Sources Analytics: Google vs. Yahoo and Bing

Looking at my Google Analytics numbers for the first half of the year, I noticed something about traffic sources. This shows how much traffic came to my sites from various sources, and there is substantial difference between my sites in how much traffic comes from Google, Yahoo and Bing searches.

First, my law firm website:

Nearly 75% of the traffic comes from "organic" searches on Google. The next highest source is "cpc" (cost per click), my advertising on Google AdWords. Then Bing and Yahoo combine for just over 8% of site visits or about one-ninth of the traffic generated by organic Google searches.

Next, our traffic court website:

We don't use AdWords or other advertising to bring traffic to the site. Google is still dominant, with a 68% share. But Bing and Yahoo are much more prominent, with a combined 22% share, nearly triple their share on the law firm site.

I'm not sure how to explain the difference. One theory has to do with how the different search engines view these two sites. At first I thought maybe Bing and Yahoo were ranking my law firm site lower than Google ranks it. But I did some brief searches using my biggest keywords and they actually seem to rank my law firm site better than Google does.

Then it dawned on my to look at the other side of it. Bing and Yahoo rank my court website much better than Google does on searches for court names. So it's not that my law firm site does poorly on Bing and Yahoo, but that they treat my court site well.

Another theory is that SEO for law firms is far more competitive than for court directory websites. Many law firms are trying to get their websites to rank high on searches. On the other hand, search engines seem to give substantial credibility to government websites (i.e. official pages for the courts), which is the main competition for our court website. While the government doesn't actively compete in the SEO game, the search engines' favoritism is dramatic. Maybe the numbers suggest Google gives more weight to government websites than Yahoo and Bing do.

Just to add more information, my next biggest site is my Albany Lawyer blog:

Google has a 71% share and Bing/Yahoo are at about 12% together. And it's nice to see facebook sneaking in there.

And as a final and upbeat note, Town-Court.com had 1.75 million visits in the first half of the year, up 60% from the first half of last year. The site is roughly 1/100 the size and profit of LinkedIn, which is supposedly worth $8 billion. That would mean our site is worth $80 million. Any buyers? We'd sell at a substantial discount.

AdWords and the Quality Score Fiction

For those who are involved in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, AdWords is the big player. It is the main advertising avenue for Google.

AdWords advice focuses on something called Quality Score. If you have a good quality score, then your ads get better placement and you pay less. One of the biggest factors in quality score is, supposedly, a high click-through rate (CTR). That's when a high percentage of people click on your ads, through to your website.

Below is a screen shot from one of my ad groups showing the top seven keywords. I've blurred the bids and the cost both to protect my bidding and to minimize offense to the folks at Google.



In my experience, 5% is a pretty good CTR. Here, four of the top seven have CTR over 10%. Despite that, the quality scores are very low. As Google describes it: "On this scale, 1 is the lowest rating, while 10 is the highest. 1-4 corresponds with Poor, 5-7 with OK, and 8-10 with Great."

So my keyword with an amazing 14% CTR has a quality score of 4 out of 10, which, in Google's description is "poor."

For those who are really into this, the shot is taken with the date range set to "all time". I've been running this campaign for about 2 months. I don't have a past bad history with the relevant keywords. To the extent that I have a history with related keywords, it's a good history. The landing page is highly relevant. The keywords are all "phrase-match" and the search term report shows more than half the clicks were "exact match", and all of those had even higher CTR.

I'm very fond of AdWords and I'll keep using it, but we're not getting the whole story about quality score.

Google Similar Images: Andrew Cuomo and ... is that Jamie Lynn Spears?

Saw Google Similar Images mentioned on Twitter. Was goofing around. Disappointed that there were none for my images. But here's the link to what happens with an Andrew Cuomo photo. Image below in case the results change.

And while I'm disappointed that I'm not famous enough to merit similar image treatment, neither does Kirsten Gillibrand, and she's a US Senator.

Google Analytics by Day of Week

The two images below show web traffic to our county court site and to my Albany restaurant review blog. They come from Google Analytics. Very helpful for monitoring our websites.


What stands out about this is the difference in traffic by day of the week. The usage of our court site has a clear pattern with Monday as the big day, with a gradual decline to Friday, and then significantly lower numbers on the weekend. Sunday is usually slightly higher than Saturday. I see similar patterns on our law firm site's traffic and the traffic to this blog as well.

The restaurant review blog follows a different pattern. The big days are usually either Friday or Saturday. Sundays and Mondays are the slowest. So far Google Analytics does not offer a specific "day of week" tool for analyzing traffic. Would be a nice feature.

Google Analytics Quirk

Maybe I'm not as good at math as I thought. How can I get only 7000 visits from over 10,000 keywords? See image below from Google Analytics.

Okay, so after I started posting this, I figured out what happened. On the above image, I had it set to compare to a previous period. I think it counted the keywords from both periods. Once I unchecked the "compare to past" box, it came down to 5690 keywords. I still suspect GA is not counting right, but at least it fits better now.

Weird Analytics

Something weird on Google Analytics just now. This blog had nearly 300 visits in the past two days from a single keyword phrase search from Yahoo. The search was for "funny speeding ticket excuses".


Ordinarily I'd figure it was some kind of glitch on one computer somewhere. But I checked and the searches come from 255 different cities. See image below. I also checked operating system -- 273 from Windows and 23 from Mac. Three different browsers too (IE, Firefox and Safari). That would mostly seem to rule out a virus causing this. I can't figure out what prompted 300 people to search for the phrase "funny speeding ticket excuses" on Yahoo only, and then click on my page on speeding ticket excuses, which doesn't even rank #1.

AdWords and AdSense Customer Support: Are Dark Clouds Moving in Over Google

I've written in the past about problems with AdWords customer support, and now I'm having problems with AdSense combined with AdWords.

For those who don't know, AdWords is a service Google offers where users can put ads up on the internet. The most prominent way you see these ads is when you do a search on Google. On the right side and sometimes on the top, you see ads called "Sponsored Links." You can also have your ads display for search results from websites that use a Google search box, and on "content" pages on websites as well. Sites that wish to have such ads can host them through Google's AdSense service. We do this on our traffic court directory. When someone clicks on an ad, the advertiser pays something to Google, and the site owners gets something like half of that money.

Despite occasional complaints, I have generally been very happy with both AdWords and AdSense and recommend both. From my experience, AdWords is the most effective form of paid advertising there is. I've used TV, radio, newspapers, other print publications, and yellow pages. AdSense has been an easy way to generate revenue. For our traffic court website, it is not the most valuable advertising. Directly selling ads to attorneys is more valuable, but it takes significant effort to find advertisers. In places where we do not have advertisers, AdSense ads are somewhat easier and still generate decent revenue. Both AdWords and AdSense have some learning curve to use them effectively, but it's well worth the investment.

Years ago when I first started advertising on Google AdWords, I created an account with an old e-mail address. For no particular reason I continue to use that account for AdSense, even though I stopped using it for AdWords. Recently AdSense has been prompting me to migrate my account to a gmail address. When I try to do so, it indicates that I can't because of something related to my old e-mail address. Thus ensued a lengthy exchange with "support" for both AdSense and then AdWords. Excerpts below, supplemented by comments from me today IN ALLCAPS.

------------

From: wredlich@gmail.com
Subject: Moving to my gmail address
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2008 08:51:47 -0700

When I log into AdSense it prompts me to merge into my Google Account. I enter my gmail address and password, and then get this message:

"A user with the email you specified already exists Please select a different Google Account login to access this account."

I tried logging into AdSense with my gmail address and it says there's no account.

Help!!

---------

Hi Warren,

Thanks for your email. I'll be happy to help you update your AdSense login to wredlich@gmail.com.

As wredlich@gmail.com is associated with your AdWords account, I have created a temporary login for your AdSense account - temp+wredlich@gmail.com.

You need to use this special URL to login the first time: ...

Once you have created your password, you would be able to login to your AdSense account immediately at:

https://www.google.com/adsense/premium-login
Login: temp+wredlich@gmail.com
Password: The newly created password

Once you login to your AdSense account using this email address, you can update this temporary login to wredlich@gmail.com using the following instructions.

...

This should successfully update your AdSense login to wredlich@gmail.com.

If you are unable to access your account using your original login or have any trouble transitioning your account, please reply directly to this email.

For additional questions, I'd encourage you to visit the AdSense Help Center ( http://www.google.com/adsense_help ) or the official AdSense blog ( http://adsense.blogspot.com?utm_source=txft ). Alternatively, feel free to post your question on the AdSense Help Forum ( http://groups.google.com/group/adsense-help?utm_source=txft ).

Sincerely, Dia
The Google AdSense Team

--------
[SEEMED ODD, BUT OKAY, I TRIED]
--------

... I got a little further and then got this message:

"Sorry, a Gmail address is not allowed to be the primary address of this account. "

Could you guys find some way to make this a little easier? Look. I've got an account -- wredlich@gmail.com. I use it for lots of stuff .... Can you just make my AdSense account work with my gmail account??

Warren

---------
[HERE'S WHERE IT STARTS GOING DOWNHILL]
---------

Hi Warren,

Thanks for your email.

Please write back to us with the password that you created for your temporary login (temp+damonpace@gmail.com) and your Google account password for damonpace@gmail.com.

Once I receive your response, I'll update your AdSense login to damonpace@gmail.com.

Sincerely,
Dia The Google AdSense Team

-----------

I don't have an account named damonpace@gmail.com

My account (as you should see from this message) is wredlich@gmail.com

Please confirm that you are paying attention to my situation.

Thanks, Warren

-------------
[NOW 3/17]

Hi Warren,

Thanks for your response. I apologize for the miscommunication in my previous email.

In order to help you update your AdSense login to wredlich@gmail.com, please reply to this email with the password your created for the temporary login - temp+wredlich@gmail.com, and your Google account password. I can then make the change in your AdSense account.

Thanks for your patience.

Sincerely, Dia
The Google AdSense Team

-----------
[3/19]

The password for my temp+wredlich@gmail.com account is [OMITTED]

Please change my warren - at - redlichlaw.com AdSense account over to wredlich@gmail.com.

Thanks, Warren

-----------

Hi Warren,

Thanks for your response. I've updated our system to allow you to change the login.

Please login to your AdSense account with username 'temp+wredlich@gmail.com' and password '[OMITTED]'. Once you have logged in, please follow the steps to migrate your AdSense login to wredlich@gmail.com.

If you would like me to go through this process for you, please send me your Google account password associated with wredlich@gmail.com. I will then update your account.

Sincerely, Dia
The Google AdSense Team

----------

I got this message:

"A user with the email you specified already exists Please select a different Google Account login to access this account."

This is the same problem I had in the first place. Would you please forward my problem to a supervisor?

It's very frustrating to have this problem mishandled. It's been going on for a week. My website earns Google about $X/month, and I spend around $X/month on AdWords. That puts me up around $XX,000/year or more. Maybe Google should recognize I'm worth having a $50/hour employee take a look at the problem for a half-hour.

Warren

---------
[NOW 3/20 - AND APPARENTLY BUMPED UP TO A HIGHER LEVEL]

Hi Warren,

Thanks for writing in. Dia forwarded your email to me and asked that I take a look at your account.

I've searched our system and found that you have two AdWords accounts and one AdSense account.

1. Customer ID 638...., with payee name 'The Redlich Law Firm' is associated with the email address wredlich@gmail.com. This is a separate AdWords account.
2. Customer ID 139...., with payee name Warren Redlich is associated with the email address warren - AT - redlichlaw.com. This AdWords account is also linked to an AdSense account with the same login.

I understand that you'd like us to update the login for your AdSense account to wredlich@gmail.com. However as this AdSense account is already associated with another AdWords account, we're unable to update the login to wredlich@gmail.com. Our system doesn't allow two AdWords accounts to have the same login email address.

If you'd like to close your AdWords account with customer ID 638.... or change the login for this account to a different email address, then we can update the login for your second account to wredlich@gmail.com.

Please let us know if you'd like to do this and I'll give you further instructions on how to proceed.

Sincerely, Tony
The Google AdSense Team

------------
[3/21 - TO ADWORDS CUSTOMER SUPPORT]

Please close the AdWords account associated with warren -AT- redlichlaw.com. I thought I closed that years ago. Once it's closed, please transfer my warren --AT-- redlichlaw.com AdSense account to wredlich@gmail.com.

Thanks, Warren

---------
[3/26 - FROM "THE GOOGLE ADWORDS TEAM"]

Hello Warren,

Thank you for your email. With reference to the correspondence you have had with the Google AdSense team, we are sorry to hear that you wish to close your AdWords account (login ID warren -AT- redlichlaw.com). However, I wish to inform you that we cannot cancel your AdWords account from our end. You'll have to log in to your account and cancel it yourself.

[DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS OMITTED FOR BREVITY]

-----------
[MY FRUSTRATION STARTS TO SHOW ...]

I just don't understand what is going on with Google these days. I logged into my AdWords account and it shows that it's already canceled.

"Account Cancellation This account is cancelled. Warning This account has been cancelled. The ads in this account are not running. All other account activity has been stopped. Any edits you make here will take effect only if you reactivate the account. "

Why don't you guys check my account before you send me these e-mails.

Can you please bring this issue to the attention of a supervisor? As I said before during my problems with the AdSense team:

> > It's very frustrating to have this problem mishandled. It's been going
> > on for a week. My website earns Google about $X/month, and I spend
> > around $X/month on AdWords. That puts me up around $XX,000/year or
> > more. Maybe Google should recognize I'm worth having a $50/hour
> > employee take a look at the problem for a half-hour.

We're going on 2 weeks of this nonsense. Get someone working on this who knows what they're doing and is willing to put the time in to get it right!!

Warren
------------
[3/27 - TODAY]

Hello Warren,

Thank you for writing us. I understand that you have already canceled your AdWords account (login ID warren -AT -redlichlaw.com), and I sincerely apologize for any frustration or confusion that my last email may have caused. I wish to confirm that your AdWords account associated with the login ID warren -AT- redlichlaw.com was canceled on January 3, 2006.

Your account with login ID wredlich@gmail.com is still active.

Please reply directly to this email for any further information on AdWords that you may require. Else, please reply to any email by the AdSense team or Dia to get more information on your AdSense account, and how you can link warren -AT- redlichlaw.com AdSense account to wredlich@gmail.com AdWords account.

-----------
[BACK TO ADSENSE - THIS IS THE LAST MESSAGE IN THE CHAIN]

Attn: Tony

In an e-mail on 3/20, you told me to contact AdWords to get my AdWords account for warren -AT- redlichlaw.com. I checked with Adwords support (see below) and then checked my account and found (as I thought) that I had already canceled the warren -at- redlichlaw.com AdWords account.

Since it appears you are unable to resolve this problem, please forward my message to a supervisor.

Frankly, I am disgusted by the quality of customer support on this. You should be too.

Warren

----------

THAT'S THE END OF THE MESSAGES ... NOW BACK TO OUR REGULAR REPORTING ... :-)

This is just one more example of the problems in large corporations and how they treat regular people. Here I am, a regular customer, and you would think at the levels I spend, a substantial one. I know I'm not Coke or Pepsi, but if I'm generating five-figure revenue per year or more for them, isn't it worth spending $25-50 in labor to resolve the problem. Instead, they've got me bouncing back and forth for two weeks.

This doesn't mean I'm leaving for another company. Overall AdWords and AdSense are better than the alternatives, who probably have crappy customer service too. However, I am prone to some degree of customer loyalty. This experience greatly diminishes that feeling. Sooner or later I will probably find a decent banner ad provider for the website and will dump AdSense. I may reduce my spending on AdWords as well.

These negative experiences suggest that Google is losing touch with its "Don't Be Evil" motto. Not that anything here is evil, but it's still a long way from what you would think the company's founders wanted in how their company would treat people.

AdWords runaround

I've been having this odd problem with AdWords lately, and am very displeased with the folks at Google about how they've handled it so far. This isn't really lawyer stuff, so much of this will be in Greek for those who are not into SEM and PPC.

First I'll describe the problem. I run a campaign targeted to the Albany-Schenectady-Troy area of New York State. One Ad Group is for keywords related to DWI cases. The biggest keyword in that group is, not surprisingly, 'dwi' (I'm using the ' mark to indicate what keyword I'm referring to, but when I enter the keyword in a search, I do not use the quotes). A couple of other keywords that get some traffic are 'ny dwi' and 'new york dwi'.

So I noticed that my ads do not appear when I search for 'ny dwi' or 'new york dwi'. The ad from the same campaign does appear when I search for 'dwi'. The fact that the ad shows for 'dwi' indicates that the computer I'm using is seen by Google as being within the region I'm targeting. So then why doesn't the 'ny dwi' keyword work?

I should mention that my AdWords account indicates I am getting impressions and clicks on the 'ny dwi' keyword. But if they're not showing when I look for them, where are they showing?

So about a week ago I submitted a question to Google's AdWords team inquiring about this. Excerpts of the back-and-forth that ensued is down below. It does not reflect well on Google.

Since I was not satisfied, I called the number I was given in the last message. I spoke with someone at Google, apparently in the Bay Area. She was pleasant, but I still was not satisfied with her answer.

If I understand her answer, it is that Google has made New York City a special exception for AdWords. Google assumes that if someone searches for 'ny widget', the 'ny' in the search means they're looking for widgets in New York City. This ignites a long-standing frustration. For those of us from upstate New York, we often encounter people who think we're from New York City.

So here I am, in Albany, looking to display my ad to people in Albany who search for a term I've chosen, and Google has decided to circumvent my choice.

It gets worse. I still didn't understand why I was getting impressions and clicks on the 'ny dwi' keyword if the ad is suppressed here in the region I chose. She explained that if someone elsewhere searches for 'ny dwi', then my ad would show up for them because they might be looking for me. So Google is further circumventing my choice here. I want to display my ad in the Albany-Schenectady-Troy area, but Google has decided that my ad should actually appear anywhere but in that area.

I don't know if this violates the "Don't Be Evil" principle, but it sure violates the "Don't Be Stupid" one.

Now, with all of that said, I should mention that overall I am very happy with both Google and AdWords. Google is still my search engine of choice, and my only online PPC ads are with AdWords. I just think this reflects poorly on the company and hope this does not signal a downward decline.

I pasted the e-mail exchange below and going through it prompted some additional thoughts. First, forgive my political incorrectness, but I'm betting Deepa is not located in the US. Good chance he's in Bangalore. Second, notice that the 'correct' answer does not come until Deepa's last message, after three apparently incorrect responses.

The thread is below, edited mostly for brevity. I've also put it in the correct chronological order, from oldest to newest:



> > > From: wredlich@gmail.com
> > > Subject: doesn't appear when I search, but shows impressions
> > > Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2007 20:39:25 -0800
> > > My ad for the term "ny dwi" doesn't show when I search, but my ad does show if I search simply for "dwi". I've checked this at various times of day on several different days, and don't understand why this is happening. Please review and advise.
> > > Thanks,
> > > Warren
-----------
> Hello Warren,
> > > Thank you for your email. I've looked at your account and found that your campaign is targeted by region. Google identifies a user's Internet Protocol (IP) address, which is assigned by a user's Internet Service Provider (ISP), to help determine the user's location. Then, we'll show ads targeted to that user's location. This means that only users with IP addresses in your targeted region usually see your ad.
> > > According to our records, the IP address you're using is either unidentifiable, or is located outside of your targeted region. As a result, you may have trouble seeing your regionally targeted or customized ads. However, our records indicate that your ad is appearing for users whose IP addresses are read as located within your targeted area.
> > > The following tips may help you to see your ads in your customized or regionally targeted campaign: [tips omitted]
…
> > > We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.
> > > Sincerely,
> > > Deepa
> > > The Google AdWords Team
------------
From: "Warren Redlich" < wredlich@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [#100223937] doesn't appear when I search, but shows impressions
> > Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 07:49:44 -0500
I disagree with your analysis. My "dwi" keyword from the same Ad Group is appearing on my computer, so my IP address is within the targeted region. I have seen this from 2 or 3 different IP addresses within my region. Please review this again. – Warren
-----------
Hello Warren,
> > Thank you for your reply. When possible, Google analyzes users' search queries for location-specific information in order to show regionally targeted ads. Because the name of your region or city is clearly displayed in your keyword, the system does not show the ad as you are targeting Ontario-Quebec in Campaign 'Ontario - Quebec' and Albany-Schenectady-Troy NY in Campaign 'DWI & Traffic.' If you search for 'Albany Ny Dwi' or 'Troy Ny Dwi,' you will see your ad appearing on top of the search results. Therefore, your ad shows up for the keyword 'dwi' as it does not have a specific location assigned to it. However, for the keyword 'ny dwi,' the system recognizes that the search is for defense attorneys in New York and, so does not show the ad for specific regions in New York or Canada.
> > To learn more about targeting your ads, visit
We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.
> > Sincerely,
> > Deepa
> > The Google AdWords Team
----------
Deepa,
> Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately I'm still confused. Looking at my account today, I see that there were 24 impressions and one click in the last 7 days for the keyword 'ny dwi' in my Albany-Schenectady-Troy NY targeted campaign -- DWI & Traffic ad group. So if your message is correct, I should not see any impressions or clicks at all for that keyword in that ad group. … Please take the time to review this thoroughly and give me an answer that makes sense.
> One particular question -- if I delete the 'ny dwi' keyword in the Ontario-Quebec campaign, will that make the keyword work better in the Albany-etc campaign? Warren
----------
Hello Warren,
> Thank you for your response, and for your continued patience. Let me start with an example. Lets say you have 2 campaigns relating to hotels - Campaign #1 is targeting New York and Campaign #2 is targeting Los Angeles. You have the same keywords in both campaigns - 'New York hotels' and 'hotels in new york.' When a user searches for the keyword 'New York hotels,' ads in Campaign #1 show up as it is targeting New York. The probability of ads in Campaign #2 showing up is very less as it is targeting Los Angeles. Moreover, when the user enters a location in his keyword, the system recognizes that he wants results which are specific to that area. Therefore, the ads targeted to New York will show. However, if you would want ads targeting Los Angeles to show up, then you will have to edit the keywords and do not make them location specific. For example, in Campaign #2, you can change the keyword 'New York hotels' to 'top hotels' or 'hotels in los angeles.'
This same logic applies to your account. Users may see your ad when they use location-specific search terms on Google, even if they're located outside your targeted area. For example, a user in Texas searching for 'Ny Dwi' on Google will see ads targeting New York as the system recognizes the location New York in the keyword. The reason you are getting impressions or clicks for Campaign 'DWI & Traffic' is because people are searching for your ad from Albany, Schenectady, or Troy. …
> Additionally, please note that deleting the keyword 'ny dwi' from Campaign 'Ontario - Quebec' will definitely help Campaign 'DWI & Traffic' to perform well. Also, you can use generic keywords like 'dwi' or 'dwi laws' for Campaign 'Ontario - Quebec.'
…
> Sincerely,
>
> Deepa
> The Google AdWords Team
[ A sidenote here – I did pause the Ontario-Quebec campaign and this had no effect ]
--------------
I really don't think you're reading my question carefully and would like you to forward this problem to your supervisor.
Below you state:
"The reason you are getting impressions or clicks for Campaign 'DWI & Traffic' is because people are searching for your ad from Albany, Schenectady, or Troy."
I am in Albany, and the ad doesn't show up when I do a search for 'ny dwi'. So how am I getting impressions and clicks on this keyword on a campaign targeted to my area when I don't see the ad when I do searches for the same keyword from the same area (using 3 different IP addresses in the area).
Keep in mind that I do see ads when I search for just 'dwi'. Please forward this to someone who is better able to answer my questions in a sensible manner.
Warren
-------------------
Hello Warren,

Thank you for your email. The technical team has replied and they say that you are unable to see your ad when you search on the keyword 'ny dwi' as our system parses this query to New York City and not to parts of New York state where the your campaign is targeted to.
When possible, Google analyzes users' search queries for location-specific information in order to show regionally targeted ads. This search functionality currently shows ads targeting the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and selected cities worldwide.
If your campaign targets a location where this search functionality is supported, users may see your ad when they use location-specific search terms on Google, even if they're located outside your targeted area. For example, a user in Manchester, England, searching for 'London hotels' on Google will see ads targeting London.
[omitted is the instructions for calling for follow-up]
----------------
This still does not explain why my Ad Group shows impressions and clicks. At this point I'm extremely dissatisfied with your handling of this. I'd like to actually get an e-mail from someone on the technical team.

Warren