Weighted Sort – The New Google Analytics Sorting Feature

The Google Analytics Team has announced a new feature on their blog yesterday called "weighted sort".

According to their blog post, weighted sort is a new sorting algorithm that allows you to

sort by the number of data points, bringing you the most interesting and actionable rows first.

This means that the hundreds of rows with only 1 visit won't dominate your reports. These 1-visit rows don't provide much value or insight, so they should be weighted less.

The screenshots below illustrate how this can make your Keywords report more useful. Click to enlarge.

Exhibit A: Sorting by Decreasing Bounce Rate

Result: Long-tail keyword phrases with only 1 visit are displayed at the top.

Decreasing Bounce Rate

Exhibit B: Weighted Sorting by Decreasing Bounce Rate

Result: Shorter keyword phrases with more than 1 visit are displayed at the top.

Decreasing Bounce Rate - Weighted Sort

Why this is good:

1. You no longer need to manually apply an advanced filter (or custom segment) to remove "Visits less than X" to get usable data.

2. Since it's algorithmic, you don't need to worry that setting the "X" threshold as 10, 20, etc. will eliminate something insightful.

3. Weighted sort can be applied to many different metrics in addition to bounce rate, including % new visits, and goal conversion rate.

4. It's only one click away… so go test it out. :)

Written by Shockley Au

Shockley is a digital marketer who helps businesses succeed in online media, through PPC, SEO, Social Media, and Web Analytics. He is qualified in both Google Analytics and Google AdWords.

Follow him on Twitter @ShockleyAu.

Shockley Au

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4 captivating comments
  1. Norman Archibald says:

    just tried it out, very useful feature.

  2. Shockley Au says:

    @Norman: I agree. I can't wait to see what the Google Analytics Team will come up with next in making data more actionable. We have Intelligence alerts, Weighted Sort, …

  3. Jack the Flipper says:

    I personally use Analytics for my websites and feel this kind of features could be very valuable to me

  4. Shockley Au says:

    Absolutely! GA is a great tool and learning all about it is quite valuable.

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