Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Did Analytics change the way to handle Google images searches on Dec 12?
-
Dear all,
One of the sites I'm monitoring receives a lot of traffic from image searches or images that appear in universal search results.
On Dec 12th, 2015, the bounce rate for these sessions went from around 30% the day before to around 87%. See screen shot below.
Did anybody notice similar bounces in the bounce rate? Did Google change something in the way that image search is handled?
Looking forward to your ideas!
-
Interesting. At this point, you have a lot more data on the subject than I do. I know the changes to how Google cached/displayed images caused a lot of headaches for enteprise SEOs in the US, but I don't know much about that situation with Google.fr. Your explanation seems plausible, given the data.
If your explanation is true, I'm not sure what you can do about it. These referrals are just inaccurate, and that bounce rate is meaningless. As you said, the design basically makes the bounce inevitable.
I would be reluctant to remove it completely, because you might want to be able to track any changes Google makes to how this is handled, but I would certainly remove it from your overall metrics somehow. You and/or your team shouldn't be judged negatively on this bounce rate.
-
I spend some time observing GA's Real Time reports and here is what I found.
I first noticed that also on Dec 12th, the source "images.google / organic" makes its appearance in GA.
If you use google.com (or probably all other versions of Google that use the same interface), GA doesn't log a visit till one clicks on either the enlarged image or the "Visit page" button. (screenshot with French flag attached, does this interface have a specific name?) The visit is logged as "google / organic", not "images.google / organic".
But if you use google.fr (or probably all other versions of Google that use the same interface, I confirmed with google.de), GA logs a visit even if you haven't really left Google, when the image is shown hovering above its host page. The source is "images.google.fr / referral" at this point.
But when you then click on the cross to close the image or on the "Site Web pour cette image" link in the side bar, hence if you really go to the site hosting the image, the source information is replaced by "images.google / organic". (screenshot with map of France attached)
So it seems quite logical that
a) the bounce rate for the source "images.google.fr / referral" is close to 100% and that
b) the source "images.google / organic" appeares at the same timeThis raises three questions for me
1. How was the behaviour before Dec 12th?
2. Wouldn't it be appropriate now to exclude entirely trafic provided by the source "images.google.fr / referral" (as well as images.google.de etc.), as this is only an enlargement in Google's search results and not a visit of the site?
3. How is it possible that the bounce rate of "images.google.fr / referral" is not 100%? Why do certain sessions still get multiple page views?I also looked into what you had suggested, if only certain images or phrases had the high bounce rates.
The answer is that for the traffic logged as referral traffic, there is no keyword data. But if I look at the landing pages, the general rule is a bounce rate between 75 and 95% for "images.google.fr / referral". The landing pages with lower bounce rates, simply have very few sessions, so that's probably just a coincidence. I noticed though that there are quite a few pages that are redirects for images that don't exist anymore that have a low bounce rate or even bounce rate 0%
How do you think, we should deal with these new settings now?
2016-01-25_images%2Bafter%2Bclicke%2Bon%2Bimage.jpg 2016-01-26_google-fr%2Bafter%2Bclick%2Bon%2Bimage%2Bin%2Bwidget%2Bfrance.jpg
-
I'm sorry - I misread the bounce rate part. So, image search is definitely driving clicks, but your bounce rates in GA skyrocketed - gotta. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of anything on the Google side that would blow up bounce rates once someone got to your site.
Have you checked out what that actual experience flow looks like right now? First thing I'd do is try a couple of your most popular image searches and make sure nothing obvious is acting up.
Do the bounces seem clustered around any particular images or phrases, or are they across everything?
-
Hello Dr. Pete,
Thank you for stepping in!
Did you see similar changes in bounce rates at the time?
Also, I am a bit confused that you speak of "image impressions" while I referred to bounce rates. My understanding was that if Analytics loggs a session with for example referring site / images.google.fr as source, it means that the user is actually visiting the site, in other words that the user has clicked on the "Consulter la page / Go to the page" button. Am I wrong?
Just to avoid misunderstandings: I am not referring to the number of sessions with "referring site / images.google.fr" as source, but to what Analytics shows as bounce rates. The number of sessions even has increased for my particular site.
Thanks for your help!
-
Here in the US, Google changed image search a few months back and started caching everything, which killed image impressions overnight. I thought that roll-out was international, but I'm not experienced enough with vertical search to know for sure. Did that potentially just hit France?
-
No sorry, I don't have a French one to check.
-
Thanks Martijn,
Did you check on a single site or on multiple site.
Is this maybe a francophone thing? In a Francophone forum, I found at least one other webmaster who reported the same observation
http://forum.webrankinfo.com/google-images-hausse-soudaine-taux-rebond-t185121.htmlDo you have a .fr site that you could check?
Best wishes
Frank
-
Hi Frank,
No we don't see it in our dataset, I've checked around 30k sessions and the bounce rate definitely isn't seeing changes like what you're seeing.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Will changing the property from http to https in Google Analytics affect main unfiltered view?
I set my client up with an unfiltered view in Google Analytics. This is the one with historical data going back for years, so I don't want to do anything that will affect this view. Recently, the website moved from HTTP to HTTPS. There's a setting for the property that will allow me to change the property name to https://EXAMPLE.com and change the default URL to https://EXAMPLE.com. Questions: 1. If I change the property name and the default URL, will this somehow affect my unfiltered view in a way that I'll lose historical data or data moving forward? 2. I have heard that changing the default URL to HTTPS will help me avoid a common problem others have experienced (where they lose the referrer in Google Analytics and a bunch of their sessions go to direct / other). Is this true?
Reporting & Analytics | | Kevin_P3 -
What is Local SEO in Google Analytics (Organic Source)
Recently, I saw "Local SEO" is mentioned as the organic source. Can someone please tell what is this and from where Google is fetching data for this source?
Reporting & Analytics | | Kevin.Monks0 -
Direct traffic spam on Google Analytics: how can you identify and filter it?
One of my smaller clients noticed a huge jump in direct traffic visits last month. The bounce rate was around 97% so I'm pretty certain that most of the traffic was illegitimate. I know how to filter out spam referrals and organic keywords in Google Analytics. However I'm not sure what to do about direct traffic spam. Are there recommendations for filtering this out? Can I identify spam IP addresses?
Reporting & Analytics | | RosemaryB0 -
How does Google Maps/G+ traffic show up in Analytics?
Hi Moz Community, I've been trying to figure out how traffic from Google Maps (and G+) shows up in Google Analytics and am struggling to find a good answer online. If someone finds a business through Google Maps and then clicks on the website in the Maps listing, does that show up as a referral from Google Maps? Our site shows virtually zero traffic from Google Maps even though we have a number of listing. Two related questions: if someone clicks through to a G+ page from a Maps result and then visits our website from the G+ page, does that show up in Analytics as a referral from G+? Is traffic from Google Maps or G+ ALSO counted as organic traffic? (Would it be possible to accidentally double-count a visit as both organic and a referral from Maps/G+? Thanks everybody!
Reporting & Analytics | | JohnGroves0 -
Google Analytics - Organic Search Traffic & Queries -What caused the huge difference?
Our website traffic dropped a little bit during the last month, but it's getting better now, almost the same with previous period. But our conversion rate dropped by 50% for the last three weeks. What could cause this huge drop in conversion rate? In Google Analytics, I compared the Organic Search Traffic with previous period, the result is similar. But the Search Engine Optimization ->Queries shows that the clicks for last month is almost zero. What could be the cause of this huge differnce? e9sJNwD.png k4M8Fa5.png
Reporting & Analytics | | joony0 -
Is there a way to find out who the admin of a Google Analytics account is?
We have a client who has been searching high and low to gain access to the GA account that is tied to their website, but previous agencies keep stating they don't have access. Is there a way to find out who the admins are on a GA account with the tracking number so we can reach out to that person and ask them to admin the client?
Reporting & Analytics | | marketingmediamanagement0 -
How to remove unwanted dynamic parameters from a URL in Google Analytics
Hi, Would really appreciate some help with this. I have been experimenting with RegEx to achieve this but as I’ve never used it before am currently failing miserably. We have conversion pages i need to set goals for that are formatted as below: https://www.domain.co.uk//Application_Form/(S(ewhbqp5cki0mppuzukunkqno))/enterCardDetails.aspx I need to remove the (s(xxx)) section from the URL as rather than one pages i currently have thousands of unique URL's. What’s catching me out is that as it’s not a URL parameter I can’t discount and as half way through can’t just do head matches etc to /entercarddetails Help would be much appreciated. Thanks.
Reporting & Analytics | | Sarbs0
