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Hi Dave, We have similar issues with the new searching for keywords by root domain functionality in keyword explorer. We are based in Australia and need rankings for google.com.au, which is what we have set up within our campaign ranking reports. The explorer tool rankings are way off and not accurate for our site's actual rankings. Also, many of the top, high volume keywords that we are tracking and for which we rank on first page for are not even appearing when I do an explorer search using our root domain. Is the root domain functionality within keyword explorer providing results based on google.com rather than google.com.au? Does this mean that if we are outside the US that we can't use the tool as it is not accurate? Cheers, Damien

I found the answer to my question on my own by reading a related blog post here on MOZ. Its very simple basically. Just add your own params to your local pack URL (Google Custom Campaigns) : https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/campaign-url-builder/, so you will be able to distinguish the local listings from the other organic SERP's on the same page. Thats it.

Definitely depends on the topic/audience, like you said. It never hurts to run some tests, and don't take anyone's personal opinion on it. I would say that black check marks are better, but I may be 100% wrong in your case. Lime green frames improve CTR in some banner ads, despite looking hideous and spammy, same for red/yellow text/background combinations and other questionable things.

Hi  Cesare Marchetti, Thanks for you question.  I think there are several things to consider here: are you the only one appearing on adwords for these keywords or are there other competitors as well.  If latter is the case you would simply be loosing potential business to your competitors as 20 - 30% of the users click on adwords (these are the ones left over after the 70% - 80% that never click on ads) for commercial terms. Different people with different intent, devices, place etc.. will click on different results so i would like to dominate the serp as much as possible so i can cater to those, and adwords would just be one of those results.  This way i think i can maximize the results and return. But these are mostly empirical assumptions to really test this objectively is almost impossible as there are many factores influencing results.  like you said seasonality, competitores, positions you have in the serp based on device, location, time etc... You could stop adverting adwords for one month for one of the keywords, compare how results were for this keyword compared the other keywords (and compare that to how they would compare in previous months), ajust for seasonality based on historic monthly results. But there can still be other factors incluencing the results. Hope this helps and give you some perspectives on the issue, althouhg i don´t think this is completely what you were looking for (and if somebody does know a way to test this i would be very interested)

Interesting I will check the details, I'm pretty sure that your solution will be useful in the future.

Hi Cesare, I made purely content changes to my page and I resubmitted it to Google. I could see the changed rank immediately - in my case from not having any results to result 50. I observed it on a weekly basis and the rank kept improving every time (without any further activity): 50, 37, 24, 18, 16, 13, 11, 6 - and I believe it's not over. Can you rely on the actual position? No! My rank grows in a pretty unique way. Normally it fluctuates and the pattern would be more like 50, 24, 37, 11, 24, 16 - basically up and down. This is what I keep experiencing with majority of our keywords. Especially nowadays, Google is not as static as in the past and you can see this fluctuation very frequently, sometimes daily. I agree, I would recommend at least 8 weeks' observation and between week 8 and 12 you might know where you are and optimise accordingly. I hope this works for you. Good luck! Katarina

Hey Cesare, Ideally, what you want is: A strong homepage that gives an overview of your company A strong page for each of your core services offerings A strong page for each of your branches. Your "Contact Us" pages can and should have unique, strong content on them with a bit of effort, and as these are your landing pages for your branches, no effort should be spared here. What can go on these pages? Please read: https://moz.com/blog/overcoming-your-fear-of-local-landing-pages and then let me know if you have any further questions.