Google Dashboard Data: has it ever been this bad

[Dave]

Over the years I've come to mistrust data from the dashboard about visits, let alone impressions.

We have a number of smb sites with extensive adwords. So we can see impressions: and we know which phrases generate maps. Google's dashboard stats have virtually never matched up. Never.

Years ago I noticed that the dashboard for our smb's reported roughly 3 or 4 times the visits to our site from hitting the pac links....versus the # of times google said they visited the then local page. Then I reviewed this later and found that relationship having completely changed for every smb. 3 to 4 times the visits to the google places page than visits to the website. Frankly our web traffic in all cases seemed to be on par. It didn't make sense. I contacted another local seo and found out he was seeing the same change in data covering the same time period.

There were no changes in visitor patterns. Google's reporting changed during that period.

In looking at dashboard stats today I noticed virtually no visits to smb sites via the dashboard. Virtually nothing. Yet I know how often maps show for these businesses I see impressions on Adwords for exact phrases that generate maps....and its completely disconnected from any reality.

Are others seeing this? Does anyone get on google for this lousy data? IMHO its been so bad for so long.

Does anyone rely on this data?

Interested in hearing people's perspectives.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Dave, I hear you. We never put too much faith or trust in the Google Places Dash analytics. At the very most, we use it as a tool to gain general insights and look for patterns or borked stats as a sign of hidden duplicates or merged listing issues.

My current beef with the new Places Dash is that you can only view the Analytics AKA Insights for the last 30 days....

 

[Dave]

Dave, I hear you. We never put too much faith or trust in the Google Places Dash analytics. At the very most, we use it as a tool to gain general insights and look for patterns or borked stats as a sign of hidden duplicates or merged listing issues.

My current beef with the new Places Dash is that you can only view the Analytics AKA Insights for the last 30 days....

That is more or less the way I've used it for the majority of years. I didn't know it was now limited to the most recent 30 days. What a shame. Google has the data but doesn't want webmasters or businesses to see much of it. Not a helpful move at all.

Meanwhile the current data was SO BAD...it had reached a new level of irrelevance and essentially misinformation in my mind. Why bother providing information if its intentionally crap. I suppose that is my question.

 

[Dave]

Colan: Couple of things:

While the g+ dashboard doesn't adjust for dates the G places dashboard does. I just did one adjustment. While I generally have used places/g+ dashboard to check for things like anomalies I did also use it in the past for long term comparisons (accurate or not). Possibly the places dashboard will still accommodate that.

Its still crummy data. It just might give you the opportunity to take some longer term perspectives.

 

[Colan Nielsen]

While the g+ dashboard doesn't adjust for dates the G places dashboard does.

Are you seeing this in the new Google Places Dashboard?

 

[Dave]

Colan: Frankly with how bad dashboard data has been over so many years, its one thing I haven't been paying attention to. What I just accessed was one acct with the old G+ places data. (I assume)

I frankly haven't looked at dashboard data for months. (its generally been that worthless IMHO)

I'll have to check all our places dashboards. I frankly don't know which if any are new or not. I so study data...but its been so apparent for years that dashboard data has s#cked (and in my mind its purposeful)

BTW: years ago I had some level of responsiveness inside the places forums (it was before TC's and a dedicated person a la Jade. How that occurred...I don't know. ) For one smb the dashboard stats were so dramatically different than impression data from a very thorough 24/7 adwords campaign that stretched through a large region and reflected the distances customers traveled to use this smb.

The dashboard stats for impressions was a fraction of adwords impressions (even taking into account the phrases for which maps would show.

I remarked upon this inside the forum and the next day or so they dramatically increased the radius and geo territory for which impressions were showing. It had more relevance to what we knew worked via our actual contacts, leads and sales.

Yet we never knew what was the geo scope or radius around the dashboard before the change...and we didn't know the scope of geo coverage after they made the change.

Alternatively we knew EXACTLY what the regional geo coverage was for the adwords campaign.

Google has always supplied controlled incomplete and often totally useless info inside the dashboards. Its their choice. At its best it might be marginally helpful in a world with no data. If you have or strive for alternative data and get it, it renders the dashboard info useless and in some context manipulative, IMHO.