Google Incorporates Webmaster Tools into Google Analytics

Posted on 14. Oct, 2011 by in Digital Marketing



Last week Google further expanded its Google Analytics service with the addition of three new SEO focussed reports. Given a full scale public release following a successful beta trial over the summer, these search data reports combine some useful features of Google Webmaster Tools with the flexible data approaches afforded by Google Analytics.

The value of this development lies predominantly in the ability to employ the usual array of Google Analytics filters and segments to Webmaster Tools data. Aside from offering greater analytical insight, eliminating the need to toggle between Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools also improves user experience.

The new reports can be accessed from the Traffic Sources section of the new version of Google Analytics, under the Search Engine Optimisation tab.

Each of the three reports provides imps, clicks, etc. data from a site’s Google Webmaster Tools account.

  • Queries provides data for the daily top 1,000 terms Google users searched that resulted in a visit to a site.
  • The Landing Pages displays a site’s top daily 1,000 entry points as a direct result of a Google Search Query.
  • Geographical data by country, highlighting where visitors arriving at a site via a Google SERP originated from. An example of the Geographical summary report can be seen below.

     

Note that In order to see these new reports it is necessary to first link a web property’s Webmaster Tools account to its corresponding Google Analytics account. This can be done from the Webmaster Tools homepage. Click on the manage site button, then ‘Google Analytics property’:

Reactions so far have been of a positive nature, with the mass welcoming this move from Google. However, we can’t help but wonder if – and when – a full incorporation of Webmaster Tools will take place. No one can debate the practicality of this new feature, but it leaves room for improvement, with users still needing to use Webmaster Tools to gather crawl error and links to site data.

Tags: ,

  • Federica Ancona

    I have just tried to link up Google Analytics (GA) with Google Webmaster tool and realised that there is a major limitation to it. It is possible to link a GA web property, not a profile. So if I have a web property, for example mysite.com, and a profile within it, for example the country site mysite.com/fr, when I do the link-up what I see in GA is the same site-wide stats within both  mysite.com and  mysite.com/fr. However, what I would like to get is country-site-specific SEO stats. I guess there are two options to avoid this limitation:

    1. Change the mysite.com/fr profile into a web property: this may be tricky because I will have to amend the GA code on my site in order to update it with the new UA number (which is unique to a web property)

    2. Leave the mysite.com/fr profile as is and create a new one for SEO purposes which filters in only traffic to my sub-domain (/fr/)

    Either way I believe that forcing a site in Webmaster to be linked up to a web property only in GA, partially offsets the advantages brought about by the link up, in particular the one you mentioned about improved experience. 

  • Cristina Dunare

    Hi Federica, 
    That’s one of the biggest limitations of this new feature, alongside only being able to view part of Webmaster tools. I hope that Google will address both of these in the near future, otherwise the vast majority of us will still have to use Webmaster tools. Nonetheless, this seems like a step forward from Google.