[Build Backlinks Online] New: The MozCast Feature Graph - Tracking Google's Landscape

Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'New: The MozCast Feature Graph -
Tracking Google's Landscape'

Posted by Dr-Pete
Over the last year-and-a-half of tracking Google's daily "weather", it's become
painfully clear to me that there's much more to future-proofing your SEO than
just the core algorithm. From Knowledge Graph to In-depth articles, Google is
launching new features faster than ever, and pages with nothing but ten blue
links will soon be a memory.


So, we started working on a way to track how features change over time, and
today I'm happy to announce the launch of the MozCast Feature Graph. It looks a
little something like this:



Three tools in one

The Feature Graph is really three tools in one. The top graph shows a 30-day
history of four major groups of features: Ads, Local, Knowledge Graph, and
Verticals. The legend is color-coded to the bars at the bottom, which show the
current density of each feature and the day-over-day change for that feature.
So, for example, "Adwords (Top)" in the graph above shows that 77.9% of the
queries tracked by MozCast displayed ads at the top the last time we checked
them.


The third tool is my favorite, and the one that probably delayed this project
the most. I've attempted to put some of the power of the raw data into your
hands, and we've created a mini laboratory to find and preview SERPs.

The SERP mini-lab

Let's say you're looking for a SERP that has a Knowledge Graph entry, image
results, and shopping results. Just check on the boxes next to those three
features. As you add each feature, you'll see the "Matched Queries" box populate
with a list of search terms:




Click on any of those queries, and you'll be taken to the corresponding Google
search (parameterized to match the original capture as closely as possible). For
example, if I click on "vespa", I get the following:




You can see the paid product placements and Knowledge Graph on the right, as
well as the image results after the third organic listing. Note that these links
are to live SERPs on Google.com â in some cases, the page may be slightly
different from the one we visited the night before. This is especially true of
AdWords placements, which can vary considerably from visit to visit.


When you select a feature or set of features, you don't just get sample
queries - the 30-day graph at the top changes to match your search:




The lines on the graph now show the trends for each of the individual features
you've selected. You can mouse over any point for the exact percentage on that
day.

Bonus feature: new ads

There's one feature that works a bit differently than the rest. We've started
tracking the prevalence of Google's new AdWords format, which is in large-scale
testing but not fully live yet. The "New Ad Format" feature tracks the
percentage of ads using the new format across the queries that displayed ads
(not the entire query set). Please note that the new ad format is only rolled
out for some users, so the search/preview function won't work properly (you may
see the old ads). I've added this feature simply to track the roll-out over
time.




Some technical notes

The Feature Graph is powered by the MozCast 10K, a set of 10,000 queries
across 20 industry categories. Half of the MozCast 10K is delocalized and half
is locally targeted (1,000 keywords each to 5 major cities). Local SEO features
are measured only from the local data (5,000 total queries). All results are
depersonalized.

A few thank-yous

I'd like to thank the inbound engineering team (Casey, Devin, and Shelly) for
their help making this a reality, and our design leads, Daan and Derric, for
hashing out a few ideas with me. Special thanks to Devin, who had the thankless
job of translating my old-school PHP into something Moz-friendly that won't
break 50 times/day.

Have fun with it

The Google SERP Feature Graph is live as of last night. This data has powered
quit a few insights and blog posts over the past few months, and I'm excited to
release it to the public. My hope is that people will use the tool to surface
new SERP combinations and make their own discoveries. Let me know what you find.


Editor note: We had non-launch related outage of Mozcast around 12:30am PST,
12/10/13, if you had errors then. Service has been completely restored at 1:20am
PST, and the new features are working. Enjoy.
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