Google Webmaster Console Stats-->Query Stats Not Accurate

**incrediblehelp** · #1 (**permalink**) 03-02-2007, 02:44 PM

Is anyone seeing some inaccuracies when using the Google Webmaster Stats section? I use this section to get a small snapshot of keywords that my clients rank for from Google themselves. it is usually pretty reliable, but lately the keywords that Google shows in here are simple not showing up on the real results.

Now I know and have been a big proponent of not "ranking watching", but these stats are coming from Google themselves. They are supposed to be a pretty stable average of all the datacenters.

Is it just me?

**incrediblehelp** · #2 (**permalink**) 03-02-2007, 02:48 PM

By the way this under the "Top search queries" section not the "Top search query clicks" section.

"Top search query clicks" is usually pretty right on.

**incrediblehelp** · #3 (**permalink**) 03-05-2007, 01:04 PM

So these are generally accurate for everyone?

birdie · #4 (**permalink**) 03-05-2007, 02:49 PM

Mine were pretty consistent until recently. The stat counter I use says that 11 people have found my site searching for "Johnny Rockets vegan" over the past week. Google had no record of that until today (finally).

MichaelGoldberg · #5 (**permalink**) 03-06-2007, 08:43 AM

Hi,

From what i have seen it seems to be 50/50 on consistency. Sometimes it is and other times it is not.

I wonder if it has to do with getting different results from different data centers. That would make some sense as some of those DC's do provide slightly different results.

Example:
A keyword you are ranking for in webmaster central has you listed at #2, but when you search for that keyword it is not listed on page 1.

I wish i knew if it was just a bug thing, or if it is getting data from a different data center.

**incrediblehelp** · #6 (**permalink**) 03-06-2007, 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MichaelGoldberg

I wish i knew if it was just a bug thing, or if it is getting data from a different data center.

Well I would hope it is not a bug. I assume it is the same old story of checking to many radically different different datacenters that it is obviously hard to get a generally static ranking. I understand why this is happening in recent years, not that big of a deal to me. I was just hoping since this data was coming from Google themselves these "averages" would be somewhat more accurate.

Remember one of the key things is they offer a link to each keyword listings. I would have hoped they would at least link to the datacenter that as matching the ranking position given in the backend.

swirt · #7 (**permalink**) 03-06-2007, 02:56 PM

I find that they sometimes seem goofy at first glance, but then if I change the search type from "all searches" (default) to "Web Search" and change location from "All locations" (default) to "google.com" the results tend to shape up and make a bit more sense.

The tool is unclear about what sample it covers. It says all data comes from the past 7 days, but it does not indicate whether that is one datacenter, or all datacenters. The number of search query clicks does not seem to match my web logs for the past 7 days, so it makes me think this is just some sample and not the actual number of query clicks.

lostpetdragon · #8 (**permalink**) 03-06-2007, 06:20 PM

Google and their web master tools are a joke , Google is just like yahoo, they refuse to add american companys web sites unless you pay them off, and im not talking pay per click Im talking natural search engine results. I know Because my business is one of the company's that was asked for a pay off by both yahoo as well as google to be added to natural search engine results.
Lucky thing the responcible partys are able to hide their idenity as Im not sure what I might do to who ever might be responcible .

**incrediblehelp** · #9 (**permalink**) 03-06-2007, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lostpetdragon

Google and their web master tools are a joke , Google is just like yahoo, they refuse to add american companys web sites unless you pay them off, and im not talking pay per click Im talking natural search engine results. I know Because my business is one of the company's that was asked for a pay off by both yahoo as well as google to be added to natural search engine results.
Lucky thing the responcible partys are able to hide their idenity as Im not sure what I might do to who ever might be responcible .

LOL, now that is a funny post. Just think if Google actually did this, LOL

lostpetdragon · #10 (**permalink**) 03-07-2007, 12:35 AM

yes google actually offered me fee based support if , the web forum's could not help, why does that supprise you ?
Or is the simple fact that they designed their search engine to not recoginize any office live web sites unless you pay them to, or possibly you can tell exactly how it is I am putting the information in the web site wrong as this I would really like to hear as I have I dont know how many emails from the office live crew telling me their should be no problem , but to google their is.

mantawebsolutions · #11 (**permalink**) 03-07-2007, 01:28 AM

Jaan, for me it's 50/50. I find it generally correct when I view all the searches for specific locations, but the "general" ( All searches: All locations) selection for "Top search queries" sometimes I find is not so accurate.

I really have to dig deep to find the keywords under specific locations to see where my site was picked up.

it's weird how you are ranked for keywords your site is definately not optimized for.

swirt · #12 (**permalink**) 03-07-2007, 07:49 AM

Just to clarify for the rest of the readers here:

Quote:

Originally Posted by lostpetdragon

Google is just like yahoo, they refuse to add american companys web sites unless you pay them off, and im not talking pay per click Im talking natural search engine results.

is not the same thing as

Quote:

Originally Posted by lostpetdragon

yes google actually offered me fee based support if , the web forum's could not help,

You have a key defined for a subdirectory instead of a the website itself. If you are trying to authenticate a website, you have to put the key in the root, not in a subdirectory. This hardly translates into Google not indexing you without money. It just means they don't want to deal with people who don't follow directions or have some odd configuration without the person paying for it. This doesn't mean Google won't add American sites without paying money.

**ctabuk** · #13 (**permalink**) 03-07-2007, 08:03 AM

Open message to our lostpetdragon friend. One more abusive post like the one I just deleted and we will ask you to post elsewhere.

lostpetdragon · #14 (**permalink**) 03-07-2007, 11:10 AM

ok I have heard ablout all the root and sub directory stuff, and once again. I have to follow the rules established by microsoft office live in reguards to their web site system, I guessing none of you have office live ? so I will recap it once again, The meta tags are are built into the pages so on the home page I can not put the meta tage into the 1st head secition before the 1 st body section as the meta tag is built into the pages , so all I can do is add key words or a description. I did try to add a custom meta tag just for google and 1 just for yahoo , but no dice, they cant find it, and after talking to the office live support crew they said all pages have to end in aspx, unless it is a document then it can end in .xml , .html . .txt , etc.
but after up loading the document the path becomes http://my web site.org/documents/key ( yahoo or google)
hey i have a idea, I have a test web site, if any of the moderaters of discussion think they can figure out this 1 , you are more then welcome to use my test web site on office live with out crashing the main web site i have on office live, I got the test web site as a few times I did actually crash it just by putting in programming it dosent like.
Now if ofice live the programming is supposted to be xml at least thats what that w3 web site analizer had said, lol
so any ways in the pages you can enter sub script, super script or a html box, I did try entering xml, like as in googles site map and the system freaked out and gave me a byunch of errors ( 3 pages )so I had to upload it into the documents as a xml document.
ok hey I have to go to a meeting, so if any one has any ideas or would like me to try any thing in the test web site etc, just post and Ill be back after...wow actually I have to go all the way to boston today so I wont be back 4 about 5 hours or so, let me know as I have tryed every thing microsoft, google and yahoo could come up with, with no results, well except for it not working, lol n sigh

**wige** · #15 (**permalink**) 03-07-2007, 12:15 PM

I have noticed something pretty similar, although my screen is split into two sections, one is pages that your site has shown up for, and the other is actual clicks (which may be new - I don't remember seeing it before). When I click the link for the table of queries that my site ranks for, I usually do not see my site in the first three pages of results.

I probably should mention that I have not done any SEO on the site, and in preperation for hiring an SEO firm I wrote a script that logs every visitor to the site and records what search engine they came from as well as the search terms they used. I am still trying to reconcile that data with what is shown in webmaster tools, but at first look it does seem somewhat skewed.

chrisJumbo · #16 (**permalink**) 03-07-2007, 01:42 PM

lostpetdragon -- you didn't post your test site. However, I don't have Microsoft Office Live so I'm not sure how much help I can be.

Have you looked at other authoring tools?

I prefer using simple HTML/CSS Editors so that I do have control over the entire page.

lostpetdragon · #17 (**permalink**) 03-07-2007, 04:20 PM

Thanks Chris, well I was not sure on posting the names of the web sites and forums can be funny about that. my main web site is http://alien-computer.org and my test web site is http://alien-computer.net
I will have to go to the test web site to create some admin. log in's if you would like to see what you can do, but I would only email to interested partys the log in and pass word for the test web site. as if your preforming tests. we would not want any cruddy spammers to get in and start messing arround,and botch up any test you might try to preform , as soon as I can get at least 1 admin or web master guest log in created i'll let you know in the forum, and thank's again Greg

MarcGrobman · #18 (**permalink**) 03-11-2007, 01:47 AM

Back on topic anyone?

Yea, I've noticed wild shifts and on some days the data just seems wrong. One hit from an obscure keyword and it shows up there. It is still an interesting way to look at keywords.

An odd thing i've noticed is so called cannonical issues. www.mysite.com shows differently from mysite.com etc. It seems some blogger left off the www so certain words show up there. Strange.