Is the consistency of Google search results comparable in different countries in terms of the visitor's engagement of the top 10 results? We queried Google Ad Planner for Time on Site of the top 10 organic results for long tail queries. We found that the first results of Google in each market are very different in terms of composition of sites with very different visitor's engagement metrics. This apparent lack of consistency of the first page of Google might help simulate the SEO potential of a given site in a new market, country or category.

1. Visitor's engagement of Google results by country
Google dixit:
1. Google’s Webspam team do not use Google Analytics data for rankings
2. Google's Toolbar [data] makes a big difference [for improving our products]
Question
Is the consistency of Google's search results in terms of Toolbar data the same in
each country for the same category (property)?
We queried Google for random long tail property searches and measured Avg time on
site & Page views / Total visits of each local site in 5 countries.
Found strong correlation and 2 groups of sites (n=51) dominating the 1st Google's SERP

2. Where do you want to compete and how?
Top 10 results on 1st Google SERP for property searches, n=300
Google country Proportion of sites with Diversity of different
the highest visitor sites (Shannon
engagement index)
Australia 90% -0.17
UK 80% -0.26
Germany 60% -0.38
France 52% -0.39
Italy 40% -0.29
Spain 38% -0.29
Conclusion
Assuming that [known] Google Ad Planner metrics are correlated to [unknown] Toolbar data
The approach to SEO in the property search category in each country depends
greatly on the

SEO competitive landscape (how many strong sites exist)

Google treatment of sites with weak signals ("permissiveness" to sites with poor
visitors' engagement)

3. One Google <> Many countries
Why the same Google engine ranks so different proportion of sites with
different visitor's engagement in each country?
Chances that Google's local differences in ranking sites in each country
will get more even?
(picture of Google's Matt Cutts
without permission)
Does this matter if I am only targeting one country and category?
Take-aways
1. Simulate how you will fit among the ranking sites in each country BEFORE you
launch
2. Expect different toolbar data of your site in different countries EVEN for same
language

4. Thank you
Organisers:
Chee Ho Wan from Traffic
Optimiser
Kevin Gibbons from SEOptimise
SEO Barcamp
Monday 5th March 2012
Adam Street Private Members Club
London
Ruben Martinez
@rubenmartinezs