Comments on: Google Can’t Add! New Webmaster Tools Impressions Data Doesn’t Add Up

By: Keesjan Deelstra

Keesjan Deelstra — Mon, 10 May 2010 20:32:17 +0000

@SEOsean:
I think you should not use “Adwords Tool (exact global search)” as you do in your second table but “Adwords Tool (exact local search)”
Iam in a hurry so i cannot give you that numbers right now but that should lower that Adwords tool numbers….

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 09:26:50 +0000

GWT is absolute uniques whether looked at for impressions or clicks.

If someone uses a term as a navigational query multiple times in a month, such as SEO book, you can be damn sure the numbers will be different.

The differences between seo book and seobook are great as well, as most queries for seobook will be navigational, whereas seo book would be maybe split 60/30 - the numbers add up.

The stats are real numbers, Google isn’t making them up.

By: SEOsean

SEOsean — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 01:26:46 +0000

Great reply TraiaN! You’re right, I didn’t take into account the Adwords Keyword Tool is also returning searches from Google’s network not just Google (don’t know why I didn’t think about that). Although, just as you said it still won’t match but even with that I am glad that at least these tools will give us a good indicator as to the data we are looking for. Thanks again for spotting that. - Sean

By: TraiaN

TraiaN — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 01:06:37 +0000

1. What you need to know and understand is that AdWords Keyword Tool is not returning the searches(impressions) done on Google.com only
2. Not 100% of the searchers will click on the first result
3. You need to take into account how the data for the tool is collected.

Considering the above, GA, AdWords and Webmaster Tools data will never match identically, but they will be close. Cheers.

PS: try to filter the analytics

By: SEOsean

SEOsean — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 19:07:44 +0000

Hi Anthony,
Yes you’re right the 2 useful but imprecise tools are better than one. At least we can bounce the data off each to get some sort of idea - just wishing one of them was actually accurate.
Thanks for letting me know about your results too.
- Sean

By: Anthony Taylor

Anthony Taylor — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 13:36:39 +0000

My testing gave the same results as you, Sean.

For a search term with 320 exact searches per month, which my client ranks 1st for, Webmaster Tools only showed 36 impression for the entire month and less than <10 click throughs.

My attitude with low search volume keywords has always been to keep a close eye on how many visitors they deliver as Google Adwords can not be relied upon to deliver accurate information!

One way to look at it is we have now have two useful, but imprecise tools (Google Adwords and Webmaster Tools) instead of one!