Last week, we discussed the Diagnostics section of Google’s webmaster toolset. This week, it’s Statistics, where you’ll find lots of information about how your site is indexed and how it appears in Google’s search results.

The various categories and sub-categories of data are discussed below.

Top Search Queries

You can get some of this information no matter what package you use for web statistics, but there are are a few special tidbits available via Google’s tools.

You can see the top 20 searches that returned your site and compare those to the top 20 searches where the user actually clicked through to one of your pages. Are there differences? You can also see how your site ranked on those searches. If you’re seeing numbers higher than 10, you may want to spend some time tuning your site to those keywords.

You can also sort searches by time period, type (what engine was used - Google Directory, Google News, Google Images or good old fashioned Google Web Search), and location (are the search terms different in the US and Canada?). It can be helpful to see how many people found you through the Google Directory as opposed to the main search page.

Unfortunately, none of this tells you what terms return sites similar to yours but not your own.

What the Googlebot Sees

Getting into Google is all about how the Googlebot indexes your site. This page provides some insight that process.

Phrases: The Googlebot looks at the phrases associated with links to your site. This can affect your search results because Google assumes that the links will correctly define the content of your site. Unfortunately, you don’t have much control in this situation, since the links come from outside sites.

Keywords: The Googlebot also looks at the text on the pages, and you can see what search terms will produce high-ranking results. You have some control over these keywords, so make sure the ones you want associated with your site appear in the list. For example, if you have a site about pool toys, and you don’t see the words “pool” and “toys” in the keyword list, you should probably re-write your page text because no one’s going to find your site.

Crawler Stats

Here you’ll find PageRank information. A PageRank is a value that Google assigns to each page of your site. Higher is better, and the number is associated with “quality links” to your site. What does this mean to you? Well, if your site is one among many in a competitive field, let’s say online business card printers, your position within the search results for “business card printers” will depend on your PageRank.

This info you find here won’t help you improve your PageRanks, but it will show you how they compare to those of all other Google pages. The data is only somewhat useful. What really matters is how your PageRanks compare to those of your competitors’ sites, not all the pages in Google. Also, you don’t know which pages have which rank.

Index Stats

These are links to useful searches. If you know the correct syntax, you can also query your own info.

Indexed Pages in Your Site: Here you can make sure that all of your pages have been indexed by Google.

Pages that Link to Your Site’s Front Page: Do you have the “quality links” you need to get the PageRank you want? You can find out here, but improving the links is up to you.

The Current Cache of Your Site: Google keeps a copy of your site on it’s servers in case someone queries your site while the server is down. You can tell Google not to cache your site by using this META tag in the HEAD section of your page: META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”NOARCHIVE”.

Information We Have About Your Site: You’ll find some repeat info here but also some stuff that can help you identify your competitors.

Subscriber Stats: If your page has an RSS feed, you can find out how many people subscribe to it via Google products.

In the next installment, we’ll look at the Links section.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 at 2:38 pm and is filed under RESOURCES, Web Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.