Let’s get right into it – use the sidebar on the right to jump to a particular update.

Search Intent Updates

Discover the search query purpose behind your monitored terms and pages and make it easier to create valuable content which is highly relevant for your target audience. With the latest Search Intent detection algorithm update, we’ve narrowed down the list to 4 categories: Navigational, Informational, Commercial, and Transactional.

This update brings the URL Intent column to the Visibility-Landing pages report, the Search Intent column in the Ranking-Keywords and Comparison-Websites views (including intent changes since the previous month), as well as the option to save the selected intents as dynamic filters which allows you to focus your efforts based on the searchers’ purpose and its changes over time.

Dynamic Keyword Groups in Market Share View

The dynamic groups are being updated each time there are changes to the metrics based on which they are created. Therefore, the market share data will reflect the current configuration of each of your dynamically updated groups.

This comes in handy especially to:
– monitor the market share of a subset of terms organized by relevant criteria
– discover new market opportunities or threats

Looker Studio Improvements

Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) integration has been upgraded with two new metrics: Local Search Volume and Global Search Volume, while a new split option by Branded and Non-branded keywords has been added.

Easier Keyword Management

The multiple keyword groups selection functionality has been extended to the Settings-Project settings-Keywords menu so you can manage your keywords more efficiently.

CTR Free Tool Upgrade

The clickthrough rate values in the SERP Features view of our free CTR tool can now be filtered by the newly added Direct Answer result type and by search intent. The list of search intent categories has also been updated (Navigational, Informational, Commercial and Transactional) and is now available for the US market (desktop and mobile queries).

And that’s pretty much it for December!

Want to be up-to-date with all the new features and improvements that we add? Make sure to follow our changelog.

And of course, please reach out if you have any feedback on this. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

So let’s get right into it – use the sidebar on the right to jump to a particular update.

Ranking Stats Quicker Shared via Permalinks

You can now generate permalinks directly from the UI reports, using the newly added Share button. This quick action will generate a share link with the current report’s preferences.

Year-over-Year Change Search Volume Column

The Search Volume column got upgraded with the YoY change metric. This Volume percent change is calculated by comparing the searches from the latest month with the ones of the corresponding month of the previous year.

Upgraded Ranking Notification Emails

Project summary and the Initial update overview notification emails have just got a more comprehensive and easier to skim look.

You can customize the notification emails frequency from the Settings-General Settings menu (‘Email updates’ section).

Email Notifications Frequency

The ranking notifications preferences have been changed. The default frequency of sending email updates for newly gathered rankings is now set to weekly on Mondays (instead of daily, as it used to be). 

More Search Depth Options 

New search depth options are now available: 1, 2, and respectively 3 pages. 

New Match Type Search Options

The keyword/URL search options have been renamed and extended. When opening the ‘Search options’ menu (next to the ‘Search for keyword/URL’ field), you’ll notice you can now choose between Exact, Partial, and Phrase match types. 

Let’s take for instance the keyword ‘recipe’. The Exact match will return results containing only the word ‘recipe’ alone, the Phrase match will return keywords that contain this word (such as ‘meatloaf recipe’, ‘recipe of the year’), while the Partial match will return results with the word as part of the keyword searched (e.g. ‘recipes’, ‘allrecipes.com’). The default search option (when not using the ‘Search options’ menu) will continue to be ‘Partial’ match.

Improved Column Selector

New options are now available in the column selector. You’ll no longer have to deselect each column at a time for each section, by using the newly added option called Only. Once you’re ready with your selection, hit the new Apply button to see your preferred metrics in the table view. 

Keyword Groups Management

Multiple Keyword Groups Selection
Multiple keyword groups can be selected simultaneously in the Ranking-Keywords view using the newly added checkboxes in front of them. KPI aggregates will be automatically calculated based on your keyword groups selection.

Remove Keywords from Groups
Removing a keyword from a group just got easier! All you need to do is navigate to Settings-Project settings-Keywords, choose a keyword group, check the keywords you’d like to remove from that group, select Manage, and then the Remove from [group-name] group option. This comes in handy when you have keywords assigned to multiple groups and decide to remove some of them from a certain keyword group.

And that’s pretty much it for November!

Want to be up-to-date with all the new features and improvements that we add? Make sure to follow our changelog.

And of course, please reach out if you have any feedback on this. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

So let’s get right into it – use the sidebar on the right to jump to a particular update.

Keyword Difficulty Tool Updates

The Keyword Difficulty tool has just been enhanced with some new options:

– For all newly added projects, you will automatically get Difficulty data available with the first ranking update. 

– You can now schedule when the Difficulty scores are to be delivered, by choosing between the Weekly and Monthly frequency options.

– You’ll now be able to start ranking and difficulty updates at once by checking the ‘Also run a keyword difficulty update’ option for the on-demand ranking updates.

Keyword Difficulty Column

The keyword difficulty score is now available in the Ranking-Keywords and Comparison-Websites views. The newly added column shows an overall score of each selected keyword based on all three metrics: Domain, URL, and Content. 

You can now focus your SEO efforts on the most accessible keywords to optimize for, by filtering the results based on the keyword difficulty metric.

UI/UX Improvements

Two new data visualization options are available in the table sections:

– Toggle charts (which helps you focus on what’s important by showing/hiding chart sparklines in tables, where available).

– Reset table (which allows you to start your analysis fresh by resetting the table section to its default preferences with no filters applied, default sorting, and columns in table).

Daily SERP Features Tool Update

The free SERP Features tool has also been updated recently, offering the option to switch to Daily updates (besides the existing Weekly ones). This helps you detect changes in SERP anatomy more rapidly (like the recent massive drop in PAA results) and act upon this information.

And that’s pretty much it for October!

Want to be up-to-date with all the new features and improvements that we add? Make sure to follow our changelog.

And of course, please reach out if you have any feedback on this. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

So let’s get right into it – use the sidebar on the right to jump to a particular update.

Google Analytics 4 Integration

As you might already know, starting from July 1, 2023, Google Universal Analytics will be discontinued and replaced with Google Analytics 4. So, we thought to do our homework in time and make GA4 integration available in Advanced Web Ranking already.

Although GA4 is still in beta version, metrics such as Visits (split by channel source – Direct, Organic, Social, etc.), Revenue, Page Views, Bounce Rate, Conversion Rate, or Goal conversion have just been made available in AWR.

Permalink Enhancements

Permalinks were turned into an enhanced reporting system, making it easier to share ranking data with your clients, colleagues, you name it. The nice thing about it is that you now have the option to give read-only access to the data you’re sharing, so let’s have a more detailed look at what’s new to the share link functionality. 

Viewer Interaction Options
You can now choose how your clients or other users interact with permalinks, between ‘View Only’ mode (where users can only change the dates in the report they are given access to) and ‘Interactive’ mode (where those accessing the permalink can change inputs, table preferences, export data, etc.).

Email Notifications
The permalinks can now be used as a friendly reporting system. The ‘Notify by email’ option will generate a performance summary email, reminding the recipient that a new update is available.

User Interface / User Experience Upgrades
You’ll also notice some UI/UX improvements right away, starting with the new modal packed with options and finishing with the entire adding/edit permalink flow.

UI/UX Improvements

A series of UI/UX enhancements were made, to make your AWR experience even more pleasant:

• tooltips on hover were added for each metric, in the table header for better report comprehension.
• KPI dismissal options were added to all reports where KPIs / charts are available so you can focus on what’s really important to your analysis.
• the values and changes for metrics were aligned vertically, as well as the expand arrow icons for each table row and their containers, making them easier to follow.

ATF to Pixel

The ‘ATF Display’ filter in the Comparison and Visibility UI reports has been renamed to ‘Pixel Position’ and it now offers more precise options. 

Besides the existing predefined filters (Above the fold, Below the fold & Out of display), you can now set a pixels threshold where to look for keyword opportunities, using the newly added ‘From’ and ‘To’ fields. 

This comes in handy when looking, for example, for keywords that rank just above the fold, but in the upper side of the ‘Below the fold’ area, and improving their rankings by just a bit translates into an important amount of new traffic.

And that’s pretty much it for September!

Want to be up-to-date with all the new features and improvements that we add? Make sure to follow our changelog.

And of course, please reach out if you have any feedback on this. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

In addition to a bunch of quality of life improvements, we added new metrics & KPIs to streamline your SEO process further more. 

The Market Share view also got upgraded, so let’s get right into it – use the sidebar on the right to jump to a particular update.

Keyword Difficulty Improvements

– A friendlier filtering option has been added, allowing you to focus your SEO efforts on the next set of keywords based on their difficulty: Easy, Pretty Easy, Doable, Tough One, Painful and Impossible.

– In the ‘Keywords’ view you can now see the CPC values for each of your keywords as a table column. In addition to this, two new KPIs are available in this view: ‘Click Share’ (which shows you the estimated percentage of clicks that your website may receive from organic search, based on its Top 20 keyword positions and displayed as a trend across the last 7 project updates completed) and ‘Keywords Distribution’ (which presents the number of keywords corresponding to each level of difficulty in the Easy-Impossible newly added scale).

– The ‘SERP Difficulty’ view was renamed ‘SERP Overview’ and upgraded with the Backlinks table column (displaying the total number of external links each URL has) and an extensive KPIs widget. This new widget will show you the ‘Cost per Click’, ‘Search Intent’, and ‘Estimated Visits’ metrics, as well as the SERP features ‘Click Share’ curve for each of your selected keywords.

Market Share Upgrade

The Market Share view has just been enhanced with a new option to enjoy a more granular view of the data at URL level. You’ll now see a number next to each domain representing the total count of URLs. When expanding the domains, you’ll get details about each URL such as Market Share, Keywords, and Total Search volume.

And that’s pretty much it for August!

Want to be up-to-date with all the new features and improvements that we add? Make sure to follow our changelog.

And of course, please reach out if you have any feedback on this. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

So let’s get right into it – use the sidebar on the right to jump to a particular update.

Permalink Improvements

New options have been added to permalinks*

• multiple permalinks per project: you can now generate unlimited permalinks for each of your projects, each one of them customized based on your preferences.
• multiple projects in one permalink: a very popular request, the ability to report your SEO progress across multiple projects can now be performed by including multiple projects in a single permalink.

*these updates are available starting with our Pro monthly plans and all our yearly subscriptions

More details on how the share link functionality works can be found in our online documentation here.

Market Share Upgrade

The total search volume formula from the Market Share view has been improved, with the values under the ‘Total searches’ column computing data for all your competitors in ‘Top 20’ (as opposed to the competitors added to your project, as up until recently).

Organic Results Filter Available for Printable Reports

You can use the newly added ‘Organic’ option from the ‘SERP Features’ filter for the table widgets of the following report types: Keywords Ranking, My Sites Ranking, and Websites Comparison.

And that’s pretty much it for July!

Want to be up-to-date with all the new features and improvements that we add? Make sure to follow our changelog.

And of course, please reach out if you have any feedback on this. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

So let’s get right into it – use the sidebar on the right to jump to a particular update.

Forecasting

The newly added Forecasting module will help you to:
– predict traffic, conversions & revenue in the scenario where you’d achieve the desired rankings for your targeted keywords. This way, you’ll make an informed decision on which keywords to focus your SEO strategy, by comparing the required efforts against the potential results.
– set realistic objectives for your campaigns, ones that can actually be met since they’re backed by data.
– track the monthly progress of your objectives and compare it against the real achievements. This will allow you to immediately spot and adjust campaigns, so the SEO objectives are met.
– analyze year-over-year search trends.
– visualize inertial traffic, which refers to estimating how your clients will perform if no SEO efforts are invested. More details on how Forecasting works and how it can be used to achieve the SEO objectives set, can be found in our online documentation here.

Market Share Improvements

Here’s what this Market Share update brings new to the table:
– you’ll now be able to visualize dropped vs newly entered competitors in Top 20, by market share, when comparing 2 updates.
– the Total Searches column has been added, making it easier to spot competitors that are ranking for highly searched terms vs the ones that are ranking in top positions in SERPs.- the table got split by metrics into two different views: ‘Top Domains’ and ‘Target Keywords’.

SERP Features Filtering by Organic Results

After adding a new icon representing organic rankings in the ‘SERP Features’ column a few months ago, you can now filter by this result type. Just head over to any of the Ranking-Keywords, Ranking-My Sites, Ranking-Top Sites, Visibility-Websites, Visibility-Search Engines, or the Comparison views, apply a ‘SERP Features’ filter and select the ‘Organic’ option from the list.

Additional Video Monitoring Options

You can track your videos’ performance easier without needing to add an alias entry for each Youtube video URL. With the newly added option, all you need to do is add a single alias (‘Channel name’ or ‘Channel URL’) as follows:
– Channel name as an alias when using Google Universal search engines.
– Channel URL as an alias when tracking Youtube search engines in your AWR project.

On the other hand, the current system remains unchanged, as the video URLs are reported as they were and you can still add a specific video URL for monitoring if you wish to.

Notes Upgrade

Notes are now available in the Trends-Summary report, too, with their tooltip showing the current date and previous reference date.

PDF Reports Layout Redesign

The PDF reports’ layout has just been revamped, with the new header having the same UI color theme and displaying the logo.

Snippet API Export Column

The names of the Organic SERP Features (such as Indented Results, Reviews, Image Thumbnails, etc.) are now included in the dedicated Snippet column in the export files generated using the export ranking or the export top sites API calls.

A Free Chrome Extension

We’ve released a chrome extension that allows you to search in Google from any location in the world. It’s called AWR Search Anywhere.

New Result Types in the Free SERP Tool

The free SERP features tool got upgraded with new result types for a broader understanding of the SERPs’ anatomy. Reviews, FAQs, How-Tos, Indented URLs, and Image Thumbnails result types are now available for both desktop and mobile analysis, while on mobile there are two more listings available: AMPs and Q&As.

And that’s pretty much it for June!

Want to be up-to-date with all the new features and improvements that we add? Make sure to follow our changelog.

And of course, please reach out if you have any feedback on this. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

So let’s get right into it – use the sidebar on the right to jump to a particular update.

Thumbnail Images

The ‘Image Thumbnails‘ result type (those images that sometimes appear beside your site’s name in Google search results) is now available for tracking in Advanced Web Ranking.

You can now find out which of your keywords trigger image thumbnails results by adding this option to your report from the SERP Features filter -> Organic SERP Features group (you’ll find it alongside the other existing listings such as Reviews, FAQ, How-To, Q&A, and Indented URLs).

PDF Exports Orientation

The PDF exports are now being generated in landscape format, instead of portrait mode as they previously used to. This change brings a better display of all the metrics, charts, KPIs, etc., and is expected to improve the overall layout of the reports.

Google Data Studio Exports Upgrade

The number of keywords included in the exports generated using GDS is now higher. The new limitations are available for the ‘Keyword Ranking Evolution In Time’ report type and the export can now contain up to 250 keywords instead of a maximum of 100 keywords as it previously could.

Besides this, the option to visualize the data for the ‘not ranked’ keywords has been included in the Google Data Studio exports, as well.

And that’s pretty much it for May!

Want to be up-to-date with all the new features and improvements that we add? Make sure to follow our changelog.

And of course, please reach out if you have any feedback on this. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

So let’s get right into it – use the sidebar on the right to jump to a particular update.

‘SERP Features Spread’ KPI

A new KPI called ‘SERP Features spread’ is now available as a bar chart in the Ranking-Keywords view. This will show you the features’ types and how many times they appear when triggered by your targeted keywords, as well as for how many of them your website ranks.

Export Options and Upgraded Limitations

Upgraded Exports Limitations
The limitations for UI exports have been increased to 10k rows for CSV, and to 20k rows for XLSX files. On the other hand, the maximum number of rows included in the PDFs was increased from 100 to 250 keywords.

API Search Volume Exports
You’ll now be able to export via API new Search Volume and Trend metrics. 

Here are the Search Volume metrics: Searches (average monthly searches, country-wide), Local Searches (average monthly searches, for the search engine’s custom location defined), Global Search Volume (average monthly searches, globally, with no country filter applied).

As for the Trend metrics, two new options have been made available via API: Quarterly Search Trends (trend of searches of the last 3 months compared to the previous quarter, represented as percentage difference) and Search Trends (exact volume of searches a keyword received over the last 12 months, month-to-month amounts).

For more technical details on how to pull and use this data, make sure to check the API documentation: https://www.advancedwebranking.com/docs/developer-api-v2.html#export-search-volume-v2 

Organize Keywords by Groups under Widgets in Printable Reports
Up until now, in order to group keywords in groups under widgets in printable reports, you needed to add one table widget at a time, for each group. With this latest update, you’ll now be able to easily organize your keywords in printable reports by groups, while adding up to 10 groups per table widget.

New Google Data Studio Metric Available
The recently added Visibility Percent metric in Market Share is now available for export in Google Data Studio, too.

Google Data Studio Customization Options
New Google Data Studio customization options for Visibility data sources are now available. These additions will allow you to split the data by keyword groups, search engines & websites, as well as the ability to select a specific project.

‘Visual Stories’ Tracking

Since Google’s ‘Visual Stories’ are now prominently featured on mobile in the US, you’ll now be able to track this result type in AWR and in the free CTR tool, as well.

UI/UX Improvements

Show/Hide KPIs Option
You can now show and hide the KPIs from both the UI and the reports using the newly added toggle option.

Organic Rankings Icon
A new icon representing organic rankings is now available in the ‘SERP Features’ column, allowing you to glance for which keyword the organic ranking was achieved. In the near future, we plan on implementing the option to filter by organic URLs, so stay tuned for our next app releases!

And that’s pretty much it for April!

Want to be up-to-date with all the new features and improvements that we add? Make sure to follow our changelog.

And of course, please reach out if you have any feedback on this. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Find out below how popular this Visual Stories feature is in the Google search results and how you can track your own keywords that show up for this feature with AWR.

Here’s a quick peek at what the new Web Stories SERP feature looks like in Advanced Web Ranking:

Here you can see that the Web Stories feature appears on both keywords, but the selected website actually ranks within one of the Web Stories for the keyword “seo tool”, because it is shown in green color.

When you click on this icon, you will be presented with the Top Sites report, in which you can see all the Web Stories that appear in the SERP along with some useful information about their position and how far along they are displayed in the results:

For even more detailed information, click on the “View SERP” button at the top, which will show how many Web Stories were actually found in the SERP, where they are located and what they look like:

How do I find out which keywords have Visual Stories in Google search results?

To find out which of your keywords show the new Visual Stories feature, just go to Ranking -> Keywords in Advanced Web Ranking and add a SERP Features filter that includes Web Stories:

This will show you all the keywords that have Web Stories in their Google search results.

To see just the keywords that you rank for with a Web Story, select your website in the filter above.

How popular is the Visual Stories feature in Google search results?

Currently, the new Visual Stories feature appears only in mobile search results in the US. There have been some significant amounts of testing in India and Canada, so you should expect to see Web Stories appear in the Google search results in more countries in the future.

Our Google Organic CTR Study, which looks at data from Google Search Console for millions of keywords shows that this feature is currently not very popular in Google search results. Less than 1% of searches in our study show this feature:

The average CTR for the Web Stories results is also pretty low, at around 4%. This is probably because the average position in which Web Stories appear in the Google search results is around position 6, which is well below the fold for most mobile devices.

From what I’ve seen, most of the Web Stories results show up more than 2,000 pixels down the page, so there needs to be a significant amount of scrolling involved to reach them.

That does not mean that Google will not change things in the future, making this feature appear more prominently and in higher positions. We’ll monitor things for you so you can always be on top of your search results. Keep an eye on our free SEO tools for more information.

Now it’s time to hear what you think.

Were any of these findings surprising? Or maybe you have a question?

Either way, write me on Twitter and let me know your thoughts.