Dumb SEO Questions

(Entry was posted by Slawomir Zdunek on this post in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 09/25/2013).

Do you find Google Webmaster Tools data less valuable than the data in Google Analytics?

Hello number ONE community. My dumb question is:
Google Webmaster Tools provide the data for search queries. Do you find this data less valuable than the data in Google Analytics? Do you think Google shot themselves in the foot by limiting the data for queries in Google Analytics? Thanks a lot for any comments.
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YOUR ANSWERS

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

  • Emmanuel Flossie: Not really, why have another section that does the same?
  • Brent Wildman: It's not a question of which one is better. Both tools provide helpful and insightful data that when used together provide invaluable insights. Webmaster's real strengths come out when used in conjunction with Analytics.
  • S?awomir Zdunek: +Brent Wildman ;Very well said. That's exactly how I use them. Lots of people panic about losing the data for queries in GA and they forget that the keywords for queries can be found in GWT.
  • Micah Fisher-Kirshner: Given it'll be no longer available in GA, I'd say something > nothing. People do panic rightly, because now you have to determine:
    1) How am I going to store the keyword information for YoY analyses?
    2) How am I going to properly compare or determine traffic impacts on a detailed level when the numbers in GWT are rounded up/down?
    3) How am I going to properly dive deep on keyword data when I can only cut it in a few ways?
    4) How can I do a long-tail keyword strategy when I'm only limited to 2,000 or so keywords a day?
  • S?awomir Zdunek: +Micah Fisher-Kirshner ;These are excellent points you have brought up. I think something will be done about this situation in the future. I can't believe that Google can't work out any good solution and can we blame PRISM affair for it or is it something else? Google seem to be very strict about privacy policy and I can understand that they don't disclose the information about IP addresses of the users but the information about the queries can't be matched with the specific users so I don't see any point in hiding it. It seems very weird to me.
  • Micah Fisher-Kirshner: +Sławomir Zdunek: This isn't about privacy from Google's perspective, otherwise Paid Search would be hidden. Not only that, but to make it work only for Organic Search, Google had to implement some broken ways to code it to their preference.

    To me it's more that Google is monopolistic and Bing doesn't know how to capitalize on this issue to woo SEOs to support Bing's search. You can blame the whole NSA thing in allowing Google to ramp up hiding organic keywords though. :)

View original question in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 09/25/2013).