How do you measure impacts of Google Updates Like Penguin 4?

[Thos003]

Having a conversation with a fellow SEO via twitter and we were discussing measuring algorithm updates.

In the aftermath of Google Penguin 4 how do you determine the effects it has on your site/sites and your respective verticals?

[ProjectLabs]

I would look at two things. I would look in Google Analytics at a daily graph of overall organic traffic to the site over time and add date markers for known Google updates to see if there are any changes that align with updates. I would also look in Google Webmaster Tools at the average ranking for the top 20-100 keywords before and after the date of a known Google update.

[PhilGraham-SlateInboundMarketi]

Thomas,

I look at 4 key things:

Rankings, Traffic, Visibility, & our Competition's Results.

Rankings - What keywords went up/down etc.

Traffic - Detailed traffic analysis to see changes by keyword and overall

Visibility - This is also important. For example, we had a site that was #1 in Google for it's main keyword (and still is) but now has less visibility because we actually had 5 of the 10 spots on page 1 and now we have 2 out of 10. Still #1 though, so no complaints.

Competition - In addition, I look at our competition's results and changes in the 3 criteria above as well.

How about you?

[Thos003]

I like these. Visibility is a great addition to the simple traffic and ranking.

[Thos003]

I look a the general factors of traffic and ranking first. Then I move to pages that receive new visitors.

But I also try to monitor the top 100 in the 'pest control' search at US level. Someone said this was irrelevant as it's not how users search.

I am curious as to other factors: Webmaster tools for Indexed pages? Traffic? Impressions? Clearly a link warning would be an indicator. So what other tools could indicate how much of an impact updates are having?