Google Rank Data in Referring URLs?

Today, The Official Google Analytics Blog posted about how it was changing its search referral structure. The biggest piece of information that many diehard analytic experts observed is that within the new referral format, there appears to be an indicator as to where the landing page ranked organically on the search engine results page. I’ll spare the technical details around the new format (which are covered in the official post) but from this information there has been a bit of a buzz generated around what this might mean.

Many have extrapolated from this assumption that this is a fantastic way to measure conversion metrics against organic rank. Using web analytics, we know we can track the conversions for each visit but now we can evaluate conversions based on rank. Essentially I can create a report that looks something like the one below for the sample keyword “widgets”:

This starts to tell some pretty useful information. For instance, using the fictitious data above, one could begin to predict the potential conversion success for moving up in average rank. Additionally, combining this data with information like search volume for a given keyword (gathered from Google Trends or similar) organic Click Through Rate (CTR) can be calculated. Ultimately, these types of metrics are crucial for prioritizing where to focus one’s efforts.

There are some things to consider before jumping on the bandwagon. For one, this hasn’t fully rolled out yet. According to the post, this is being rolled out to a select group for now. There are also concerns on how permanent this will be. Google routinely adjusts their SERP layout and many times those changes don’t stick. This could be a similar situation. Also, in order to generate a report like the one above, one must have actually held positions in all 10 ranking slots which may not be likely in a short period of time. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the official blog post has yet to acknowledge that this metric is in fact the ranking information everyone assumes it is.

We will be tracking this in the future and commenting as more information becomes more concrete.

Bookmark this post: