Organic Search Volume – GWT Allows for SEO Cheat

A lot of excitement these last 2 days as Google Webmaster Tools got supercharged with the long wished-for Organic Search impression numbers.

Google Webmaster Tools - Organic Search Impressions/volume and CTR

What it means is that you can gain insights on:

• The clickthrough rate difference for different organic search rankings on the keyword you are targeting. This may be very different for each keyword types: brand, generic, product-specific as well as different product types.
  

  CTR distribution by organic search rankings

• Analyse why your #1 ranked listing does not get the CTR that you are hoping for (i.e., unattractive Meta description and Title?)
• Search volume spikes around certain events and/or marketing (TV ads, print ads, campaigns, etc)
• Confidently analyse the real search volume for different keywords (if you are ranked within the top 10) and concentrate your SEO on the best-searched keywords.

However, further use of the tools revealed the following weaknesses (but since the tool is provided for free, I could not complain):

• Data only available back to 15 March (a month ago). Further backdating could not be done. Is it because the data recording on Google only started on that date, or is it because GWT only retains data for the last 30 days?
• No CTR graph available.
• No data-by-day export is available. I was hoping that I could export the search volume and clicks on a by-day basis and plot my CTR graph manually, but unfortunately this could not be done.
• Data is aggregated across any Google search. It does not separate searches on Google.com, local Google (e.g., Google.co.nz) and local search (e.g., Google.co.nz NZ-sites-only). As a result, you would most-likely get a variety of rankings for each keyword. However, the CTR is marked independently for each rankings as well as an average value provided. But it would be nice if you are able to just focus your investigation on certain Google domain.

OK, it’s not a cheat. But for now, it feels almost like it :)