Question Re: GMB Impressions in GSC and Analytics

[snysarah]

Hi guys - I *think* I have a handle on this, but want to make sure:

- In Google Search Console, impressions from Google My Business are counted as google/organic unless you create your own UTM parameters, correct?
- The same applies in Google Analytics, right? Un-tagged GMB traffic would show up as google/organic?

I read through Joy's article in Search Engine Land, plus this LocalFalcon piece, but just wanted to make 100% sure I'm understanding this correctly because I broke my brain discussing it with a coworker.

Thank you!!!!!!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

Hi @snysarah

Yes you need to tag your GMB URL's to be able to filter them out in both GSC and GA.

Otherwise, yes it would count it as organic.

 

[Rich Owings]

I seem to recall someone saying that mobile GMB clicks show up as direct in GA. Don't remember where I saw that though.

 

[JoyHawkins]

Hey Rich,

Greg Gifford mentioned that at a conference recently. I'll see if I can get him to chime in here on how he concluded that.

@snysarah you are correct. I wrote a piece on this recently that you can read here: How is Activity from the Local 3-Pack Tracked in Search Console? 4 Things to Know in 2019 - Sterling Sky Inc

 

[Greg Gifford]

yep - we don't know what percentage of GMB/map website clicks show up as direct, because it's all over the board. it's pretty significant in some cases. we've seen several times where we onboard a client and add the UTM to the website link in GMB and immediately see a 215-20% lift in organic traffic (while we see the same amount of traffic that's added there drop off of direct).

we've been trying to figure out why, it seems that most of it is mobile traffic, but we've not been able to figure out exactly where or why.

we've had issues where dealers will remove the UTM code (cause they don't know any better), and we'll see the GMB organic disappear, but instead of standard Google organic going up, it's an immediate boost to direct...

but it's weird, cause for some dealers, adding the code in doesn't really do anything...

long story short - always best to add it in so you can tell the difference, if nothing else...

 

[snysarah]

Thanks guys! Somebody on our team (way better with analysis than I ) was seeing all kinds of wacky stuff in GSC & GA. All of this info really helps and REALLY makes me glad we're already tagging GMB.

 

[snysarah]

Our initial concern was that GSC and/or GA could be throwing in extra traffic from GMB, but from what I gather this is not the case. And, of course, to keep tagging.

 

[snysarah]

yep - we don't know what percentage of GMB/map website clicks show up as direct, because it's all over the board. it's pretty significant in some cases. we've seen several times where we onboard a client and add the UTM to the website link in GMB and immediately see a 215-20% lift in organic traffic (while we see the same amount of traffic that's added there drop off of direct).

we've been trying to figure out why, it seems that most of it is mobile traffic, but we've not been able to figure out exactly where or why.

we've had issues where dealers will remove the UTM code (cause they don't know any better), and we'll see the GMB organic disappear, but instead of standard Google organic going up, it's an immediate boost to direct...

but it's weird, cause for some dealers, adding the code in doesn't really do anything...

long story short - always best to add it in so you can tell the difference, if nothing else...

That is both super interesting and super disturbing. Thanks for chiming in.

 

[snysarah]

Hey Rich,

Greg Gifford mentioned that at a conference recently. I'll see if I can get him to chime in here on how he concluded that.

@snysarah you are correct. I wrote a piece on this recently that you can read here: How is Activity from the Local 3-Pack Tracked in Search Console? 4 Things to Know in 2019 - Sterling Sky Inc

THANK YOU. My brain is melting over all this and am so grateful somebody's on top of it. Going to check that out immediately ...

 

[Tiggerito]

In GSC, the impressions clicks are always included from GMB listings. The advantage of using a special URL, like using utm parameters, is that you can detect if the impression/click was related to a GMB listing by the fact it is related to a unique URL. I personally add something like #GMB-CityName to my listings URLs so they can be easily identified. In GSC, the only way # parameters show up are from jump to links or if GMB URLs include them. I then use JavaScript to turn that into utm parameters for GA. Then finally remove the utm parameters from the address bas so that people don't share them around.

It's interesting to hear that GA seems to allocate some mobile GMB traffic to direct if it is not overridden via utm parameters.