Site visibility in search engines

However, what exactly is meant by the combination of site visibility? And why can not do without the indicator of search traffic of the site or the number of its displays on the search?

If we give a general definition: Site visibility in search engines is a quantitative measure of the presence of the site in the zone of visibility of the target audience.

Most existing tools calculate this indicator on the basis of a formula proposed back in 2005, and it was also laid down in the first programme for seoshniki - Site Auditor. Therefore, this definition will be called classical.

Simplified method of calculating the visibility of the site

Simplified method is based on the concept of "market share", what share of all shows on the target queries site takes on the market. And the visibility of the site here is estimated as a ratio of the share of shows in the top 10 to all shows on target queries. It is considered that if the site is in the TOP10 on any query, it will be shown (ie, the site will appear to the user, once it was).

Visibility = SUM(Frequencies of queries in TOP10) / SUM(Frequencies) * 100%

Advantages of the simplified method: easy to understand and explain to the client.

Main disadvantages:

Not all sites in the top10 will show up to the user

Anything outside of the top10 is in the invisibility zone

As a very rough estimate of visibility, this method is suitable, but a year later the creator and his team modernised the formula.

The classic method of calculating visibility

Due to the development of advertising and changes in the format of advertising blocks, part of the results in the TOP10 began to descend below the first screen, and it became difficult to guarantee the display for sites at the end of the top ten. The classic definition of site visibility uses the number of "effective impressions" instead of "impressions". We had to introduce correction factors that take into account the distribution of user attention to the positions of sites in the organic results. The logic of calculating visibility has not changed.

Visibility = (Effective impressions) / (All impressions) * 100%,

Where:

all impressions = SUM(Frequencies),

effective impressions = SUM(Query Frequency * Visibility Ratio),

and the visibility factor is

1 for position 1, 2 and 3

85 for 4

6 for 5

5 for 6 and 7

3 for 8 and 9

2 for position 10

The terms "frequency" and "frequency" are used synonymously in this article.

Since in the classic method of calculating the visibility of the site effective displays are still counted for the top 10, the coefficients for positions more than 10 are equal to zero. In this regard, of course, it is difficult to compare yourself with anyone in terms of visibility, except for sites in the top.

This method is widely used in existing visibility assessment tools, notably SE Ranking, and slightly adapted for the top 20 in Pixel Tools and Megaindex.

Foreign methods of calculating site visibility

Classic site visibility depends on the selected query pool. Accordingly, we can not compare two sites on this indicator, if they are from different niches, or even if from one, but in the top for completely different queries. In this and there is no point, as there is another indicator - the evaluation of traffic. But foreign experts do not think so.

Visibility of the site, almost in all foreign services (Ahrefs, Searchmetrix, Sistrix) and articles is considered as a ratio of estimated site traffic to the total traffic in the search engine. Total traffic is sometimes, for simplification, is considered only for the million most popular phrases in the base. Visibility on Serpstat is counted in the same way. This is done in order to be able to compare visibility for different sites, including for the same site, but with floating semantics.

For example, this is how the site visibility score is calculated in Serpstat:

Visibility = SUM(Frequency * CTR) / SUM(Frequency of 1mn selected phrases) * 100% * 1000

Calculation is done for TOP20, as CTR are taken the coefficients of displays from the first type, tweaked to smooth the curve of clicks.

Advantages of the method - you can compare sites with each other by visibility index without entering your own queries.

Disadvantages:

The metric correlates with the traffic score. It's unclear why there are two metrics.

Attempt to measure in percentages, although the metric is not a percentage at all.

Seasonality of queries has a very strong impact on the visibility score.

Calculating site visibility using the Serpstat/Ahrefs method is completely unrelated to the actual visibility of the site in search engines.

It is useful and necessary to estimate traffic or site displays, but visibility takes into account the volume of the market. Increasing the visibility of the site is a struggle for market share, which is assessed by the proportion of effective displays of the site on target queries, in a particular search engine, a particular region and on a particular device.

In the current realities, it is difficult to guarantee the display of the site in search, even if it is in the first position. The number of effective impressions will be influenced by the presence and type of witchdoctors, as well as additional interface elements that shift organic search results.
We at AVSEO believe that using the classic method still gives an indication of the effectiveness of SEO work (except for young sites). However, there is room for improvement. Dynamic coefficients that take into account the architecture of search results can give a more accurate assessment of a site's visibility. Plus, you need to decide whether to consider showing in the answer block or in the localpack. Interfaceally, these are separate from organics, but, they are still related to the visibility score on search. Classic visibility is useless to measure for young sites (it will be zero), even if they have a strong movement in positions from TOP100 to TOP30. The ability to change the coefficients manually in existing tools would solve this problem.

Foreign services in calculating the visibility of the site assess the share of traffic instead of the share of effective displays. And in relation to the total search engine traffic instead of the maximum possible site traffic.