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Google Search Console Not Tracking All Local Pack Clicks

Published

4 weeks ago

January 3, 2023

Google Search Console Not Tracking All Local Pack Clicks

For the past few months or so, I’ve been tracking reports that suggest that Google Search Console is not properly tracking clicks and impressions from the local pack. This first came up in September and after numerous requests from SEOs, I have not seen a serious reply from Google on the matter, not yet at least.

Joy Hawkins, a respected local SEO, posted the issue both on Twitter in her Local Search Forum back in September. She wrote, “Local SEOs if you are using Search Console to track activity from the 3-pack you could be looking at some seriously wrong data.” She showed how Google Search Console was out right missing data.

In her first test, on September 6, 2022, she asked several colleagues and friends to search [Google Maps SEO companies near Uxbridge Ontario], then to click on Sterling Sky’s name in the local three-pack and then click the website icon to go to our website from there.

She then shared these analytics, this one from the Google Business Profile performance stats and showing clicks:

Google Analytics she showed also picked up on the traffic:

But Google Search Console did not:

She did this test several times, all with the same result.

She wrote, “Based on what I saw here, it looks like a huge amount of traffic from the Google Business Profile from mobile is completely missing in Search Console, and some data from desktop. I believe one possible reason for this is that when you click on a listing in the 3-pack on mobile, you get a URL string that says Google/local services/profile whereas on a computer, you get Google/search.”

Then she tried to get some answers from Google on this topic but it kind of didn’t happen.

Patrick Stox, who is not a Googler, but is good with these data issues, wrote on Twitter:

There’s also a data-ved (used for encoding) that decodes to different type numbers for different tabs (web, news, image, video).

At least with a quick look that’s still my best guess. The data-ved and the ping probably send data to systems like GSC and are missing.

— Patrick Stox (SEOpedia) (@patrickstox) September 29, 2022

John Mueller from Google did chime in a bit:

I was just looking at this again and I see the tracking there now, where it was missing before. I’d be curious what happens if you re-run your test @JoyanneHawkins. pic.twitter.com/rkCSzx5TYy

— Patrick Stox (SEOpedia) (@patrickstox) October 18, 2022

So did Daniel Waisberg from Google:

I was waiting for John to dig into this, maybe he was also waiting for me? 🤔

— Daniel Waisberg (@danielwaisberg) November 2, 2022

A month or so later, the issue was still there:

Just following up here, I did another test on the 18th (on mobile) and none of those clicks are showing up still. The only clicks SC shows from that day on mobile are branded searches, which isn’t what I told people to search + click on. pic.twitter.com/RYmXblGbhE

— Joy Hawkins (@JoyanneHawkins) October 31, 2022

Then two months later, still nothing:

As far as I know, it’s still broken and Search Console is not tracking tons of clicks that happen in the local pack.

— Joy Hawkins (@JoyanneHawkins) December 27, 2022

So I figured, maybe highlight it here to see if any of you know more about this or maybe Google can reply after the holidays?

Forum discussion at Twitter and Local Search Forum.

Source: www.seroundtable.com

Related Topics:clicks Console Google Local Pack Search Tracking

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SEOs Trust YMYL Content Less If It Is AI-Generated

Published

6 hours ago

January 29, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Lily Ray ran a Twitter poll asking SEOs if they trust content in the YMYL, your money or your life, category more, less or the same if it was written by AI. The vast majority of responses said they trust AI-generated content less than human-generated content.

Lily asked, “If a site offering Your Money, Your Life information/advice (health, finance, etc) indicates that the content was partially written using AI, does this make you trust the content:”

About 74% of the over 1,000 votes said AI-generated content would be trusted less, 22% said there is no difference – they would trust it the same and 4% said it would be trusted more.

Here is the poll with the “See answers” option:

I know it’s hard not to be biased as an SEO professional, but try anyway. 😅

If a site offering Your Money, Your Life information/advice (health, finance, etc) indicates that the content was partially written using AI, does this make you trust the content:

— Lily Ray 😏 (@lilyraynyc) January 15, 2023

Forum discussion at Twitter.

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SEARCHENGINES

Google Ads Now Supports Account-Level Negative Keywords

Published

12 hours ago

January 28, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

We knew it was coming, Google Ads now supports negative keywords for brand safety at the account level. Google has just added account-level negative keywords to Google Ads and the PPC community is happy about it.

I spotted this first via Melissa Mackey on Twitter who credits @NilsRooijmanSEA with the find on LinkedIn. Melissa wrote, “Account-level negative keywords are here! This is big.”

The Google help document on negative keywords has a new section that reads, “Account-level negative keywords.”

When you create your account-level list of negative keywords, it will automatically apply to all search and shopping inventory in relevant campaign types. This allows you to create a single, global, account-level list that applies negative keywords across all relevant inventory in your account.

You can create a single, account-level list of negative keywords in your Google Ads account settings. In your “Account Settings,” you’ll find the “Negative keywords” section. When you click on this section, you can begin creating your negative keywords list.

You can create your list by defining which search terms are considered negative for your brand. You can then enter this all at once in the “Negative keywords” section of your “Account Settings” in your Google Ads account. You can also specify whether you want to exclude these based on broad, exact, or phrase match. A limit of 1,000 negative keywords can be excluded for each account. Learn more about account-level negative keywords.

Here is a screenshot of this setting, where Nils Rooijmans explained, “Google is rolling out this feature in most of my accounts right now.”

11 months ago, Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison said, Ginny Marvin responded to this saying “There are no current plans for a keyword tab in PMax. There are, however, plans to support negative keywords for brand safety at the account level.”

And now we got them.

Yay!!! pic.twitter.com/9uzIERjaY9

— dan richardson (@njsdanrich) January 26, 2023

Bit more history:

Ginny mentioned the beta would start 6 months ago fwiw. Longish cycle from planning -> beta -> release https://t.co/eeUnFPjspr

It was spotted on Google’s roadmaps for Q4, seems to have been delayed a touch

— Mike Ryan (@mikeryanretail) January 27, 2023

And some reaction on this:

The people asked for Performance Max negative keywords. We got account-level instead.

We typically want to exclude keywords from SOME campaigns, not ALL (for branded queries).

— 𝙼𝚎𝚗𝚊𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚖 𝙰𝚗𝚒 (@MenachemAni) January 27, 2023

Don’t get me wrong, there is definitely utility in account-level negative keywords.

Just not what we were hoping for as it relates to PMX.

— 𝙼𝚎𝚗𝚊𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚖 𝙰𝚗𝚒 (@MenachemAni) January 27, 2023

Forum discussion at Twitter and LinkedIn.

Update: The Google Ads Liaison has now posted about this on Twitter:

1/3 Some have noticed Account level negative keywords are starting to roll out globally. From Account Settings, you can add keywords to exclude traffic from all Search and Shopping campaigns, and the Search and Shopping portion of PMax for brand safety: https://t.co/B0VBApPVCm

— AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) January 27, 2023

3/3 And a reminder of existing brand suitability controls include inventory types, digital content labels, placement exclusions and negative keywords at the campaign level.

— AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) January 27, 2023

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Google Says Google Search Handles marquee Tags Appropriately

Published

18 hours ago

January 28, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Gary Illyes, from the Google Search Relations team, said on LinkedIn that Google Search handles the marquee HTML tag “appropriately.” What does it mean by appropriately? That is Gary for you.

I assume it means Google can read the text within the marquee HTML tag.

The marquee HTML element is used to insert a scrolling area of text. You can control what happens when the text reaches the edges of its content area using its attributes.

Google even has this long standing marquee tag new easter egg that looks like this:

Here are some funny comments in the LinkedIn thread:

Again, Gary wrote, “Please note that, after digging through some ancient code, I can confidently confirm Google handles marquee tags appropriately. You’re welcome, internet.”

Forum discussion at LinkedIn.

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