Google Search Console has been updated with a new type of filter that lets site owners isolate traffic and impressions generated by the News tab.
We've heard Webmasters ask for it, so today we're launching 📢 a new search type filter: News! 📰 Now you can analyze traffic coming from the News tab on Google Search. Learn more about filtering data on Performance reports https://t.co/mbO1wUafuO pic.twitter.com/Fq2m7OWwjX
— Google Webmasters (@googlewmc) July 21, 2020
Like other search type filters in Search Console, this one will be accessible from the Performance Report which contains all of site’s Google traffic data.
Data within the performance report can be filtered by various dimensions.
One of those dimensions is ‘Search Type’, which refers to the different tabs that appear underneath the search bar.
Search Console does not support all search types, though Google is gradually adding more as time goes on.
With the addition of News, the following search types are now supported in the performance report:
- Web: Results that appear in the All tab. Image and video results shown in the All tab in search results are also counted for type Web.
- Image: Results that appear in the Image search results tab.
- Video: Results that appear in the Videos search results tab.
- News: Results that show in the News search results tab.
Google says the ability to filter traffic data from the News tab is a feature that has been frequently requested by webmasters.
Until now there has not been a way for Search Console users to isolate, analyze, and compare traffic originating from the news tab.
Now it’s possible to look at this data on its own, or compare it with another individual set of data.
It’s important to note that grouping data by multiple search types is not supported.
So you can’t, for example, combine data for Web + News results.
Google says the reason for this is because the results page layout is very different for each search type.
A result in position 30 in image search results might still be on the first page, while a position 30 in web results would be on the third page.
Because of the difference in search results page layouts, data for each search type is stored separately.
A URL may appear in both web and news results, but the click, impression, and position data for the URL are recorded separately for web searches and news searches.
Related: 5 Hidden Gems in Google Search Console
More About the Search Console Performance Report
In addition to the number of clicks received, the Search Console performance report also shows:
- How often the site comes up in search results (impressions).
- Percentage of impressions that lead to clicks (click-through rate).
- Average position in search results.
- Any special features associated with the site’s search results (such as rich results).
All of this data can then be broken down even further with different filters.
To add a filter click on the +NEW label next to the existing type and date filters on the page.
Then you can choose from the following types of filters:
- Queries
- Pages
- Countries
- Devices
- Search Type
- Search Appearance
- Dates
When filtering data by date, only complete days of information are included.
If you choose “last 7 days,” for example, only the most recent seven complete days of data are covered.
If there is half a day of data for today, the seven day span is yesterday plus the six earlier days.
Source: Google Search Console Help
