Google Data

Webmaster level: All

Last year we relaunched an exciting feature in Webmaster Tools: Search Queries, an analysis tool that visualizes your site’s presence in our search results. It has two main parts: an interactive graph, and a table containing detailed data related to queries for which your site appears in our search results.

Two of the most important pieces of information in the table are ‘impressions’ and ‘clicks.’ ‘Impressions’ shows the number of times your pages were shown in the search results for a certain query, and ‘clicks’ is how many times users actually clicked on a result from your site.

Based on webmaster feedback, today we’re announcing a slight change in how these numbers are represented in Webmaster Tools, to simplify their interpretation. Instead of showing numbers rounded to two or three digits, the numbers will now be shown with one or two significant digits. For example, instead of Webmaster Tools showing you 246,000 impressions, it will now show 250,000 impressions, which is a nicer representation for a better, less confusing experience. We have not altered the way we calculate the numbers internally, but only changed how we round them in Webmaster Tools. Generally, a difference of less than 10% between the numbers you see now and those you saw prior to this change should not be considered significant.

We hope that this update makes Search Queries easier to understand. If you want to learn more about this feature you can visit our Help Center. If you have feedback or suggestions for Search Queries, please let us know in the Webmaster Help Forum.

Posted by Pierre Far and Gary Illyes, Webmaster Trends Analyst team