How To Get a #Yay! in Google Webmaster Tools

As noted yesterday, Google Webmaster Tools has started reporting on URLs that get large changes in search engine traffic with the following item in the Messages section:

I dubbed it the GWT Cheerleader because it seemed so darn peppy.

The message tells you that the traffic to the URL has either increased or decreased significantly and sends you to the Search Queries Top Pages report to see what’s going on.

So far I have seen 3 of these messages – 1 positive and 2 crappy. Some readers have inquired what it takes to get one of these messages so I thought I would provide the Search Queries data for the URLs in question.

Note: The average position data may not be indicative of the change as this is the average position for the top performing query or something like that. So the change in average position may not indicate the change in the # of keywords that the URL ranks for, which often can be the reason why impressions go up or down.

Big Change + 🙂
URL 1: 48% increase in impressions, 50% increase in clicks, 0.2% increase in CTR and 5.0 avg position increase (from 14.8 to 9.8) – so basically making it to page one.

Big Change – 🙁
URL2: 21% decrease in impressions, 2% decrease in CTR, 0.9 avg position decrease (from 3.5 to 4.4)

URL3: 30% decrease in impressions, 20% decrease in clicks, 5% increase in CTR, 0.2 avg position increase (from 7.1 to 6.9)