Google Discover performance reports improve accuracy
Google Search Console said click and impression data may appear to increase because of this update.
Google has improved its system to count clicks and impressions for the Google Search Console Discover performance report. The Discover performance report within Google Search Console helps you track how much visibility your content and articles are obtaining within Google Discover; that report was updated. This update started on November 28, 2022.
Please note that you may see an increase in your clicks and impressions within this report, but it is just a reporting change and not a change related to your actual performance in Google Discover.
What is Google Discover? Google Discover is the new name for Google Feed and shows you topics and news items around items that interest you. With Google Discover you can get information about your interests, like your favorite sports team or news site, without searching for them. This typically shows up on Google’s home page on your Google App or browser, and also can be pushed to your device via the Google mobile app.
What is the Discover report? The Discover report in Google Search Console will answer the following questions:
- How often is my site shown in users’ Discover? How large is my traffic?
- Which pieces of content perform well in Discover?
- How does my content perform differently in Discover compared to traditional search results?
What is new. Google said as of November 28, 2022, “Google has improved their system for counting Discover clicks and impressions. As a result, you might see an increase in your Discover data that more accurately reflects your site’s appearance in Discover.”
What is looks like. If you login to Google Search Console and see a Discover report (not everyone has this report), then you may see an annotation on November 28th:
Why we care. Reporting is importing in any job but more so in a marketer’s job. Note that these numbers may change in an ever volatile Google Discover landscape. Some days Discover sends you almost no traffic, and some days, it may send you more traffic than you can even imagine. So it might be hard to spot these changes or increases in clicks and impressions, but do note that the change was indeed made according to Google.
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In 2019, Barry was awarded the Outstanding Community Services Award from Search Engine Land, in 2018 he was awarded the US Search Awards the "US Search Personality Of The Year," you can learn more over here and in 2023 he was listed as a top 50 most influential PPCer by Marketing O'Clock.
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