Have you seen the new interface and all the new reports you can do with Google Analytics now? Maybe it was possible before, but I couldn't find more than the top 5 in anything (say, referrers, and whatnot). I logged in today and they've got a beta interface for it that has much more detail to it. It's looking a lot like more like the "your own webserver-based" Urchin from before. Nice going Google!
I also wanted to note that while I knew that the tech crowd generally prefers Google to other search engines, I didn't realize that it was almost exclusive: 98.7% of my search engine traffic over the last month has been through Google. Increíble!
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I wouldn't go off those numbers 100%. I have Analytics set up on my personal site, and decided to make a watered down version of my own to track referers, and I get lots of inconsistancies.
Have you noticed that it doesn't show you any Yahoo referals? I see MSN referals in the reports, but google seems to have no yahoo referer stats. My custom logic tracks search referers and what they searched for to get to my site, and I'm getting a fair share of Yahoo referals compared to Google.
Bottom line is do you really believe Google when THEY tell you THEY are refering 98.7% of your traffic?
Try it for yourself, and you'll see some stats just don't add up.
Posted by
Frank Hipolito
on May 15, 2007 at 01:33 PM UTC - 6 hrs
Hi Frank,
I certainly can't rely on those numbers 100%, if for nothing else than the fact whoever is browsing needs to have Javascript turned on, but I think they are close. It does show some Yahoo referrals to me, but not many at all.
On the other hand, it seems to follow the same trend as my backend Urchin system (in fact, on that one last I checked there were no Yahoo or MSN referrals, whereas the Analytics version shows at least /some/).
I do find it odd, but I don't know why they'd want to lie. I mean, I can see why they would want you to think they provide the most traffic for you, but to go so far as 98.7 percent is a bit strange. And if they lost credibility, then where would they be?
I don't know, but I do know I like the new interface and features available. =)
Posted by
Sammy Larbi
on May 15, 2007 at 01:51 PM UTC - 6 hrs
Under the new reports, they show up, but are still skewed.
Here's what shows up since January.
google 3,078
msn 1,948
yahoo 406
I've submitted my site to both search engines, and implemented all SEO best practices for my site, and I know for a fact I'm not getting almost 10x more referals from google than Yahoo. I'm guessing that they may not be giving Yahoo credit for all their subdomains.
For example...
http://www.yahoo.comhttp://local.yahoo.comhttp://search.yahoo.comhttp://ca.search.yahoo.comhttp://search.yahoo.co.jpNow whether it's intentional or not, we may never know :)
Try tracking requests for a week by tracking the CGI.http_referer and see what you get.
Might just be me, but the numbers seem overinflated in Google's favor. Especially with the numbers being supplied by google.
Posted by
Frank Hipolito
on May 15, 2007 at 04:47 PM UTC - 6 hrs
Mine is even more skewed than that (google in the thousands, msn/yahoo add up to hundreds from what I recall). Perhaps I'll give the cgi.referer a try and see what it comes up with. Thanks for the idea!
Posted by
Sammy Larbi
on May 15, 2007 at 07:25 PM UTC - 6 hrs
Hello,i'm a german and our search-engine traffic was higher than 98 %.
But: You can forget msn and yahoo in germany for example.The
search results from msn are by far not as good as from google.As long as it still is, google wins.
Posted by
Olaf Stroinski
on Jan 19, 2008 at 05:12 AM UTC - 6 hrs
