Glossary of STAT terms and metrics

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API, optional bulk TEST

For deeper custom research, some of our larger clients choose to use our separate, specialty bulk API services for full Google Ads, full XML SERPs, or raw HTML SERPs. These are billed extra by site, and are completely separate from our standard, unlimited API.

API, standard

STAT’s standard API (application program interface) gives all of our clients unlimited access to all of their keyword and site data. It is fully included in your standard billing.

Averaging methodology, impact of non-ranking keywords

By default, STAT does not include non-ranking keywords when calculating ranking averages. (See also Non-ranking keywords.) For example, the average of one keyword with a rank of 10 and one non-ranking keyword would be 10 (i.e. 10/1 equals 10). Most of the time, this gives an accurate picture of what’s going on in the SERPs.

In some cases, your keyword list may include lots of keywords that are entering or leaving the top 100–120 results. With the default setting, this volatility can produce misleading averages. For example, if you improve your rankings for a large number of keywords that previously did not rank at all, your ranking averages may actually get worse as the newly ranking keywords are suddenly included in the calculations.

For this reason, STAT gives you the option of assigning a custom value to non-ranking keywords. This value must be 120 or higher. For example, if you’re using a custom value of 120, the average of one non-ranking keyword and one keyword with a ranking of 10 would be 65 (i.e. [120 + 10]/2 equals 65). Each non-ranking keyword will also show a value of 120 in all tables and reports.

Competitive landscape

STAT’s Competitive Landscape tab shows how current and emerging competitors are performing for a given keyword set (e.g. all of the keywords in a site, or just a single data view or tag). (See also Share of voice.)

CPC (cost-per-click)

A price paid by an advertiser for each visitor click on a Google Ads placement for a particular keyword. In STAT, CPC is reported alongside other keyword metrics like search volume.

CSV (.csv file)

CSV (which stands for “comma-separated values”) is a highly inter-compatible spreadsheet format used in STAT for importing and exporting data. Note that if you’d like to import a spreadsheet containing special, accented, or non-Latin characters, we recommend saving it as a UTF-16 unicode text (.txt) file rather than a .CSV file so that these characters are rendered correctly.

Data view

A grouping of tags. One tag can belong to multiple data views, which is useful for creating, reporting, and dashboarding large keyword segments. (See also segment and tag.)

Directory

Essentially, a folder or path within a website. For example, http://www.getstat.com/blog/. If you track a directory in STAT, you’ll see rankings for every page and sub-directory within that directory only. (See also page, domain, and subdomain.)

Domain (site)

The top level address of a website. For example, http://www.google.com or http://www.getSTAT.com. If you track a domain in STAT, you’ll see rankings for every subdomain, page, and directory. (See also subdomain, directory, and page.)

Duplicate keyword

In STAT, this is defined as any search term that is already tracked for another website, within the same market/location, and for the same device. Duplicate keywords are billed at a much lower rate than unique keywords. (See also unique keyword.)

Dynamic tag

A special kind of tag based on filter criteria. Just like a smart playlist, each dynamic tag is automatically populated with all of the keywords that meet the criteria. (See also tag.)

Geo-location

This is when the searcher’s geographical location influences the results of a search query, usually because their device has location services turned on. For example, Google returns Los Angeles results when the searcher looks for [car insurance] and Google has determined that the searcher is in Los Angeles. In STAT, you can track geo-located results by setting a keyword’s location. (See also geo-modification and local SERP.)

Geo-modification

This is when the searcher manually includes geographical terms in a search query itself. For example, Google returns California results when the searcher looks for [California car insurance], regardless of where the searcher is in the world. (See also geo-location and local SERP.)

Google base rank

In STAT, Google base rank excludes all universal search results (i.e. blended results like places, news, images, video, and so on), with the exception of featured snippets which are assigned a base rank of 1 instead of no base rank. For example, if STAT reports a Google rank of eight but a Google base rank of five, this indicates that there are three universal results ahead of your site on the SERP. (See also organic search results and Google organic rank.)

Google rank (Google organic rank)

In STAT, Google rank (or Google organic rank) includes all standard and universal search results (like places, news, images, answers, video, and so on). (See also Google base rank.)

Local keyword

In STAT, these are search queries that are tracked within a specified city, state, province, ZIP code, postal code, or other location. This returns the SERPs that would be seen by a searcher who has geo-location services turned on. (See also regular keyword, location, and geo-location.)

Local SERP

The search engine results page that is served up when the searcher has location services turned on or has manually provided a location (such as a city, state, province, ZIP code, postal code, and so on). Local SERPs typically contain locally relevant organic results along with map results. (See also geo-location, geo-modification, and mobile SERP.)

Location

Any subdivision of a country or top-level market. In STAT, keywords can be tracked by state, province, city, ZIP code, postal code, and in some cases by neighbourhood or borough. (See also market, local keyword, and local SERP.)

Market (top-level market)

The combination of country plus language where your search query will be tracked. In STAT, each market is identified by a two-letter country abbreviation followed by a two-letter language abbreviation, both based on ISO standards. (See also location.)

Mobile SERP

The search engine results page that is served up to mobile devices. Mobile SERPs are usually geo-located as well, since mobile devices usually have location services turned on. STAT emulates iOS devices when tracking mobile SERPs. (See also local SERP and geo-location.)

Non-ranking keywords

Keywords that do not rank within the top 100–120 search results. (The exact lower limit depends on the number of universal results that are blended into the SERP.) By default, STAT displays a blank for the ranking of these keywords and does not include them when calculating ranking averages. Alternatively, you can set a custom value for all non-ranking keywords in a given site. (See also Averaging methodology.)

Organic search results

Search listings that appear strictly because of their relevance to the search query. By definition, this excludes all paid placements but includes several kinds of universal search results. (See also Google rank and Google base rank.)

Page

A single webpage or file. For example, http://getstat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/STAT_Client-360i_Nov2014.pdf. If you track a page in STAT, you’ll only see results for that specific webpage or file. (See also directory, domain, and subdomain.)

Protocols (scheme name, URL prefix)

In STAT, protocol refers to either HTTP:// (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) or HTTPS:// (HTTP Secure). In STAT, these are ignored and will not affect your results.

Ranking distribution

The number of keywords that fall within a given range, such as top 10, 11–20, and 51–119.  This is a handy metric for understanding at a glance where your keywords are showing up in the SERP.

Ranking keywords

Keywords that rank within the top 100–120 search results. (The exact lower limit depends on the number of universal results that are blended into the SERP.) 

NOTE: Only ranking keywords are used when calculating averages in STAT. You can customize which positions are considered to be ranking/non-ranking, which may help you avoid misleading averages if you have a lot of keywords entering and leaving the top 100–120 search results. (See also Non-ranking keywords.)

Regular keyword

In STAT, these are search queries that are tracked within a top-level market, identified only by country and language. This returns the SERPs that would be seen by a searcher who is not using geo-location services. (See also market, local keyword, and geo-location.)

Search volume

The total number of Google searches for a keyword. In STAT, the keywords table shows the average search volume per month over the previous 12 months, rounded by Google. In addition, the Overview subtab includes a bar graph with actual values for each month, also rounded by Google. STAT collects Google global and regional (AKA national) search volume data for all tracked keywords.

Search volume for new keywords is added into STAT within one to three days, and search volume for existing keywords is refreshed every four to five weeks.

NOTE: Google rounds search volume values as follows: values under 1,000 are rounded to the nearest 10, values between 1,000 and 100,000 are rounded to the nearest 100, values between 100,000 and 1,000,000 are rounded to the nearest 1,000, values above 1,000,000 are rounded to the nearest 10,000.

Segment (keyword segment)

A thematic grouping of keywords. In STAT, segments are the same thing as tags. They can be based on simple, static criteria (e.g. product category) or on dynamic criteria that change over time. (See also tag, dynamic tag, and data view.)

SERP (search engine results page)

The full listing of website pages that results from a search engine query. STAT reports top-100 results.

SERP features

Specialized search listings—like maps, answers, images, news, shopping, and videos—that are blended in with standard search results on the SERP. (See also organic search results, Google rank, Google base rank.)

Share of voice

In STAT, share of voice is a weighted metric that shows what percentage of organic traffic a site is “owning” within a given keyword set.

In simplified terms, each ranking is scored using a customizable rank-scoring model or click-through-rate model, and then weighted by that keyword’s search volume. All of these weighted scores for a site are added up for every keyword in the set, and then expressed as a percentage of the total available search volume.

For example, let’s look at a keyword set of two for “examplesite.com.” For [keyword one] — which has a search volume of 100 — examplesite.com has a number one ranking. For [keyword two] — search volume of 10,000 — the site ranks number five. If we assume that a ranking of one will earn 20% of click-throughs from the SERP, and that a ranking of five will earn 5% of click-throughs, then examplesite.com should earn 520 clicks from these two keywords. In other words, the site’s share of voice for this keyword set will be 5.15% (520/10,100 equals 0.515).

(See also Competitive landscape.)

Subdomain

Essentially, a child site within a main site address. For example, http://news.google.com or http://helpstat.majortom.dev. If you track a subdomain in STAT, you’ll see rankings for every page and directory within that subdomain only. (See also domain, directory, and page.)

Syncing (site syncing)

In STAT, you can duplicate a site and then make the newly created site (“child site”) continue to mirror all keyword changes made to the original site (“parent site”). Site syncing makes it easy to track multiple domains for the same keyword set.

Tag

The smallest custom segment in STAT. Tags can be based on simple, static criteria (e.g. product category) or on dynamic criteria that change over time. Each keyword can have multiple tags. (See also segment, dynamic tag, and data view.)

Top competitors

The top 10 competitor sites that show up most often in the rankings for your keyword set. Every seven days, STAT algorithmically determines the top 10 competitors based on all of the keywords you are tracking. You can see the top competitors for any subset of keywords: by tag, by data view, or for the whole site.

Tracked keyword

Any search query for which you are actively collecting SERP data. You are billed for all actively tracked keywords. (See also untracked keyword.)

Unique keyword

In STAT, this is defined as any search query that is distinct from any other search query, based on four factors:

  • the search term itself (e.g. [best cars] vs. [best trucks])
  • the market (US-English vs. Canada-French)
  • the device type (desktop vs. smartphone)
  • the location (New York vs. Chicago)

Unique keywords are billed at the full standard rate. (See also duplicate keyword.)

Untracked keyword

Any search query that you currently have paused or suspended.  When you turn off tracking for a keyword, new SERP data collection is suspended but all of the historical data remains available. You won’t be billed for that keyword for as long as it remains off. (See also tracked keyword.)