Live, measuring and verified: what each status means
Updated
From written to proven#
| Status | What it means | Where you see it |
|---|---|---|
| Applied | Your site accepted the change | Live feed; the card moves to Measuring |
| Checked on your site | SEOmatic opened your live page and saw the change. This is the proof it is live | Live on your site list, with Live since and See it live |
| Done, measuring the impact | Waiting for the measuring window to end | Measuring column, with the date the verdict is due |
| Confirmed: it worked | A verified win | The card, the Live feed (It worked), and your weekly report |
| Finished, no measurable effect | The change shipped, but any gain was too small to tell apart from normal ups and downs | The card |
| Finished, results unclear | Not enough data to judge, or the change was never confirmed on your site | The card |
| Went backwards, rolled back | Results got clearly worse. See below for what happens next | The card, the Live on your site column, and Needs you |
Measuring does not prove a change is live
The Measuring column's subtitle says live on your site, but a card arrives there as soon as your site accepts the change. Only the Live on your site list, with Checked on your site, proves it is on the page. If a change never appears there, see my site still shows the old version.
How a win is judged#
Your agents compare the page's clicks after the change with its clicks before, then take away how much your whole site moved over the same days. That way a good month for your site, or a slow season, is not counted as the fix's doing.
- A win needs all three: more than 10% better than the rest of your site, at least 5 extra clicks, and a gain clearly larger than normal day-to-day noise.
- Title, description and social preview changes can also win on click rate: at least 15% more of the people who see your result click it, with 50 or more impressions, at the same ranking, and at least 5 extra clicks. The verdict then says Won on click-through rate.
- Page-one pushes and internal links can also win on ranking: the page moves up at least 1.5 places more than your site does, with 30 or more impressions. The verdict says Won on ranking. This does not count during a week when Google's rankings move across many sites.
- Bulk campaigns need more extra clicks the more pages they cover.
- The change must be on your site. If SEOmatic never confirmed it, the result is not counted as a win.
Open a finished card and read How we know. It shows the numbers, for example how much the page moved and how much the rest of your site moved.
When results get worse#
A change counts as worse when it was live, the page lost more than 15% compared with the rest of your site, at least 5 clicks were lost, and the drop is clearly beyond normal noise.
| Kind of change | What happens | Card line |
|---|---|---|
| Small fix marked Undo in one click | The agent puts the page back on its own. During a week when Google's rankings move across many sites, it asks you instead, like a bigger change | Results got worse, so the agent put this page back as it was. |
| Small fix whose automatic undo failed | You get an email titled Action needed. Nothing else touches the page until you decide | Results got worse and the agent could not undo it automatically - worth a look. |
| Bigger change | Nothing is undone. It waits in Needs you as Regressed, needs a rollback | Results got worse. This one needs you to undo it |
The status reads Went backwards, rolled back in all three cases, even when nothing was rolled back yet. Read the line on the card to know which case you are in. To undo it yourself, click Undo in the Live on your site list or the undo arrow in the Live feed. You can also keep the change if you disagree with the measurement. See why a change was rolled back.
Requests to Google#
A Help Google find the page task changes nothing on your page, so it is never scored as a win. After 7 days the card shows what Google's own check says about the page, for example whether it is now indexed.
Live feed labels#
| Label | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Suggested | Proposed, waiting for a decision |
| Working | Running now |
| Applied | Written to your site |
| For your review | Prepared and held for you |
| Measuring | Waiting for the verdict |
| It worked | A verified win |
| Rolled back | A setback, such as a change that was undone |
| Checkpoint | A decision was recorded, for example an approval |
- Why does a finished card say "Measured, but our checker could never confirm this change on your live page"?
- Your site accepted the change, but SEOmatic never saw it on the page, often because your site blocks automated visitors or a cache served an old copy. It is measured, but never counted as a win. Open the page yourself to check.
- Does "no measurable effect" mean I should undo the change?
- Not necessarily. It means the gain, if any, was too small to prove. The change did no measurable harm. Keep it unless you prefer the old version.
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