Search Analytics
Encyclopedia
Search analytics is the analysis and aggregation of search engine
statistics for use in search engine marketing
(SEM) and search engine optimization
(SEO). In other words, search analytics helps website owners understand and improve their performance on search engines. Search analytics includes search volume trends and analysis, reverse searching (entering websites to see their keywords), keyword monitoring, search result and advertisement history, advertisement spending statistics, website comparisons, affiliate marketing
statistics, multivariate ad testing
, et al.
Most services are free to try, so please do your own research.
Last updated: --
software, or from scraping
search engines. Getting traffic statistics from ISP's and phone homes provides for broader reporting of web traffic
in addition to search analytics. Services that perform keyword monitoring only scrape a limited set of search results depending on their clients needs. Services providing reverse search however, must scrape a large set of keywords from the search engines, usually in the millions, to find the keywords that everyone is using.
Since search results, especially advertisements, differ depending on where you are searching from, data collection methods have to account for geographic location. Keyword monitors do this more easily since they typically know what location their client is targeting. However, to get an exhaustive reverse search, several locations need to be scraped for the same keyword.
search results. Paid results, from Google Adwords for example, are often different for the same search depending on the time, geographic location, and history of searches from a particular computer. This means that scraping advertisers can be hit or miss.
(Google's popular search ad system), use of search analytics services is still very low, around 1-25% as of Oct. 2009. This could point to a large opportunity for the users and makers of search analytics given that services have existed since 2004 with several new services being started since.
Search engine
A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. Search engines help to minimize the time required to find information and the amount of information...
statistics for use in search engine marketing
Search engine marketing
Search engine marketing, , is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion...
(SEM) and search engine optimization
Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid search results...
(SEO). In other words, search analytics helps website owners understand and improve their performance on search engines. Search analytics includes search volume trends and analysis, reverse searching (entering websites to see their keywords), keyword monitoring, search result and advertisement history, advertisement spending statistics, website comparisons, affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's own marketing efforts...
statistics, multivariate ad testing
Multivariate testing
In statistics, multivariate testing or multi-variable testing is a technique for testing hypotheses on complex multi-variable systems, especially used in testing market perceptions.-In internet marketing:...
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Services
| Service | Date Started | Cost/mo | Data Collection | Data Verification | Reverse Search | Search Vol. | Search Vol. History | Keyword Monitoring | Result History | Advertisement History | Ad Spending | Website Comparisons | Affiliate Stats | Multivariate Testing |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Trends Google Trends Google Trends is a public web facility of Google Inc., based on Google Search, that shows how often a particular search-term is entered relative to the total search-volume across various regions of the world, and in various languages... |
2004 | $0 | Owns Data | Not applicable | Top 10 | Relative | ||||||||
| Google Insights | 2008-8-5 | $0 | Owns Data | Not applicable | Relative | |||||||||
| Compete.com Compete.com Compete.com is a web traffic analysis service of Compete, Inc. which operates in the United States and publishes the approximate number of global visitors to the top 1,000,000 web sites in the world... |
2008-7-4 | $500 | ISP | |||||||||||
| Adgooroo Adgooroo AdGooroo is a market research company for search engine advertisers. AdGooroo monitors Google, Yahoo, MSN, Baidu, AOL, Ask, Nevar , and Seznam for paid search, natural rankings, and potential trademark infringement activity. AdGooroo also monitors Yahoo, Microsoft, Google AdSense, Go, and other... |
2004-10-14 | $90 | Scraping | |||||||||||
| SpyFu SpyFu SpyFu, originally GoogSpy, is a search analytics company based out of Scottsdale, AZ. Started in April 2005, SpyFu shows the keywords that websites buy on Google Adwords as well as the keywords that websites are showing up for within search results... |
2005-5-5 | $60 | Scraping | Cached SERPs | ||||||||||
Most services are free to try, so please do your own research.
Last updated: --
Data collection
Search analytics data can be collected in several ways. Search engines provide access to their own data with services such as Google Trends and Google Insights. Third party services must collect their data from ISP's, phoning homePhoning home
Phoning home, in computing, refers to an act of client to server communication where a client device or client application software reports its location on a network, the currently logged on user, or any other information to a server computer...
software, or from scraping
Web scraping
Web scraping is a computer software technique of extracting information from websites...
search engines. Getting traffic statistics from ISP's and phone homes provides for broader reporting of web traffic
Web traffic
Web traffic is the amount of data sent and received by visitors to a web site. It is a large portion of Internet traffic. This is determined by the number of visitors and the number of pages they visit...
in addition to search analytics. Services that perform keyword monitoring only scrape a limited set of search results depending on their clients needs. Services providing reverse search however, must scrape a large set of keywords from the search engines, usually in the millions, to find the keywords that everyone is using.
Since search results, especially advertisements, differ depending on where you are searching from, data collection methods have to account for geographic location. Keyword monitors do this more easily since they typically know what location their client is targeting. However, to get an exhaustive reverse search, several locations need to be scraped for the same keyword.
Accuracy
Search analytics accuracy depends on service being used, data collection method, and data freshness. Google releases its own data, but only in an aggregated way and often without assigning absolute values such as number of visitors to its graphs. ISP logs and phone home methods are accurate for the population they sample, so sample size and demographics must be adequate to accurately represent the larger population. Scraping results can be highly accurate, especially when looking at the non-paid, organicOrganic search
Organic search results are listings on search engine results pages that appear because of their relevance to the search terms, as opposed to their being advertisements. In contrast, non-organic search results may include pay per click advertising....
search results. Paid results, from Google Adwords for example, are often different for the same search depending on the time, geographic location, and history of searches from a particular computer. This means that scraping advertisers can be hit or miss.
Market conditions
Taking a look at Google Insights to gauge the popularity of these services shows that compared to searches for the term AdwordsAdWords
Google AdWords is Google's main advertising product and main source of revenue. Google's total advertising revenues were USD$28 billion in 2010. AdWords offers pay-per-click advertising, cost-per-thousand advertising, and site-targeted advertising for text, banner, and rich-media ads. The AdWords...
(Google's popular search ad system), use of search analytics services is still very low, around 1-25% as of Oct. 2009. This could point to a large opportunity for the users and makers of search analytics given that services have existed since 2004 with several new services being started since.
See also
- Search engine optimizationSearch engine optimizationSearch engine optimization is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in search engines via the "natural" or un-paid search results...
- Keyword researchKeyword ResearchKeyword research is a practice used by search engine optimization professionals to find and research actual search terms people enter into the search engines when conducting a search...
- Search engine marketingSearch engine marketingSearch engine marketing, , is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion...
- Google Adwords
- Internet marketingInternet marketingInternet marketing, also known as digital marketing, web marketing, online marketing, search marketing or e-marketing, is referred to as the marketing of products or services over the Internet...