Google’s Data Rich Dashboard has always provided tantalizing glimpses of how your business listing is performing at Google. Details enough to get a sense that it is either working or not but not enough to really plan an effective marketing campaign. The biggest complaint has been the lack of detail about searches in the “other” category with the lack of the actual search phrase being used being a close second.
Now though it appears that there is additional reason to complain; it can’t count days! Here are several screen shots:
Selecting last 30 days link show only 25 days in the chart:
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Selecting last 30 days link show only 24 days in the chart:
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Selecting the last 7 days link shows only 5 days in the chart:
This sort of math, while a likely artifact of the low frequency of data updates to the local data, does not instill confidence in the ability of Google to provide reliable or timely information. If they plan on updating the data less than every day then the reporting out function & interface should reflect that fact rather than provide such odd results.
[...] Google LBC: Data Rich Dashboard Fails at Math (amongst other things), Mike Blumenthal [...]
Pingback by SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 15, 2009 — December 15, 2009 @ 5:54 pm
Does Joell know about this?:)
Humor protects from rants.
Comment by Vedran (12 comments) — December 15, 2009 @ 11:50 pm
*Joel
Comment by Vedran (12 comments) — December 15, 2009 @ 11:51 pm
We’re a Google Favorite Place …
The buzz about Google sending out Favorite Places packets with window decals to 100,000 of the “most…
Trackback by Avante Gardens - florals unique, Anaheim, CA - Orange County Florist Since 1984 — December 16, 2009 @ 1:01 am
I own a small marketing company outside of Chicago and listed my business in the LBC about 1 1/2 years ago. I followed my hits every couple of weeks and was disapointed that I only got a few looks per month. One month I think I got 9 looks (all time high). Anyway, guess what came in the mail yesterday? Google sent me a fav. places packet. They went on to explain that my listing had over 600 hits last month, I almost fell over. What a crock. My opinion is that Google is mailing these paks out to promote their new ad words campaign….if your organic listing is getting “600″ views per month just imagine what a PPC program will get you….$$$’s down the drain.
Comment by Rich (5 comments) — December 16, 2009 @ 1:36 pm
I think that Rich above has no idea what he is doing. If your only getting a couple of hits a month its probably because your not marketing very well. There a misconception that if you just put up a website, hundreds of people will just find it randomly. Rich try getting your business name out there by submiting articles to blogs, social marketing, and building backlinks.
Comment by sam truman (1 comments) — January 15, 2010 @ 6:20 am
Mike:
Recently I’ve seen incredible inconsistency and losses of data on dashboard statistics. In general its very weak. I’m seeing recent losses of data. Wish I had taken screen shots of the differences.
I’ve one Google record with tremendous maps visibility. Its been receiving a huge percentage of maps visits relative to other businesses. Today, the dashboard shows both zero impressions and actions for recent days with plenty of activity. I confirmed the activity through analytics and could also test it against PPC impressions for keywords.
I’ve noticed this continuously over time, but today this crazy change in dashboard data really sticks out.
Wondering if others are seeing the same phenomena?
Comment by earlpearl (784 comments) — July 13, 2010 @ 11:37 am