How to Use the Information Inside Google's Ved Parameter |
| How to Use the Information Inside Google's Ved Parameter Posted: 01 Jan 2014 03:29 PM PST Posted by deedpolloffice This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc. In our own Analytics reports, (not provided) keywords now make up 82% of all organic visitors. For paid traffic (coming through AdWords) the keywords are still "provided," which is very helpful, but also very expensive. And of course there's also the Search Queries report in Webmaster Tools. This is also useful, but it's still a disappointing loss of information compared to what we used to have (even if I personally think Google was probably right to go ahead with it). The ved parameter to the rescue Three months later, Benjamin Schulz worked out that ved codes are actually encoded in Protocol Buffers (or "Protobuf"). So, as they're not actually encrypted, it's not too hard to unencode them (plus we don't have to feel too guilty about it!). Google has even released open-source compilers (in several different languages), which you can use to decode ved codes yourself. However these compilers are probably a bit over-the-top for what online marketers need (and probably a bit hard to put into practice). We've written up a guide to decoding and interpreting ved codesâ€"as well as filling in some of the unanswered questions (such as what parameter This article is an actionable guide to getting information out of these ved codes, and incorporating it into Analytics. What is a ved code anyway?I don't want to repeat too much what has already been written about in other posts, but it's a good idea to summarise what veds are, what's inside them, and how you can access them. When you click on any of the links in Google's search results, the URL (address) of the link contains a "ved" parameter. This "ved" code contains information about the link that you clicked on, and when a user comes to your website through Google's search results, the ved code is (usually) passed to you in the What's inside a ved code?A ved code contains up to five separate parameters, which each tell you something about the link that was clicked on: Link index (parameter 1)All the links on the SERP have a numerical index, which gets passed in the ved code. It only gives you a very rough idea of where the link was in the page (without knowing more about what was on the page), so it's the least useful of the five parameters inside the ved. However, it is rather useful when it's for a ved code coming from an adword, simply because there's no other information about the position. Although the link index only gives a rough idea of the position of the adword, there are two concrete things you can take from it:
Link type (parameter 2)This parameter is a number which corresponds to the type of link that was clicked on. The most common value is
See the complete list, for other (less common) values. We've actually found well over a hundred distinct values, so this is a small fraction of them! Most of them, though, are very unlikely to appear in You'll no doubt have noticed that there are lots of gaps in the values. I don't really know if this is because a lot have been retired, or if Google has left space for future link types (probably a bit of both, but more of the latter). For example, our reports show the link type Start result position (parameter 7)This parameter is the cumulative result position of the first result on the page. On page 2 it will be 10, on page 3 it will be 20, and so on. It's better to think of this as the page number of results (after subtracting 1, and multiplying by 10)â€"because it's quite a long time ago now that there were always 10 results on every page. Anyhow, you'll need to interpret it in conjunction with parameter 6. Result position (parameter 6)
The ved result position is the more reliable of the two. If, for example, the Sub-result position (parameter 5) How to decode ved codes and pull the information into AnalyticsTo import the ved into Analytics, you'll need to include some Javascript to decode it (and send it to the Analytics servers). To do this, you can modify your Analytics JavaScript "snippet" as follows: 1. Include the ved-decode and base64 librariesYou need to include these libraries in your HTML, somewhere before your Analytics snippet. The ved-decode library is needed to decode the ved and extract the information we want. Each of the two libraries is licensed under a permissive open-source licence (MIT / Apache v2.0)â€"which lets you use it in any kind of project. <!-- Include both these scripts or copy them into your main JavaScript file --> <!--[if lt IE 10]> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://veddecode.opensource.dpo.org.uk/js/base64-1.0.min.js"></script> <![endif]--> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://veddecode.opensource.dpo.org.uk/js/ved_analytics-1.0.min.js"></script> 2. Send the ved data to Analytics How you do this depends on whether you're using the old Analytics ( If you're using Analytics ( Add this JavaScript code just before the call to // The custom variable code needs to go *before* you record the pageview // (i.e. the call to _trackPageview) (function(w) { var customVars = [ { slot: 1, name: 'Google link index', v: 'linkIndex' }, { slot: 2, name: 'Google link type', v: 'linkType' }, { slot: 3, name: 'Google result position', v: 'resultPosition' }, { slot: 4, name: 'Google sub-result position', v: 'subResultPosition' }, { slot: 5, name: 'Google page', v: 'page' } ]; if (w._gaq && w.VedDecode && w.VedDecode.ved) { for (var i = 0, val; i < customVars.length; ++i) { val = w.VedDecode[customVars[i].v]; w._gaq.push([ '_setCustomVar', customVars[i].slot, customVars[i].name, val ? val + '' : '(not set)', 2 // session scope ]); } } })(window); If you're using Universal Analytics ( For Universal Analytics you need to set up custom dimensions corresponding to the five parameters:
(These are suggested names, of courseâ€"you can call them whatever you like.) Then add this JavaScript code just before the call to // The custom variable code needs to go *before* recording the pageview (function(w) { if (w.ga && w.VedDecode && w.VedDecode.ved) { // Send pageview with custom dimension data ga('set', { dimension1: getVedValue('linkIndex'), dimension2: getVedValue('linkType'), dimension3: getVedValue('resultPosition'), dimension4: getVedValue('subResultPosition'), dimension5: getVedValue('page') }); } function getVedValue(key) { var ret = w.VedDecode[key]; return ret ? ret + '' : '(not set)'; } })(window); Make sure that the index generated for each dimension in your control panel corresponds to the dimension number in the JavaScript code. For example, if the generated index for the Google link index dimension is Using the data How you then use the data is up to you. Clearly, though, it's going to be useful for optimizing different routes to your site, and looking at how different routes affect your conversion rates. Personally, I think it's very interestingâ€"for AdWords customersâ€"to see how adword position (i.e. link index) affects conversion rates. It's very frustrating only having daily averages to work with, because you can't see (in the standard reports) how much your adword position varies during the day. Please let us know what you do with the data in the comments below. But what if no referer header gets passed? This is important, because if there's no The If your site isn't secured by HTTPS If your site uses HTTP, or it uses HTTP for some pages (in particular, any landing pages), then the However, if Google passes them through a secure (HTTPS) click-tracking page, then you won't get the In conclusionâ€"if you want to be sure of getting the ved parameter for as many users as possibleâ€"use HTTPS for your site. (Of course this isn't the only reason to use HTTPS!) If the user is on a mobile deviceFor mobile devices, Google has started to use hyperlink auditingâ€"which should have been called "click tracking", and is better known as the "ping" attributeâ€"instead of redirects through a click-tracking page. Hyperlink auditing isn't as reliable as a redirect, though, which is why:
According to Google, the main motivation for using the ping attribute (only) on mobile devices, is to improve speedâ€"and I'm inclined to believe them. But it probably also helps that:
Howeverâ€"you might askâ€"if mobile devices don't go through a redirect, and my site is using HTTPS, shouldn't I get the Yes, that's right, you should get the What Google do, if they use hyperlink auditing, is to set the meta referrer element to <meta name="referrer" content="origin"> This instructs the user's browser to include the document's origin in the Before you think, "How evil!"â€"there's a good reason for this. If they didn't do this, then the search terms would also appear in the So, mobile devices are another kettle of fish, and ved code analysis won't work most of the time. But for most sites, mobile devices will still be in the minority, and things change quickly anyway. (For example, if there was a new anti-privacy law requiring hyperlink auditing to be off by default, that would certainly be the death of it.) Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read! |
It's been two years now since Google 
Back in May, 
This is very similar to the 
This parameter is like the result position (parameter 6), except it tells you the position in a list of sub-results, such as breadcrumbs, or one-page sitelinks. 
After a short while, the ved data should show up in your reports! | You are subscribed to email updates from Moz Blog To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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