This is major news in the world of SEO as it aids in the tracking an monitoring of search engine positions. Currently specialist tools are utilised for the tracking and monitoring of natural search positions but this change in Google referrer strings could be the beginning of the end for these tools. There is always an element of inaccuracy in position monitoring software due to the various data centres used by Google for serving search results. An update in one data centre means that users of Google would see your website in different positions depending on where and when they search. This issue has been magnified as Google has begun to introduce personalised search results and also the wiki search results for users signed in to Google services. Google has also made a step change recently to less major, more frequent updates to its algorithms which means that smaller variances in search results are more likely, but on a more frequent basis. Add in with this the introduction of universal search elements in sporadic testing stages on various results and the monitoring and predicting of positions has become a minefield and one which many softwares have struggled ot adapt to.

But with the introduction of this variable into the referrer string Google has provided users with a static, standard variable for use in monitoring SEO performance. Regardless of where you are seeing the website today, tomorrow, or yesterday you know exactly where it appeared when that particular click occurred. By including it in the referrer string with a clear indicator Google have also opened the door for analytics packages to begin including the position in their traffic reports. And you can be sure of course, that the Google Analytics team, as well as developers at all other major tracking and analytics tools, will be beavering away to release this functionality imminently.

With all the changes in SEO, and the emergence of universal and personalised search, over the past couple of years, the focus of any most professional SEO experts and companies has moved away from pure positions, and towards traffic volumes and resulting business. This move by Google follows on nicely and in a way is there way of acknowledging that your positions are going to change on a more frequent basis.  Where you see your website will be different to where your customers see it, effectively making the position at any one point in time, unimportant.  What becomes important to know in this ever changing landscape is knowledge of the position it appeared in when a click, ultimately a transaction occurred.

RIP position reporting tools, welcome the new age of SEO reporting.

Is this something new? Something which will revolutionise the world of web analytics?  No!

This functionality has been available through many other leading analytics packages, and is already available through Yahoo Web Analytics, the new challenger to Google analytics since Yahoo bought out Indextools.  So why is it newsworthy?

Well, it shows that Google are serious about the whole analytics game, and that they are trying to build something competitive which has benefits aside from an ease of integration with AdWords.  So far this, and the fact that it was free, were (and I suppose still are) the only reason to choose Google Analytics over the more advanced tools in the market.  But since Yahoo made Indextools free after they bought the analytics tool, and since most tools can incorporate AdWords data in one form or another, this wasn’t going to last them for long.

So its a step in the right direction for Google and a shot across the bow for its competitors as they show signs of taking the analytics market seriously.

What caught my attention were the comments about using the information they had available to judge quality.  The speaker was obviously talking in this instance about impressions, clicks, creative copy, keywords, landing page content etc, but it just made me think that analytics fell under that same category.  It is information that Google has to hand to judge your website and it allows them to throw in elements like bounce rate and conversion rate into the mix for elements affecting PR and QS.

The response I got from Google representatives when I approached it with them is that it would be unfair to use analytics as not everyone uses it.  Elements such as meta data, inbound links, website content, ad content and keywords are free and open for everyone to use as they wish so it is fair game.  But not everyone has Google Analytics so to make a judgement on an individual website based on its use, either positive or negative, would be unfair.  That is a  valid point, but doesn’t actually satisfy my question really, I don’t necessarily think that Google would shy away from its use completely for this reason alone.  After all it contains valuable information about a websites usability.

Hopefully I will be able to prove once and for all soon enough, I plan on trialling a new anlytics package very soon on The Digital Lookout and am looking for a case study from a quality score perspective, watch this space!

I wonder how long before this is offered direct from Yahoo’s search interface with integration of action reporting to their PPC reports.  I think they may need to simplify the installation a little as in the past Indextools has been a little trickier to implement than Google Analytics but if they get it right, analytics will defintiely be one area where they have the uper hand over Google.

Yahoo! has purchased web analytics software solution Indextools for an undisclosed fee.  The tool which one commentator described as”one of the best kept secrets in the industry” has been bought as a direct response to Google Analytics, this is easily shown by the fact that the first thing Yahoo! have done, is make it free! (remind you of any other analytics package?).  Yahoo! has had its own tracking solution for a while but lets face it, it was pretty rubbish.  So this purchase and the immediate action of making it free of charge puts Yahoo! firmly in competition with Google in the combined search, analytics market it in my eyes, gives them an advantage.  I have used Indextools for a number of years and can honestly say it is 100x the package that Google analytics is.  This is a full on, analytics, campaign management, usability, all singing, all dancing tool, which when used correctly can do some pretty impressive things.  Realistically most people wont use all the best bits of Indextools but the savvy internet marketeer could actually get for free with Indextools, what would have cost them £500-£1000 a month in the past, bargain!

I am intrigued as to what Yahoo!’s plans are for Indextools as if they are to continue to offer it for free then are they going to remove some functionality to strip down the software functionality?  I hope not but it probably makes more business sense.  Maybe then offer the additional functionality at a cost, but does that go against what Yahoo! are trying to achieve?

In order to qualify for the package at no cost existing customers are required to sign a new Yahoo! agreement.  I haven’t seen this agreement yet but it will be an interesting read (if such documents can actually be interesting!) as one of the concerns around using Google analytics, and now Yahoo! owned Indextools is the data you are passing to the search engines about your campaigns.  Who owns this information and how can it be used is key in determining whether by selling out to Yahoo! Indextools is likely to lose all its clients.  It may seem a little big brotheresq but would you really want Yahoo! knowing the details of all your online activity?  not just search (and therefore Google) but also you display, affiliate and email campaigns?  because that is what Indextools is best at, compiling data into a logical dashboard enabling you to see all your data in one place.  If Yahoo! is then going to use this data to make competitive decisions then nobody is likely to want to use Indextools anymore.  I suppose we will just have to wait to see the contents of this agreement and its approach to data usage, but I just hope by buying one of the best, most usable tools on the market, Yahoo! hasn’t inadvertently killed it.