic traffic). could you give an example of what those rules would look like? many thanks. best, Eric
Nice post. Thanks a lot for this.
This absolutely a genius way of doing this.
The most creative and innovative post I have read in a long time relating to analytics.
Thanks so much for this awesome hack. Is it not possible to replace the Use Defined value with $A2 (page: $B2/10 + 1) so that it is easy to understand the corresponding page number?
I really want to know the answer. Thanks.
I'd like to know the answer as well...
@Amit:
I was just going to try and figure out if I could do that with a regular expression except starting on page zero, but your way is much better.
Very handy André! I'm going to set this up with a couple of test clients right away.
I love that method to have the page show up in the keyword data. I wrote about a similar method of filtering by referring page before Christmas (tracking referrals from second page of Google). I'm going to update my post with a link to this. Great work.
For all German Readers the required fields in Deutscher Sprache:
Ranking 3
Benutzerdefiniert
Erweitert
Feld A -> A extrahieren (\?|&)(q|p)=([^&]*)
Feld B -> B extrahieren (\?|&)(start|first|b)=([^&]*)
Ausgabe in -> Konstruktor $A2 (page: $B2)
Don't use the expressions I have posted on 6 January 2009 at 10:36 (above). I have used Damon Gudaitis posting from 6 January 2009 at 01:23 (ahead) which also did not work in my Analytics and only showed NO KEYWORDS. I used this instead - which works fine now and should work fo all major search engines. Please change to:
Feld A -> A extrahieren Kampagnenbegriff (.*)
Feld B -> B extrahieren Verweis (\?|&)(start|b|first)=([^&]*)
Ausgabe in -> Konstruktor Benutzerdefinierte Segmente $A1 (page: $B3)
The setup-process in german ist posted here: http://www.promomasters.at/blog/2009/01/07/seo-ranking-in-analytics/
Excellent GA trick André!
Michael, here you have to change the values you want GA to collect in the constructor field.
Since these two regex also take into account MSN and Yahoo, a new set of parenthesis was added, so the constructor field has to be changed accordingly :
Field A -> Extract A (\?|&)(q|p)=([^&]*)
Field B -> Extract B (\?|&)(start|first|b)=([^&]*)
Output To -> Constructor $A3 (page: $B3)
@Christophe - I have now used your code. I have also heard that Field A -> Extract A Campaign Term should be changed to Referral as otherwise only campaign keywords will be reported. Can you give a full and final description of ALL SETTINGS?
Great tip!
Already implemented it, but I'm also curious about the last comment you make. It is indeed interesting to only see the second page keywords. Exactly in which field do you put the code "\(page: \d{2,3}\)"?
SeitenRanking bei Google bei Google Analytics anzeigen lassen:
this is cool, i've been doing this for the last couple of months. I recommend putting this in place
Great Post !!!. Will certainly try out this on my website. Tweeted this one :)
Nice method. How can I filter the Google searches (filter 1 & 2) exactly? I am using a dutch version of GA, the formulas should work there too?
Great addition, and simple to set up. The results are nice and a great in addition to the data of other tools.
Hello Andre Scholten,
That's Great. I have to check it out. It would be great if you could add little more innovation to your thoughts and tell me the trick that how to find out exactly the position instead of page if possible. lol :) :) :)
Regards
Arjun
Please explain how to throw out "everything but organic search results" for us newbies. Thanks so much.
Great post, and indeed simple to setup!
Below you will find a link to some explanation on excluding everything but organic traffic. Andre refers to this as ranking 1 and 2.
http://groups.google.com/group/analytics-help-tracking/browse_thread/thread/01f32de9c4e37b43?pli=1
Bedankt, werkt goed!
@All: Thanks.
@Andrew, @Eric, @Martijn: To set up the first 2 filters to include only (Google) organic traffic you: create a new filter, choose filter type "custom filter". Then choose the "include" option, set the filter field on "Campaign Medium" and the filter pattern on "organic". This filter only allows organic traffic in the profile. The second filter that only includes Google traffic is the same but with filter field on "Campaign Source" and filter pattern on "google" or "google|live|yahoo".
@Amit: you can't put calculations in the filter field, would be nice though.
@Patrick: if you look at the "User defined" report you see a little textbox at the bottom. You can use that to filter the keywords list real-time.
@Arjun: when I find out how to do that I will definitely blog about it ;)
Hi Andre, just to be sure ... I do NOT have to use Filter 1 and 2 if I want the rankings on all Keywords of all Search Engines. Am I right? Thanks, Michael
@André
Thanks. It's working! Great tip.
@Andre - thank you so much! best, Eric
@Andre - thank you!
The additional info makes it super-easy to implement.
Will
This is great! Thanks for the tips...
Eh, I prefer this way instead for tracking page positions.
I prefer keeping my keywords as keywords and then segment instead so I can see across pages if I want to as well.
Great tip. Should be useful on a number of sites I work on. One question- Is there any way to include the "Source" within the output? It would be really interesting to be able to see an output such as:
example keyphrase (Google, Page: 30)
Am I dreaming?
Great tip Joost - looking forward to seeing the results
Wow, that's a great tip! Thanks a lot!
How long does it take until I can see the filter working? Will it be visible automatically in the Traffic Sources > Keywords report?
Uuhm sorry, another question: You mentioned
The title of the filter contains a 3, that's because filter 1 and 2 take care of filtering out everything else than Google Organic traffic.
Could you please specify how filter 1 and 2 need to look like? Or where I can find more information about it? Thank!!
Thanks so much...
I got both of the filters set-up but the problem is that don't know where to view the results or get the report from them...
thanks for letting me know about it though!
David King
Great! and very informative. I'm starting up to learn more about GA. Thank you.
I was thinking yesterday about this and today came across this post. Great. I have just set it up but please reply if I need to manually enter the keywords or it will be done automatically.
Awesome tip, I've set it up and I'm anxiously awaiting results :) Thanks.
Just remember you probably should to create a duplicate profile of the GA account before applying the filter.
@Volker, what exactly do you mean with duplicate profile. Should I implement 2 GA codes, or are there other ways to "back up" the data?
@Martijn - Volker means, that you setup a second profile under the same Google-Account. When setting up a new profile you are getting asked if you want to do that for an already existing domain - say YES and choose the domain you want to see the SEO Rankings. You will see, that the tracking code of the second profile is exactly the same as from the first profile with the same domain.
Why did Volker warn you ... when you set a filter this is influencing all of your data. If you do a wrong filter maybe you get no data until you remove the filter again. So you should ALWAYS test a filter in a second test profile. The problem could be, that otherwise you have NO Tracking-Information for that period of time you had the filter set. Inside a report you can not turn on filter and see filtered and then turn off the filter and see all results. Google Analytics generates your statistics based on the set filters of each profile and stores them "static".
@Luke: you're certainly not dreaming: create a new filter, filter type "custom" and then choose "advanced". Set Field A on "User Defined" and "(.*)" and Field B on "Campaign Source" and "(.*)". Then set "Output to" on "User Defined" with "$A1 ($B1)" and that should do the trick.
@Mandy: patience, it should take max 24 hours to see the first results in the "user defined" report.
@David: Search for the "user defined" report
@Atul: the keywords appear automagically ;)
@David @Mandy @Atul @All which do not find their Keyword Ranking in the Google Analtyics Report
ENGLISH: you can find your User Defined Report like Ranking 3 when you click on the tab Visitors and then at the end of the menue on the Link User Defined.
DEUTSCH: du findest deinen Benutzerdefiniert Report wie Ranking 3 wenn du auf den Tab Besucher klickst und dann am Ende im Menü auf Benutzerdefiniert klickst.
Michael, thanks for the explanation!
You can see the SEO Keyword Ranking Tracking under User Defined already today after a few hours if you change the report-date to TODAY! I do already see some of todays search/click queries. Mike
Thanks for the explanation, Michael!
Meanwhile I can see a first result in the User Defined report, but it looks like this:
: (page: )
The keyword is missing, I can only see it after clicking on this value and select the dimension "keyword".
Double-checked the reg. expressions in the filters and it looks ok - same like you described.
Any idea?
Hi Mandy, don't use the expressions I have posted on 6 January 2009 at 10:36. I have used Damon Gudaitis posting from 6 January 2009 at 01:23 which also did not work in my Analytics and only showed NO KEYWORDS. I used this instead - which works fine now and should work fo all major search engines. Please change to:
Feld A -> A extrahieren Kampagnenbegriff (.*)
Feld B -> B extrahieren Verweis (\?|&)(start|b|first)=([^&]*)
Ausgabe in -> Konstruktor Benutzerdefinierte Segmente $A1 (page: $B3)
Thanks a lot, Michael!! Now the filter is working! Great!! :)
I wrote a post about it in German with some more details how I finally implemented the filter in Analytics:
http://www.maraa.de/200901/keyword-ranking-tracken-mit-google-analytics/
Thanks to all for your help and this great idea!!
You're right about my RegEx not working. I just threw it together without much thought which is why I warned everyone.
But I think your Field A only works with paid traffic. I presume Kampagnenbegriff means one of Campaign Source, Campaign Medium, Campaign Name, Campaign Term, Campaign Content, or Campaign Code (most likely Campaign Term). Please correct me if I'm wrong, but Campaign refers to Adsense and other paid traffic that you attach tracking parameters to the URL.
The problem with my first RegEx was that I wasn't extracting the right variables to output to the report.
Try this:
Field A->Extract A Referral (\?|&)(q|p)=([^&]*)
Field B->Extract B Referral (\?|&)(start|first|b)=([0-9]*)
Output to->Constructor $A3 (page: $B3)
or alternately try
Output to->Constructor $A3 (page: $B3)/10+1
What the fuck is that, the last Tweets from my Account SEO_adsense? Sorry!?!?
What a really useful post! Now I'll be able to see far more using Google Analytics.
The only problem I'm having is the User Defined Report. Do you create this under the Custom Reporting section?
@tony,
the user defined report is standard available in your analytics account. Go to "visitors" the user defined report is at the bottom of the list.
Thanks. I new I'd seen it somewhere, but I'm still finding my way around GA.
Hey Andre,
Superpost. Heb het direct geprogrammeerd. Ik vraag me alleen af of je ook regex moet gebruiken bij filter 1 en 2 of kan je gewoon 'google' en 'organic' invullen zonder regex?
Groeten Jeroen (FBTO)
@Jeroen: correct :)
So that was tracking filter talk about. Great and awesome. Thanks.
Great tip, I've set it up and I'm awaiting for the results
Any way - Thanks.
That's a great tip! Thanks a lot!
Great tip. I installed it straight away - just waiting on the data to start pouring in!
Awesome post!
Very helpful.
Anybody got this working, because I haven't.
Here is an exemple of what I get:
keyword1+keyword2 (page: )
Nothing shows up after page:
Here is what I filed in the filter form:
Field A -> Extract A: (\?|&)q=([^&]*)
Field B -> Extract B: (\?|&)start=([^&]*)
Output To -> Constructor: $A2 (page: $B2)
I have checked and double checked and it seems to be exactly what is on the first screenshot.
(I have also done filter 1 and 2)
If someone could help that would be great
This could be a good sign!
André writes in the post: "When you don't see a number but only "(page: ): it means the keyword was on the first page."
I also was waiting some time to see if the filter really works and it was the first time that I was happy to see a keyword which did NOT appear on the first page. ;-)
Oh my G**! Blessings for this.
For me it works too, I thought to see it in the default report instead of the user defined.
Thanks!
Doesn't work :( I doublechecked the data to fill in but the positions don't show up in my results. Maybe I made some mistake with filter 1 and 2! Does anybody have the same problem? Or do I just have to wait longer (it's almost 24 hours ago) My filters 1 and 2 are set as follows:
Filter 1: custom filter; include; campaign source; "google"
Filter 2: custom filter; include, campaign medium; "organic"
Begging for help! Thanks guys!
What exactly does the number mean? Does 'page: 20' say 'there are 20 results before your link is displayed? Is that the reason why the link was actually on the 3rd place (20+1 minus 10 per page)
20 text link results. because the actual number of items displayed per page is higher due to Universal Search Items. So the number of the page you are on doesn't tell you explicitly about the position of that link (the incoming tracked click might come from a universal search item, triggered by the same keyword ).
How do you get this to work - i've entered the details but where do I see the results?
I'm lost
Thanks for sharing the resource. It makes life more simpler to keep track of many sites. :)
Hi,
I have two queries
1. Under the User defined value ( Visitors > User defined ), it shows ( not set ). what does it mean
2. One of the keywords is showing like this -
Keyword+keyword+keyword(page:10) where all these keywords constitute a keyphrase. But when I checked with this keyword, the site was on second page. Please explain.
1. I'm not sure about this.
2. I'm planning on doing a posting explaining this thoroughly on my own blog once I've tested a few advanced hacks. If you see (page: ) it means you're on page 1. (page: 10) or (page: 11) is page 2, (page 20) or (page:21) is page 3 and so on.
This solution is great. Using it to identify low-hanging fruit on SERP pgs 1 and 2. If you're already using the user-defined variable for something else, extract the $A2 page $B2 to a custom variable, then use another filter to mash up that custom variable with user defined.
Whoooaaa!! Dude, this is awesome! Will sure to try it
Thanks!
Hey Joost,
big thanks for this tip, I have just created this filter, tomorrow I'll see the results :)
Great article and funny method to use g - analytics.
Nice!
less nice; another * on my "to do list" ;)
I tried a bunch of different ways to format this hack and got one to work. This hack works with both the original code that tracks Google, and the code I posted earlier in the comments to track Google, MSN, and Yahoo.
It takes a bit of work, but if you really want to format the search rankings cleanly:
1. Create a Custom > Search and Replace filter to format unset page 1 results.
-Search String: \(page: \)
-Replace String: \(page: 1\)
2. Create a Custom > Search and Replace filter to format page 2 results.
-Search String: 1([0-1])\)
-Replace String: 2\)
3. Repeat previous step for page 3+ incrementing the first number by one in both the Search String and Replace String each time until you get bored.
If you're not sure about any of this, I've put up extremely thorough instructions explaining how to set up Google Analytics SERP filters on my own blog.
I probably missed something. Filter doesn't work.
Do I have to set up the 2 filters above to make it work or the first one or the other is enough?
Which report in GA is concerned? Keywords report?
Many thanks for your help
First, it takes a day to see the results, so maybe you just need to be patient.
The first two filters aren't absolutely necessary, but you really should do them. If you don't, you will see a lot of unset values in your report and you will someday find query strings that match your regular expressions and give you some weird data.
To see the actual data, click Visitors > User Defined in the menu on the left of the GA interface.
HI, anyone of you who can give the final settings for Analytics - including the Dropdown and formulas - so that there is ONE posting with the settings which do work regulary - even when they show +10 instead of 12. But everyone is asking for settings which do work. MOSTLY I see (not set) and some of the keywords show a ranking. Thanks, Michael
Setting up these filters will eliminate the not set results.
Filter 1
-Create a Custom > Include filter
-Filter Field = Campaign Medium
-Filter Pattern = organic
Filter 2
-Create a Custom > Include filter
-Filter Field = Referral
-Filter Pattern = (google|yahoo|msn)\.[a-z]+
Filter 3
-Create a Custom > Advanced filter
-Field A->Extract A = Referral | (\?|&)(q|p)=([^&]*)
-Field B->Extract B = Referral | (\?|&)(start|first|b)=([^&]*)
-Output To->Constructor = User Defined | $A3 (page: $B3)
If you're not sure about something here, have a look at my detailed GA SERPs hack post on my own blog.
Hi,
I have created a filter for organic traffic only. The code is -
New filter ->
Filter name `Organic`
Filter Type -> Custom Filter
Checked : include
Filter Field: Campaign Medium
Filter Pattern `organic`
My query is -
1. Is it necessary to use single quote between organic like this 'organic'.
2. Is this the correct code I have implemented or there is something missing.
I've created a video to show everyone how to implement this filter: http://yoast.com/rankings-filter-analytics-video/
In the user defined value report, the number one listing is "(not set)". This constitutes half of all visits. What does the "(not set)" mean?
Drilling down, the source is from each of the search engines.
Thanks!
Awesome post, thank you very much.
Really, really great article! Many thanks
Wow,
This blog is great. Wish I'd have found it earlier as I've really wanted to get on top of Wordpress SEO.
I'm got a rather troublesome problem that I've posted on my Blog to do with SEO. I've managed to get a good following on my blog (just outside Alexa ranking of top 100k) and freely give out information about how to build a successful online business through using a Blog. My latest report to my readers has me stumped though !!
I let everyone know my 'tips' and 'secrets' for how they can improve things for themselves. However, in my latest I do a comparison between my blog and another that has an Alex Ranking of over 16 million!. On the face of it there should be no comparison and yet the other performs better in terms of positioning for Google searches. My blog has pretty awesome stats and the other one less so for EVERY measure you can think of that is relevant to SEO. In terms of on-site SEO they are broadly similar. And yet my higher traffic blog is far lower down the Google returned search results compared against this other one.
There is a good debate going on my site as to possibilities why this is the case and yet it still remains a mystery. Anybody throw any light on the matter?
Garry Parkes
http://garryparkes.com
Great Tip, I have found good infomation in this blog.
This is great! Thanks so much. Any chance that this could be modified so that the keywords are displayed properly? Currently, hyphens are displayed as %22, etc. Anyone else experiencing this, or come up with a solution?
Thanks again for your work!
I have implemented the filter which shows full referral name of sites on one of my sites. Bit it is not showing http://
part. Is there any way to do it.
Thanks
Cool ;-) Thanks a lot for posting this powerful filter. Finally now I know for what is that filter function in Analytics :D
Hi!
I cant get my filter working, it just stand (page: $b2) in the report after the keyword.
Could someone give me a hint please.
thanks for a smart filter!
Try an uppercase B in the filter ;)
Thanks for such great information, not just to you, Joost, but everyone else who has contributed and added so much useful content. For a newbie, any help is very much appreciated. Thanks once again.
I have applied the filter but it shows ( not set ). What does it mean and how can I remove this.
Thanks for the tip. I implemented something similar months ago and it's invaluable, but I'll be setting this up as well today.
Andre's filter was ahead of it's time!
But now that Google is rolling out the new results pages with the position built in, we can use a similar filter to embed that directly in the reports.
See this post for details:
http://www.websharedesign.com/display-search-engine-rankings-seo-in-google-analytics.html
-Corey
Wow, SO simple, I can't believe I never thought of that. This is Awesome! Thank you!
This is great, but the majority of clicks coming from search engines come from the first page of users' SERP. Also, there is a huge difference between being ranked 10 (below the fold) and being ranked 3 (above the fold).
Check us out here:
Thanks for the translation!
Tony
great post sir..
thanks for sharing. really helped a lot here.
regards,
-------------------------------------------
UGGS
Cool article about this methode - thanx for the tip!
Wow! This filter is awesome, definitely going to save me a lot of time.
wow that's awesome
thank u very much
Cool tips! Thank you very much!
Really, really great article! Many thanks. It works.
The analytics filter works fine for me but I am not clear as to what is meant by ( not set ). Also
below (not set ), there is a entry Guest. Can anyone please explain.
Some times ago, Amit wrote " Use Defined value with $A2 (page: $B2/10 + 1) so that it is easy to understand the corresponding page number?"
I have tried this, but the result is not clear. Its like this -
Keyphrase ( page:/10+1) Is this the correct result.
Thanks for your useful info, I think it’s a good topic.
Great tip! Gonna try this later on.
Andre, I was wondering if you saw my post?