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    4. Is Search Visibility actually weighted by search volume at all? Everyone seems to think so, but that seems completely wrong?

    Is Search Visibility actually weighted by search volume at all? Everyone seems to think so, but that seems completely wrong?

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    • JoelSharp
      JoelSharp last edited by

      As I've been exploring Moz more, I've been looking into search visibility and what it actually represents. While searching for answers on Moz, I've seen several posts that all seem to think the search volume for keywords matters at all for the search visibility metric, and I'm wondering why anyone thinks that, when everything from Moz seems to indicate otherwise.

      https://moz.com/help/guides/moz-pro-overview/rankings/search-visibility describes the calculation as taking the CTR for each keyword, based on rank, summing those, and dividing by the number of keywords. This describes a simple, and completely unweighted by search volume, average.

      This means that if you are tracking 10 keywords, and rank #1 on 5 that have a search volume of 0-10, and are unranked on 5 that have a search volume of 70,801-118,000, that would generate exactly the same search visibility score as if you rank #1 on the 5 high volume, and are unranked on the 5 low volume.

      The above all makes search visibility look like a much less valuable metric than if it were appropriately weighted by volume, as well as potentially very misleading, since the % relates solely to the number of keywords in your analyzed segment, rather than to the % of search volume that you're obtaining (unless a) all of your keywords are the same rank, or b) all of your keywords have the same volume).

      Am I missing something, or is everyone just giving Moz way too much credit when it comes to the value of the search visibility metric?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • Igor.Go
        Igor.Go last edited by

        Visibility is one of those metrics where the method of calculation varies from tool to tool. So maybe people are talking about a visibility score other than the one you linked to.
        Some tools show visibility score as a whole number, then search volume matters. TBH, from the article you've linked to it seems more like a CTR metric, not Visibility, but that's my biased opinion as I'm used to whole numbers.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • EGOL
          EGOL last edited by

          If the question is about the "visibility" of a page for a specific keyword then visibility does not need to be weighted by volume.  But, if you are asking about the visibility of a page or a website for a basket of keywords, expressed as a single number, then keyword query volume becomes important.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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