Imagine you wake up in the morning and get the news that Google is out with a new SEO update and then you check the Google Analytics tool and you find out that there is a huge drop in the traffic. What a bad morning it will be for you! And also, you won’t have the idea that which keywords got affected and which not.
As you are having the Google Analytics and Google search console tools, you won’t have any problem with getting the creative keywords that got lost. The very first thing that we will need to check is that which pages has experienced large drops and gains. We will be checking the Google Analytics’s All Pages report for the above purpose.
Step 1: Login successfully to the Google Analytics account
Step 2: Go to Behavior > Site Content > All Pages
Step 3: The segment should be set to only Organic traffic
Step 4: Now, set the range of the date for that period since which the update of the algorithm has made an effect to the traffic
Suppose you have seasonal business, then set the range of the date for comparing the traffic driven year after year. Let’s say, you are not having the seasonal business then you have to compare the data to the last week.
Currently, the focus is not on the pageviews or the sessions and the segment has been set to the organic traffic, we want to focus simply on the entrances. The total count of the visitors coming to the site to a specific set of pages or a single page is called the entrances.
The pageviews or the sessions are not being used by us over here as the user can arrive on the homepage from the organic search. That person might now visit the different pages and make an increase in the organic sessions though Google was not used for that landing.
For seeing the top performers, sort the table in the order from the highest to lowest by the organic entrances. For your site, you can have as many rows you want but look majorly for the biggest gains or drops as the sites get the major traffic from 50 pages that are at the top. Now, see the page for which you need to closely examine the results and then copy the address of the URL.
Now, if there is some major increase or decrease in the traffic driven to your site and you want to check it how it took place then you can check it by going to the main panel and opening the website or searching in the bar provided. Now, Organic Research has to be selected and then select Positions. Now, you move to bottom and set the filters and hit the apply button.
This will provide you the keywords in the index of SEMrush for which your web page is ranking so high. Now, you export this pretty list of keywords in Excel for seeing some rankings before or after the update. After you completely export your list of keywords to Excel, you will see that the column named “last updated” has been converted and changed to the timestamp.
It needs to be fixed. For fixing it, select the next cell to timestamp and enter the below formula:
=(((M2/60)/60)/24)+DATE(1970,1,1).
The M2 over here is referencing to the cell which is timestamped. If the columns are deleted, then make sure that the reference is updated. Now, right-click the cells that are highlighted, then Format Cells has to be selected, now move to Number tab and choose the Date from the sidebar that is on left side. Now you have to select the type of the date. Press the OK button and you will have the regular dates now.
You have to add a column named “Last Checked”. Now select the first row, click the Data button and now set the Filter. Now, deselect the dates after opening the filter called “Last Checked” because the update has the impact on your site.
Now you are having a list keywords in SEMrush’s index that your site was ranking before update of Google impacted your performance. Now, paste the keywords into the new tab after copying them. Now, delete the columns except position, keyword, and search volume and the tab should be named PRE ALGO.
You will be using these keywords later on for entering into a tracking tool for getting the fresh rankings so that the comparison for the drops or the increases of your site performance after the latest algorithmic update has impacted your website can be made.
Now, you need to reopen filter and make it reverse so you can only look at the rankings which SEMrush has gathered after Google made its update. These new keywords should be copied and pasted in a new tab. Now, delete all the columns except the position, keyword, search volume, previous position and the tab should be named POST-ALGO.
Now as we have both the current position, that was checked after update and also the previous position, that was checked before the update, we can now set a formula in the Excel sheet such as =(previous position)-(position) and hit the enter button.
This will help us to see the rank change after Google released its latest algorithmic update for every keyword. Because SEMrush is not timestamping the previous position, we are not knowing that the comparison we are doing is with the rank change from after or before the algorithm. So when the impact on the traffic has been noticed, it is wise to do the analysis immediately. It is highly recommended that you do it as soon as possible.
Now, we are having keywords that either decreased or increased the traffic to the page but still, some data is missing. The PRE ALGO tab has to be opened and the keywords has to be uploaded to some tracking tool. You can use any tool but SEMrush is fast so you can prefer it.
Once you are having the keyword data, you can export it to the spreadsheet again and then a fresh tab has to be used for copying and name should be given NEW RANKS. Now, the PRE ALGO tab has to be opened and the “position” column has to be changed to “ the previous position”.
Now, the new and fresh ranking data has to be brought over from tab named NEW RANKS using the function called Vlookup. Now the keywords are with you from SEMrush’s dataset, you can have the idea where you have moved up or where you have moved down and accordingly you can manage the keywords in the future.
Thus, this is how you can get the keywords on track after Google has released its latest algorithmic update.
