Yahoo vs google.

[DavidW]

Sorr but if this was

analytics is just evil..

happening to a ton of people don't you think it would have failed by now. It's quickly becoming or is already the most used stats tool out there. Analytics is not evil and it's a disservice to the newer people to IM to make such a suggestion based on a correlation that does not in any way imply causation.

[webworld]

Tiger, I believe you. And, so do a number of SEO's.

56% of professional SEO's believe that Google Analytics data affects ranking. This is according to the annual SEO survey, conducted by SEOMoz. Analytics as a ranking factor is SECOND behind CTR (which 65% of SEO's believe affects ranking).

There is evidence to suggest that newer and/or smaller sites running Analytics may be penalized in the SERPS if they don't meet minimum benchmarks.

[ademartin]

Webworld,

I think we have to be careful saying that 56% of professional SEO's "believe that Google Analytics data affects ranking". The survey was not just taken by SEO pros.

The statement gives out negative overtones but actually the survey question is about... "Speculation and Beliefs - Where is the industry headed?"

Never take a result like this on face value and to read some replies to the survey it is worth looking at the following to put things into a more sensible perspective.
SEOmoz | SEO Industry Survey Results Released

For those who don't have the time or energy to surf through geek talk here is a take away:

==
I'm intested in the results for metrics that influence rankings on Google. The second highest metric (after clickthroughs on results) is Google Analytics data. I guess the interesting part of this is in the wording of the question.

Are people saying that if you have Google Analytics enabled for your site and the traffic recorded to your site is high then it will positively influence your rankings? Or are they saying that if you have Google Analytics and the traffic is low then it will negatively influence your rankings?

Or are people saying that if you don't have Google Analytics then it will negatively impact your rankings? I don't think the data really shows this... so what are your thoughts?
=

You're asking a really good question. I'm not suggesting that this is actually the case, and there was some ambiguity. Hopefully we'll have some of our community chime in here, since this question is about beliefs.

So what do you guys think? If you believe that analytics data is affecting rankings, how do you think it affects rankings?
=

I don't think that Analytics data would cause an effect on rankings because there is such a wide array of methods in which webmasters can skew the results: blocked IPs, filtered variables, source off-sets, even organic searches being treated as direct referrals.

Reporting limits like these may help a webmaster, but I do not see how this kind of polarization would benefit G, or anyone other SE. The way I'm seeing it, Google needs the 'pure' data from clickthroughs which may or may not be reported accurately in any individual analytics account.

==

It would appear from this very small foray that nobody really knows the answer just yet and it will probably be mostly speculation anyway.

Another post from the forum was this: "the fears are that , google could see exactly which sites you own; and cancel any cross links between them. (there is already a "scent" that they might be using whois data in the same manner or fashion"

Now, Andy Jenkins alluded to this a couple of years ago - I forget the exact context but it was a discussion about having multiple domains on the same server, (same IP). He said that Google could see right through any Whois regardless of whether you have a Privacy account.

Starting to wander off topic so it's time to stop but there is still a lot of room for testing Google analytics and the survey doesn't say that the result is necessarily a bad one.

Ade

[canadaboy37]

The burning question I have is what keywords are we talking about? It could be something that's very competitive in google, but not that big in yahoo, thus the disparity.

For example, I have one site that gets about a 29% bounce rate according to google analytics, but is on page two of the results.

Another site I have has a 59% bounce rate, but I haven't done much with it, and it's still on page four for keywords that have 6.6 million results.

[Tiger]

Here's the thing though, When you get ranked high on google, you naturally get a high backlink count as well.

1) Editors search using google to link to relevant sites
2) Editors find site and link to it.

Over time the sites that are already ranked high for their good backlinks, get EVEN MORE backlinks and reinforces their good rankings.

So if you're a small website you're already in a bad position, sure you could do a linkback campaign and email tonnes of people, but what if google can see the actual traffic these websites are giving you (which happens to be next to negligable).

here's another dilema, if you were a google engineer and you were faced with the problem of backlink spamming; would you use the quantity of traffic flows to ascertain the usefulness and relevance of a link?

Emm I'm sure I would.

And what if you could get these stats from google analytics??

In a fair world, and a level playing field I wouldn't mind,, however based on my personal experience I think analytics data disadvantages websites over other websites of similar size and quality that do not have analytics installed. And that is the problem right there...

having said that, if you are in a good niche, which isn't competitive then you wouldn't have to deal with these tough SEO issues. As it happens I am in a very competitive field.


It's worth mentioning, I am not an seo expert, so please take my advice for what it's worth. I have read seobook, and numerous seo blogs, and only run 2 websiites which make a grand total of £160/$320 a week. So I have very limited experience in this field. I do not want to mislead anyone by having them think I'm an expert in this.

[Joss]

Tiger!! It's Sug.. £160 a week is good, I'm impressed

[alexander13]

An interesting discussion. I can agree with Tiger about testing things out for yourself. This is always the best policy in your business and marketing.

From a logical standpoint it makes no sense for google to penalize users of their analytics service. If this was ever publicly confirmed everyone would remove google analytics and all the money and time spent on its development would be wasted.

Also, bigebiz is still ranking #1 for his keywords and has analytics on his site.

In addition google isn't the be all end all. There are many other ways to get people to your site and often times the google centric focus keeps you from seeing 'the forest through the trees'.