How is your website affected when Google makes an algorithm update?
Navigating the Complexity of SEO
For years, small to medium business owners have grappled with the volatile nature of search engine optimization (SEO). Changes in search rankings can make or break an online business, making it essential to promptly and accurately evaluate the effects of Google’s frequent updates. Historically, such analysis required deep technical expertise and access to complex data analytics tools, which were not always feasible for every business owner.
From Data to Decisions
Search Warrant’s new SEO impact dashboard is designed to cut through the complexity of SEO metrics, offering business owners a clear view of how Google’s algorithm updates affect their digital properties. The tool focuses on four key metrics: search position changes, number of clicks, number of impressions, and click-through rate (CTR). These metrics provide a comprehensive view of a website’s performance and are presented in a way that is easy to understand and act upon.
The dashboard performs a deep statistical analysis by comparing pre and post-update data sets using a two-sample T-test to determine if observed changes are statistically significant or merely part of normal fluctuations. The changes to position, clicks, impressions and CTR are rolled up into a single metric to provide a clear, numerical score indicating whether an update had a positive, negative, or neutral impact on the website.
Executive Summary
This is designed to share the meaning of the numbers with business owners in plain English. It concisely outlines the four critical metrics, evaluates the statistical likelihood that these were affected by the latest Google update, and quantifies the potential impact on the business’s web metrics.
Impact Score
The scoring system is intuitively designed, with each metric assigned a specific weight based on its importance. The search position, for instance, is considered the most crucial metric and is weighted at 40% of the total impact score. This scoring system is calculated by integrating changes in metric values with their statistical confidence levels to produce a final impact score ranging from -100 to +100.
Key Metrics
Each metric on the dashboard displays the percentage change pre and post-update, alongside a statistical confidence score derived from a two-sample t-test. This indicates whether changes are strongly (95% confidence), moderately (80% confidence), or weakly (less than 80% confidence) statistically significant.
A concise explanation accompanies these figures, detailing the average daily values before and after the update, and the absolute change.
The accompanying chart visualizes this data, aggregating it into weekly averages from daily figures to clarify trends and reduce day-to-day variability.
Empowering Businesses with Actionable Insights
The ultimate goal of this new tool is to empower business owners by providing a reliable and easy-to-use platform to assess the SEO impact of search algorithm updates. By offering a statistical backbone to SEO analysis, Search Warrant’s dashboard ensures that even those without deep technical expertise can understand and react to changes in their website’s search engine performance.
Want to know if your website was impacted by the latest Google update?
We’d be happy to do a similar analysis for your website. Share your Google Search Console access with us & we can get started today.