How To Monitor Your Rankings Using Google Analytics Advanced Filter Segmentation

by Patrick Altoft on April 23, 2009

This is a guest post by Mike Catalin from SiteMagnify LLC

Google ranking data is passed to logfiles via the referrer string, but this data can also be captured by Google Analytics using Advanced Filters to segment Google Search traffic.

This ranking data parameter (cd=number) is covered by Patrick Altoft in his post on Google Referrer Strings.

There are two very quick ways to go about collecting the referrer data in Google Analytics, one is to collect and report full referrer strings in GA using the User Defined variable which is reported under Visitors then filter for â€œcd=â€ with the â€œFind User Defined Valueâ€ search box at the bottom of the report.

The second is to segment all Google Organic Search Data and pass only the search term and cd=position data into the User Defined report.

To collect the Referrer String in the User Defined variable:

create a New Profile
select add profile for an existing domain
select the domain from the drop down
title the Profile â€œFull Referrer Stringsâ€
select Country & Time Zone
once Profile is created, edit the Profile to add Filters
select +Add Filter
select Add New Filter for Profile
name the filter â€œFull Referrer Stringsâ€
select Custom Filter from the Filter Type drop-down
select the Advanced radio button
for Field A -> Extract A, select Referral from the drop-down
in the form field enter: (.*)
leave Field B -> Extract B empty
for Output To -> Constructor, select User Defined from the drop-down
in the form field enter: $A1
enter the following choices for the remaining radio buttons:
Field A required is Yes
Field B required is No
Override Output Field is Yes
Case Sensitive is No
Save Changes

ga-1
ga-2

To collect the Keyword and cd= parameter value in the User Defined variable for all Google Search traffic:

-create a New Profile
-select add profile for an existing domain
-select the domain from the drop down
-title the Profile â€œGoogle Organic SERPsâ€
-select Country & Time Zone
-once Profile is created, edit the Profiles to add Filters
-will have to create a total of 3 Filters for this segment

Filter to Select only SEO Organic Traffic

-select +Add Filter
-select Add New Filter for Profile
-name the filter â€œOrganic Search Trafficâ€
-select Custom Filter from the Filter Type drop-down
-select the Include radio button
-for Filter Field, select Campaign Medium from the drop-down
-in the Filter Pattern form field enter: organic
-leave Case Sensitive as No
-Save Changes

Filter to Select only Google Search Traffic

-select +Add Filter
-select Add New Filter for Profile
-name the filter â€œGoogle Searchâ€
-select Custom Filter from the Filter Type drop-down
-select the Include radio button
-for Filter Field, select Referral from the drop-down
-in the Filter Pattern form field enter: (google)\.[a-z]+
-leave Case Sensitive as No
-Save Changes

Filter to Extract Search Term and cd= Value

-select +Add Filter
-select Add New Filter for Profile
-name the filter â€œFull Referrer Stringsâ€
-select Custom Filter from the Filter Type drop-down
-select the Advanced radio button
-for Field A -> Extract A, select Campaign Term from the drop-down
-in the form field enter: (.*)
-for Field B -> Extract B, select Referral from the drop-down
-in the form field enter: (\?|&)(cd)=([^&]*)
-for Output To -> Constructor, select User Defined from the drop-down
-in the form field enter: $A1 | click detail: $B3
-enter the following choices for the remaining radio buttons:
-Field A required is Yes
-Field B required is Yes
-Override Output Field is Yes
-Case Sensitive is No
-Save Changes

ga-3
ga-4

Patrick Altoft is Director of Search at Leeds based digital & SEO agency Branded3. Patrick also runs Blogstorm.

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{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }

Glen Allsopp 23 Apr 2009 at 4:33 pm: Excellent guest post. Do you have a screenshot as to how this would look as an end result or did I miss something?

Sphunn

Cheers,
Glen
Mark A. 23 Apr 2009 at 10:07 pm: Greetings Mike! I enjoyed the step by step directions. Some of Google people didnâ€™t know that they can do this.
Patrick, you can add this post to your all-time favorite list.
With respect,
Mark.
Ben Rosenthal 23 Apr 2009 at 10:08 pm: Great post, but you got the parameter wrong. Its r=

Check out the google documentation…

http://code.google.com/apis/searchappliance/documentation/52/asr_reference.html

Its in the tables.
Paul 23 Apr 2009 at 10:50 pm: Great post, I wonder is there anyway to seperate the traffic that comes through Google Products using advanced filter segmentation.

Closest I have come is someone stating that create a custom querystring in the xml url to highlight that it came from a feed listing – but tbh, I’d rather something more cleaner, to be able to distinguish conversions better.

Paul
GoldenArchCasino 23 Apr 2009 at 10:59 pm: very intersting, thanks for this information.
Fully Marketing 23 Apr 2009 at 11:27 pm: I guess ‘click detail: 1′ in the last screenshot is the important thing.
Paul 24 Apr 2009 at 1:27 am: I’m missing the need for distinct profiles
Would adding these filters to the same profile cause a problem or just add this data to a single set or reports?

Thanks
melanie 24 Apr 2009 at 2:12 am: Great post! This is really handy, very detailed. Thanks..^_^

-Melanie
-Sell Anything Like Crazy
Luke 24 Apr 2009 at 9:37 am: Quality!!! I want more posts like this!!

Good work!
DangerMouse 24 Apr 2009 at 11:53 am: Has anyone else noticed that Google has reverted to using the old system?

DM
Jorge Delgado 26 Apr 2009 at 10:26 pm: amazing post…i’ll let u know how it goes…
Jorge
MikeTek 03 May 2009 at 9:58 pm: Awesome post, awesome trick – I’ll be implementing on a new profile this week.

@Paul The danger of implementing a filter like this on your core profile is that all data moving forward will be filtered – there’s no way to retroactively remove the filter (that’s the way advanced filters work in GA). If you make a mistake, for example, and end up filtering important data you can’t get it back.
Chicago George 07 May 2009 at 7:36 pm: Thanks for the detailed breakdown on how to set this up. Does the data have to be in the user defined report or is there a way to show the data in the main keyword report in GA?
Victor Aroma 19 Sep 2009 at 9:10 pm: Nice article!!

-Victor Aroma
John 09 Oct 2009 at 4:42 am: I’m using this service to monitor my website’s rank – http://monitor.mazecore.com . They provide position and uptime monitoring with alerts, but rank monitoring on free account is enough for me. I recommend this service with free tariff
Mike 10 Oct 2009 at 12:12 pm: I’m using this service to monitor my website’s position – http://monitor.mazecore.com . They provide rank and uptime monitoring with alerts, but position monitoring on free account is enough for me. I recommend this service with free tariff for your website.
gerald | link company 15 Dec 2009 at 4:33 am: Thanks for the good post. I never knew I could do this on Google. I will definitely have the time monitoring my rankings. It’s one of the nicest advice for today.
Facebook Applications 18 Dec 2009 at 7:40 am: Really nice and effective way to track you ranking and users. I will surely gonna apply this setting. Thanks for sharing
Facebook Connect 05 Jan 2010 at 1:53 pm: Google analytic is one of the worlds best tracking online software. i love it
Firesit 01 Mar 2010 at 10:15 pm: You have to check up these Google Analytics tips
Facebook Applications 13 May 2010 at 8:38 am: Good Post boss.yesterday i create my Google Analytical account and include that feature in my account. thank

{ 17 tweetbacks }

22 Hakicoma (Catchtheposts.com) 23/04/2009 at 3:40 pm: How To Monitor Your Rankings Using Google Analytics Advanced Filter Segmentation http://tinyurl.com/cnpdfb
23 sitemagnify (Site Magnify) 23/04/2009 at 4:32 pm: Read about Advanced Filter Segmentation in Google Analytics to monitor SEO Ranking Traffic http://tinyurl.com/cnpdfb
24 kpilist (KPi List) 23/04/2009 at 4:37 pm: Use #filters in #GA to achieve #segmentation for Google Search Organic Ranking as a User Defined Variable http://tinyurl.com/cnpdfb
25 TechFugaUP (TechFugaUpcoming) 23/04/2009 at 6:12 pm: How To Monitor Your Rankings Using Google Analytics Advanced Filter Segmentation: Sphinn / BlogstormCoHow To Mon.. http://tinyurl.com/cnpdfb
26 Luke69 (Luke ) 23/04/2009 at 7:07 pm: How To Monitor Your Rankings Using Google Analytics Advanced Filter Segmentation #seo http://is.gd/u8SM
27 andrewgerhart (andrew gerhart) 23/04/2009 at 8:45 pm: How To Monitor Your Rankings Using Google Analytics Advanced Filter Segmentation http://bit.ly/3wvDfP
28 linksgoogle (Links About Google) 24/04/2009 at 1:34 am: How To Monitor Your Rankings Using Google Analytics Advanced Filter Segmentation http://tinyurl.com/cnpdfb
29 taita80 (Pushan Banerjee) 24/04/2009 at 6:44 am: How To Monitor Your Rankings Using Google Analytics Advanced Filter Segmentation http://tinyurl.com/cnpdfb
30 tobiasfox (Tobias Fox) 24/04/2009 at 8:38 am: SEO-Tutorial: Keyword Ranking Check mit Google Analytics. http://tinyurl.com/cnpdfb #seo #analytics
31 shanejones (shanejones) 24/04/2009 at 11:56 am: very handy from @patrickaltoft How To Monitor Your Rankings Using Google Analytics Advanced Filter Segmentation http://is.gd/u8SM
32 jirilanger (Jiri Langer) 24/04/2009 at 10:40 pm: How To Monitor Your Rankings Using Google Analytics Advanced Filter Segmentat http://is.gd/u8SM
33 preethaprasad (Preetha Prasad) 25/04/2009 at 8:04 am: How To Monitor Your Rankings Using Google Analytics Advanced Filter Segmentation: http://tinyurl.com/cnpdfb
34 rickdog (rick shide) 26/04/2009 at 9:24 am: tAna> How To Monitor Your Rankings Using Google Analytics Advanced Filter Segmentation http://tinyurl.com/cnpdfb
35 ogginnet (Ognian Mladenov) 26/04/2009 at 8:22 pm: How To Monitor Your Rankings Using Google Analytics Advanced Filter Segmentation http://tinyurl.com/cnpdfb
36 aimclear (Marty Weintraub) 26/04/2009 at 10:38 pm: http://www.blogstorm.co.uk/how-to-monitor-your-rankings-using-google-analytics-advanced-filter-segmentation/
37 Schebesta (Schebesta) 27/04/2009 at 2:36 pm: How to monitor your rankings with Google analytics http://bit.ly/3wvDfP
38 mazenovi (Vincent MAZENOD) 27/04/2009 at 5:13 pm: full referrer strings with google analytics http://is.gd/u8SM