Google announced through the official Webmaster Central blog that they have updated Webmaster Tools to offer more detailed search queries. The two updates, which were both announced yesterday, aim to “make metrics for your site more actionable” and to make search queries “more cohesive for those who manage a mobile site on a separate URL from desktop.” I’d like to briefly go over the changes below.
No More Rounded Search Queries
Webmaster Tools used to round offthe impressions that your site receives when at least one of your pages appears on search results, and the clicks you receive as a result. The data you see in the search queries feature is the number of impressions and clicks you receive over a period of 90 days. This is what it looked like before:
With this update, you will no longer see the rounded numbers; instead, you will get exact figures. According to John Mueller, this will help you analyze your target audience’s online search and browsing behavior more accurately.
Better Tracking for Separate Mobile Sites
Another update that was announced by Google yesterday is the improvement of their mobile tracking features. According to the announcement, when you visit your verified m. mobile site and set Filters to “Mobile,” you will see:
- Queries where your m. pages appeared in search results for mobile browsers
- Queries where Google applied Skip Redirect. This means that, while search results displayed the desktop URL, the user was automatically directed to the corresponding m. version of the URL (thus saving the user from latency of a server-side redirect).
Before the update, Skip Redirect information was included in the desktop URL report. Separating it from desktop reports and consolidating the rest of m. website information will help you understand user behavior on mobile better, allowing you to create a more cohesive integrated marketing approach for multiple screens.
Here’s what it looks like, from Google’s blog post:
If you need any further assistance with these new features, contact your account manager today. We’d be glad to help make the most out of this updated data for your campaigns.
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