Google Adds Ranking Data to Referrer String?
I’m jumping to conclusions here but the new Google referrer string contains a number which might just allow analytics software to tell you where the site ranked when the visitor clicked on it.
Starting this week, you may start seeing a new referring URL format for visitors coming from Google search result pages. Up to now, the usual referrer for clicks on search results for the term “flowers”, for example, would be something like this:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=flowers&btnG=Google+Search
Now you will start seeing some referrer strings that look like this:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=7&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.example.com%2Fmypage.htm&ei=0SjdSa-1N5O8M_qW8dQN&rct=j&q=flowers&usg=AFQjCNHJXSUh7Vw7oubPaO3tZOzz-F-u_w&sig2=X8uCFh6IoPtnwmvGMULQfw
Perhaps the cd=7 (click detail = 7th?) is the ranking and ct=res (click through = results?) is indicating that the click came from organic search rather than a universal search (news or video) result.
If Google isn’t doing this then it really should be, perhaps Matt will confirm either way.
Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Branded3, a Leeds SEO & Digital Agency specialising in SEO, Web Design, Development & Social Media.
Comments
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Well spotted Patrick! I noticed the landing page addition on the string, but hadnt gone into it so deep. And you are right – it would be an excellent addition to reporting if the data is inded as you demonstrate above.
Doesn’t quite line up with the paramaters used by Google’s bounce script which includes “resnum” to represent to the position.
On the other hand for two conflicting interpretations check out:
http://code.google.com/apis/searchappliance/documentation/52/asr_reference.html
and
http://www.razzed.com/2009/02/12/analysis-of-google-outbound-link-tracking/
I’m aware that the first relates to the search appliance so may not be directly applicable – certainly interesting though.
I’m more curious as to what information is being tracked in the encrypted values!
DM
If you’re logged into a Google account and perform a search you will already see this data, and it looks very, very much like the &cd= part of the string matches up with your result position in the SERPS – see this example from a search for BBC news, which naturally is in the first position in Google UK
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.bbc.co.uk%2F&ei=EaPlSdvfEsGv-QbV2N2NCQ&usg=AFQjCNG1boymekvki8B_0-KpAJ7l9UjeEg&sig2=ePdap6FuYSy51aIBSEe2JA
Lower down the page, at position 13 is a Youtube video, the string for which is:
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=13&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DpdyYe7sDlhA&ei=EaPlSdvfEsGv-QbV2N2NCQ&usg=AFQjCNFFcDGZWC1FpIc4qL8__xl4ANssBQ&sig2=nikbrxmWWvGRnjf86XUh8g
Blended/Universal search muddies things a bit, and local search results are at cd= position 1- 10 for some queries but it really does look like it’s reporting the position in the SERPS.
If this is rolling out to unpersonalised search as well it will be a massive help – I feel some analytics filters coming up…
Ditto on the well-spotted! I’ll look forward to seeing how this plays out….
I’m not holding my breath yet, but if its true it would be awesome.
Excellent, well spotted Patrick!
I was just filing a bug report about this very issue breaking one of the Drupal search modules. But I hadn’t really looked at the new referers new bits.
The new parameters must be there for some reason and as you suggest the search position would make sense.
These urls are visible only when logged into the Google account.
Searching in US on term “flowers”, brings up Universal search results with images and local listings. It looks like that number starts with the images being displayed. The listing shows three images and the first orgainc result is numbered 4. Also the local listings are included in that count.
Interesting thanks Brent. The strings are not showing up for me yet.
I think if you do experiments, you’ll be able to confirm your speculation, Patrick and Brent Nau. As Jamie mentions, I think this is awesome for webmasters–even more information than you could glean from the previous referrer string.
Just noticed a couple of strings coming up and I would suggest your right as regards the URL strings as regards position
Natural result (organic position 1)
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.worldwidegolfshops.com%2F&ei=UDHmSYWiFsOw-AbZqoCOCQ&usg=AFQjCNE81lsFRJ1VZ8iCeIu2baPdsfoHbA&sig2=4LhPLOA-8owZ1JkKWQxS4g
PR Result (Organic position 4/Blended Position 1)
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=4&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bloomberg.com%2Fapps%2Fnews%3Fpid%3D20601079%26sid%3DaY8lJHFt0TFE%26refer%3Dhome&ei=UDHmSYWiFsOw-AbZqoCOCQ&usg=AFQjCNGXQVoF7gpsxS1jicqQk6mozV3NRQ&sig2=Egvon8gzfZiBwps_fo0Bbw
Google Products results
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=7&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.joessports.com%2Fentry.point%3Fentry%3D2964684%26source%3DCAFGL_DF%3A2964684%3AJOE%26CAWELAID%3D127391172&ei=UDHmSYWiFsOw-AbZqoCOCQ&usg=AFQjCNEcjGSal0zWlMHIE3RTwBWSDHHVGg&sig2=MPrzmPtxc3JA30BcAcyMJg
with cd certainly seemingly determing position on referrals however I would suggest this is not dependant on whether this is a blended search result or not – position 4 was the first news result (at position 4 on the page), product result (7th result – 3 organic – 3 PR)
The screenshot of the results can be found here
http://holisticsearch.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/golfclubs_newurl.jpg
Fantastic news. I wish Google had been doing this all along. Will the other engines follow suit?
Makes sense that you must be logged in, as personalized search will create different results for each user. Interesting to see how this will impact Google Analytics. I bet the other analytics providers are scrambling to utilize this. James Morell mentions Analytics filters. How will that be useful here?
Great find.. I can see the CD as SERPs.. what about the other variables..usg, sig2. source is “web”. what other sources are possible?
Well, hot damn…it looks like we have a confirmation from Mr. Cutts himself. Way cool that you figured this out!
Good catch guys. Should be interesting to see how the analytic platforms use the additional referral info.
I don’t see those strings for the natural header result (the title of the page) but I see them for the extra links given below the description is this something that is being rolled out slowly?
Google has always given away the page. Here are the referring URLs that you get for “flowers”
Page 1:
http://www.google.com/search?q=flowers&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=Ccu&start=0&sa=N
Page 2:
http://www.google.com/search?q=flowers&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=lwZ&start=10&sa=N
Google Analytics should already have offered a report segmenting Google search referred visits by page. The only log file analyzer I am aware of that broke Google referrer visits into “page 1 / page 2 or deeper” is BitStrike, but development of that program seems to have stopped more than year ago. bummer.
@Dave Culbertson You can do the same thing through advanced filters in Google analytics – it’s a bit of a pain to set up, but perfectly possible.
@Simon Pesci In the same way as you can filter for page you appear in Google using advanced filters in analytics you should be able to filter for the position you appear for a keyword. you can then set up filters for positions 1 – 3 or 10+ and work on optimising those keywords you’re not ranking for as well as you’d like.
I’m going to have a play with this over the next couple of days and see what I can come up with.
I am seeing these parameters in my referrer URLs as well
@JamesMorell – I suspected that you could create a Google Analytics filter for segmenting Google Traffic by page. Could you point me to any online examples to how to build it?
I’ve been waiting a long time for this and am very excited about it! If Google sticks with this implementation, it will introduce a new and welcome element to site analytics.
The correct term for using this type of data is Passive SERP Tracking. It’s something we’ve done in Raven’s Analytics tool and also with the free passive SERP tracking pepper we built for Shaun Inman’s Mint application. If this gets fully rolled out, then we’ll definitely be updating the free pepper (add-on).
Nice find Patrick!
James Morell – as it stands, on the examples I have tried, none of this cd ranking data can be picked up by GA. There is a big difference between cd=1 in Google’s internal redirect URL, and the start=1 in the SERP URL.
Good post, thanks for the info.
I take it back – it seems to work in my GA, getting data through.
Patrick, good work on discovering this! It really is a breakthrough for the SEO world. I’m really happy to learn this. James and Dave, thanks for verifying!
I concur with DangerMouse that ct/cd for ranking is incorrect–Google is actually NOT including ranking data via cd/ct (per say). They are doing it via resnum; if you do an image search (flowers) you’ll notice it specifically gives positions or if you do another search (test) you’ll see resnum within the one-line sitelinks. The resnum then will actually show the position of the results that the sitelink is under. Eg:
http://news.google.com/news?q=test&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&ei=123nSY3PI5LmnQevjuCMBw&sa=X&oi=news_group&ct=title&resnum=11
That’s for a news result in position 11 (notice resnum)
http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.test.com/organizations.htm&ei=123nSY3PI5LmnQevjuCMBw&sa=X&oi=oneline_sitelinks&resnum=1&ct=result&cd=2&usg=AFQjCNGB_fgmQ6xyzxMAv3TS4OXU7RVQlw
That’s for the position one results with the middle (or second) sitelink.
I seriously encourage people NOT to build filters based on the referrer parameters cd for determining ranking position. Like one of them described above to build a filter for the op 3 results would have serious flaws. What if the first 4 results are images? These do not pass the parameter while the first organic/text link would have ranking position number 5.
Do you seriously want to present this kind of data to your clients??
God dag! Kan jag ladda ner en bild fran din blogg. Av sak med hanvisning till din webbplats!
The cd parameter seems to appear only when a user is logged in to his Google account, can someone confirm this ?
blended search seems to be differentiated by using the “oi” paremeter, e.g.
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&oi=video_result&ct=res&cd=24&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DbZ4OaW-qU40&ei=nYjoSfvGFKKZjAf1peyeCg&usg=AFQjCNF2LlgUjnuTaFhVc_vaBUZ4n87j_A&sig2=OBK4IbpmqnIiNTnp5YxM6A
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&oi=news_result&ct=res&cd=4&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dorsetecho.co.uk%2Fnews%2F4298197.Sat_nav_anger_as_huge_lorry_gets_wedged_in_village%2F&ei=nYjoSfvGFKKZjAf1peyeCg&usg=AFQjCNGNf6NBbgPspSb0nbqOk4DBLP1tJA&sig2=4HdHXjk82lcns2qkdVQ1nA
The cd parameter seems to appear only when a user is logged in to his Google account, can someone confirm this ?
I am now seeing a variable named, “start” that is definitely the rank!
interesting. Thanks for the update.
The cd parameter seems to appear only when a user is logged in to his Google account, can someone confirm this ?
I can see it when not logged in.
Nice spot.
I have been searching the net endlessly for ANY topics about this, I barely found this by accident after 15 searches. Fuck google, everytime I right-click ANY url to copy the hyperlink it auto rewrites the url & gives me all that referrer crap to make it one hell of a long link, that I have to manually trim or convert to a tinyurl. When you initially mouseover the link, you see the clean url in the statusbar. Right-click it, then mouseover the link again. Crapified.
I don’t how know they’re implementing this. I attempted blocking their http://www.google.com/extern_js/* script using Adblock Plus but that didn’t work.
This is inexcusable. Writing a greasemonkey script as we speak to strip this crap.
We’ve hacked up a script to log both basic Page # and the new /url redirect raw position:
http://alwaysbetesting.com/abtest/index.cfm/2009/4/22/Log-Your-Exact-Google-Rank-with-Google-Analytics
It uses Google Analytics eventing.
Hi Patrick,
Just wondered if you had heard anymore on this issue and if Google had rolled this out fully yet? Also how exactly do you see the referral strings from organic results in such a way that you can see all the variables Google use?
Thanks.
Not heard much more.
Anyone heard any more?
Patrick,
Thank you so much for posting this.
It really is a breakthrough for the SEO out there.
I’m also extremely excited to Matt posting here.
Will bookmark this site and come back for more news from the industry.
Thanks again.
Very interesting, especially with the new update which means god nows when you will be position 1 or position 5, it would be useful to test how important this is.
Thanks for the news & keep up the good work!
PS: Wow, Matt is posting here, that's very impressive!
any news on this? it would be awesome to see this and test, over time, are more accurate percentage click through for each position over the old AOL figures that have been floating around for over 5 years!
I seriously encourage people NOT to build filters based on the referrer parameters cd for determining ranking position. Like one of them described above to build a filter for the op 3 results would have serious flaws. What if the first 4 results are images? These do not pass the parameter while the first organic/text link would have ranking position number 5.
I agree. I like looking at this data, but I do it manually – downloading an excel fille of complete urls.
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