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What does monitoring your Google organic search positions mean to you?
\nThe obsession of search positioning is a strange phenomenon. Each data centre produces a different set of results, yet so often people seem fixated on the position, rather than the result of the click through or the part the click through played in the conversion funnel.\u00a0 Just imagine if you could work out what the value of each organic search query was worth to you. A few savvy search marketing agencies shied away from the blinkered approach of getting high rankings for the sake of it a long time ago. But just imagine if you could work out what the true value of each query,was worth.<\/p>\n
Well, we are all one step closer to getting there. Using your favourite analytics tool, Google Analytics, it\u2019s now easy to monitor the real time organic search position for each click, regardless of which data centre it came from. From this you can monitor click through rates and conversions. Yes, you guessed it, Google is measuring the search queries, the positions and the click through on organic positions. From Google\u2019s perspective, it will help them have a better understanding of the nature of the intent of the search query. Did you want an image, a video, a news feed or a traditional web page? Perhaps it wasn\u2019t the medium that was the problem; perhaps there was a different meaning to the search query. Naturally, Google realise the use and understanding of the English language varies from country to country; a search for \u201cluxury travel\u201d on Google.com brings up a totally different set up of results to that on Google.co.uk. However, this goes way beyond the usual sway of the US results pages showing results based on trusted links from US websites. The main body of the Google.com organic results for \u2018luxury travel\u201d, show 10 web page results followed by eight additional \u201csearches related to luxury travel\u201d. The UK results show a need to use Universal Search. The top 3 organic listings are traditional web page results, based on traditional SEO factors; title, content, trusted links, internal structure, domain age etc.<\/p>\n
Making Sense of Search Positions<\/strong><\/p>\n The next three listings we see are based around a suggestion that we may be looking for a \u201cluxury travel magazine\u201d. This is followed by three local listings based on the user\u2019s IP address, showing local hotels that have used SEO strategies, such as using the word \u201cluxury\u201d in the title or in their user reviews.\u00a0 The next seven results are standard web page results, merited by common contribution factors including The US variation of the result: The parameter used to measure the organic position on this occasion is \u201cresnum\u201d, so \u201cresnum=5\u201d indicates the result is the fifth organic result on the page, indicating the result is currently in this position as part of a revised suggestion of the original search query. An excerpt of the recorded URL was \u201coi=revisions_result&resnum=5\u201d. The results for positions seven, eight and nine are local Google maps listings, these are identified in the URL string as \u201coi=local_result\u201d. They also use the \u201cresnum\u201d parameter to identify the organic position of the result, it also identifies the geographic location of the search. Again in time, Google can ascertain therelevancy of this result in relation to the query.<\/p>\n
\npage titles, content, in bound links, link text used, internal link clusters, page rank, age of the page and freshness of content.\u00a0 The last result on page one is the news feed result, proving that in some\u00a0 circumstances, the age of the page and page rank have nothing to do with the relevancy of getting a first page result on Google. After all, who needs a news page that has age to it? In certain circumstances freshness, trust and relevancy are all we need and Google knows this. So page rank isn\u2019t dead, it\u2019s just taking a back seat when it is relevant to do so. This is a move in the right direction. At the footer of the page we see \u201csearches related to luxury travel\u201d, yet again the suggestions put forward are very different to those of our US counterparts.<\/p>\n
\nSo where are we going with all this?
\nIt\u2019s well documented that Google is measuring engagement on its Chrome browser. It is monitoring bounce back rates and the choice of medium used; gaining a better understanding of what type of result we are actually looking for. What we see now in the UK and the US results pages will change as Google collates more and more user information, to generate more relevant results on a country by country basis.
\nWhat we can do now as users is monitor the organic search position at the point of click through. This is normally done by monitoring the \u201ccd\u201d parameter in the URL search query string and can easily be set up on Google Analytics or read by looking at the Google cache URL. The example below used \u201ccd=1\u201d in its URL string, indicating that this organic result is position one. The latter half of the cached URL shows the domain, the search terms used, the search position, the language used and other information such as browser type. Other parameters are being used for revised versions of the results. The suggested results for \u201cluxury travel magazine\u201d, for positions four, five and six are being monitored by Google to see if the suggested change of search query is relevant or not. The parameter used to identify that this is a revised suggestion of the search query is \u201coi=revisions_result\u201d.<\/p>\n