Find What News Sources Are Driving Traffic With Our Simple News Dashboard For Google Analytics
The role of news and search has been a complicated relationship over the years. A strong presence in Google News will help drive significant traffic from the SERPs, yet are tallied as referral traffic in Google Analytics.
From a search standpoint, we help companies with news optimization and want to accurately track the progress of our hard work. To combat this, we've created a very simple dashboard that pulls out all traffic from Google, Yahoo and other assorted news based sources. Google News optimization can be somewhat tricky and a big investment for many publishers, so tracking success is of great importance for us.
This report is great to use for a dead simple "how are we doing in Google & other news sources?" standpoint. It contains only 3 charts and 3 graphs and is geared to find data from news aggregation sites only. Here's a look at the data we use:
Google News
Typically the largest referrer (and most important to track from a search perspective) is shown in the first row. We include all TLDs, not just from news.google.com. Included are visits and duration.
Bing News
The next set of charts & graphs is for Bing. This acts similar to Google, but only for the main Bing.com domain.
Yahoo! News
While currently the trickiest site to gain traction on, it will be interesting to see how Yahoo! News shapes out under the new direction.
WildCard News
The last chart/graph combo we use is a miscellaneous news match that looks for sites that may have a news sub-domain. Items like news.cnet.com would show up in this chart and may help to uncover opportunities.
Hopefully this dashboard will save you some time and track your success if you're an SEO involved in Google News optimization. To gain access, simply download the News Dashboard to your Google Analytics account today.
Don't forget to follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Google+ for more updates.
Meet the Author
Greg Finn
Greg is the Head of Performance and Innovation for Cypress North's digital marketing team and one of the founders of our agency. In 2010, he and Matt Mombrea started Cypress North in Buffalo. Greg oversaw the opening of our second office in 2022, located in his hometown of Rochester.
As Head of Performance and Innovation, Greg co-manages our digital marketing department and works closely with our team to ensure all our clients achieve the best possible results. He is always looking for ways to test new digital marketing techniques and technology, and oversees all teaching and training efforts to ensure our agency stays ahead of the curve.
Greg is also a co-host of our weekly Marketing O'Clock podcast, where he and the team provide updates, insights, and hot takes on the latest SEO, PPC, and social media marketing news. In addition to weekly news shows, Greg hosts our Marketing O'Torial digital marketing tutorials and often co-hosts bonus Marketing O'Talk episodes that bring together panels of digital marketing experts.
With nearly two decades of experience, Greg is a known and trusted voice in the digital marketing community. He’s a contributor for Search Engine Land, a member of the Search Marketing Expo (SMX) programming team, and has been a featured speaker at some of the largest search engine conferences, including SMX, eSummit, and Pubcon.
When he’s not working or staying updated on the latest trends, Greg enjoys watching his kids play sports and coaching their soccer team. He’s been named the runner-up “Greg of the Year” on Marketing O’Clock’s annual Clockscars Awards four years in a row. While the coveted award has evaded him for many years, Keanu Reeves has not. Greg once saw him at Gabriel's Gate tavern in Buffalo (and noted he was very tall.)
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