OrderDynamics Google Updates Report – May 2013

Search Engine Optimization specialists have their work cut out for them with recent Google Search changes. Thankfully, with new features in Google Analytics and Google Adwords, they have additional tools to help measure and strategize new initiatives.

Google Search

Google’s Matt Cutts created upset amongst search engine optimization specialists and webmasters on March 15 when he stated that Google would no longer be announcing Google Panda Updates in advance, or confirming them afterward.  Matt Cutts explained that Updates would no longer take place in monthly manual pushes, but rather Google would implement rolling updates, leading to more frequent but smaller updates. He did, however, confirm Panda Update #25 would take place throughout the subsequent weekend.

As future updates can only be speculated, this announcement would suggest that Google hopes to place a greater emphasis on continuous SEO efforts, rather than reactive or proactive initiatives to each Update.  Suspected major Updates were reported by Search Engine Land to have taken place April 5, and May 7, the latter of which caused as much as a 77% drop in search rank and traffic for many businesses.

The first algorithm update for Penguin (all previous changes to Penguin were refreshes, not updates) since its introduction in April 2012, was confirmed to have taken place on May 22. Google reported that Penguin 2.0 affected 2.3% of English search queries, including both big search rank boosts as well as drops. 

The key to good SEO optimization in 2013 has largely focused on link building via content creation and syndication; taking this into consideration, it can be deduced that Google’s moves to discontinue Panda announcements coupled with the Penguin update aim to discourage businesses from producing content that is highly promotional but provide no informative value to readers, and penalize those who continue to purchase and submit links to directories. The notion is that by creating articles that truly provides value to readers will be shared anyway, and will build a better backlink profile consisting of sites with good PageRank.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics rolled out Universal Analytics to all users on March 22. This enhanced version of Analytics features an increased focus on mobile data allowing tracking for:

• How customers interact with a site depending on the device they are using
• Mobile app performance
• Aggregate data between online and offline operations

Google Analytics Social Reports were also enhanced on March 26 to better analyze interactions with a site’s social content.  Two new reports were introduced:

•  Data Hub Activity – timelined list of social activities, and interactions around them
• Trackbacks – lists all backlinks to a site, as well as specific pages being linked to

The information in these reports were previously available by filtering through Network Referrals and Landing Pages, but are now their own unique reports.

Several improvements were made to Google Analytics’ Real Time Reporting from March through May. The first, on March 28, targeted Events Reporting – “Events” being activities such as mobile ad clicks, use of onsite tools, downloads, video views – which aim to track how different audiences (based on device, time of day, etc) initiate certain Events.  The March 28 update also included improved Content Breakdown to display in real time what percentage of visitors onsite are browsing via desktop, tablet or mobile, Shortcuts which save frequently applied filters for later use, and Real-time vs. Overall traffic activity comparisons.

On April 16, Google Analytics added Real-time Widgets. Users can combine several different widgets to measure very specific or niche traffic segments by allowing them to filter based on device type and location. For example, using Real-time Widgets, an Analytics user could track in real-time traffic originating from tablet devices only located in the UK.

An update on May 2 further upgraded Real-Time Reporting to also include real-time conversion tracking. This feature, however, remains very basic and cannot report on things like time spend on site or pages per visit.

Later in May, the Mobile App Analytics integration with Google Play was announced. The integration seeks to help app developers track where traffic to their app is coming from, the keywords being searched that drive traffic to apps, number of app views, and how many people go on to actually use the app post-download. In conjunction with Google Tag Manager, Analytics also announced the ability to make changes and improvements to mobile apps that will resonate even through already downloaded versions.

Additional improvements to Google Analytics include the implementation of detailed filters based on mobile, social, and ecommerce traffic.