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By default, you can view query data (the lists of queries and related traffic, ranking, click through rate, and impression data) for all queries and categorized into branded and unbranded segments. You can set up additional segments to further categorize the queries and see related data.

When a reporting group is new, the Branded segment is set up based on your brand or site name, but you should generally edit the segment pattern (as described on this page) to accurately capture all queries related to your brand.

Keylime Toolbox organizes all queries into the segments you’ve defined and calculates the likely distribution of “not provided” traffic to come up with total traffic estimates per segment.

segmenting queries

What’s A Query Segment?

A query segment is a logical topic area. All reporting groups are segmented into branded and non-branded traffic, for instance.

Queries are also segmented in other useful topics. For instance, if you have an ecommerce clothing site, query segments might include dresses, jeans, and shirts. Query segments are not a static list of keywords. Rather, they are patterns that Keylime Toolbox uses to sort all queries that bring traffic to the site. Generally, there’s overlap between segments, so the percentages won’t add up to 100%. (Although you can set up query segments to not overlap if you’d like.)

Query Segments

Determining Query Segments

To get the most value out of Keylime Toolbox, set up segments that best reflect your business.  However, don’t be too granular about segmentation or you may find the data to be too overwhelming to be useful.

(You can use the Custom Segmentation Tool to generate analysis on more granular segments for research or investigation.)

Anytime you make a change to query segments, Keylime Toolbox reprocesses all historical data and the newly segmented data is available the next day.

Enterprise Edition accounts include 20 segments, Complete Edition accounts include 5 segments, and Light Edition accounts include 1 segment. You can add segments to your account for a small charge by going to Settings > Reporting Group Name > Segment Patterns > Request Additional Segments.

Branded vs. Non-Branded Queries

All sites should have a Branded segment defined. All queries that don’t match the Branded segment are automatically part of the Unbranded segment.

Each reporting group is set up automatically with a Branded segment, but you should edit the pattern to reflect all branded queries the way you track them (such as  misspellings, variations of your brand, and product names).

Other Segments

Set up additional (typically between 2 and 10) segments based on the needs of your business.

  • Decide if you want to include or exclude branded queries in these additional segments. For instance, if you have a hotel booking site called “Buffy’s Travel”, you’ll have a Branded segment that includes all queries with the keyword “buffy” in them. You might set up another category for each regional area. Do you want to include a query like “hotel vegas buffy’s travel” in the Vegas segment? Or should that query only be part of the Branded segment?
  • Create segments that will best help you understand your audience. For example, if you run a mobile technology site, it may make sense to create separate segments for those searching for iPhone-related vs. Android-related information. If you run a site not related to mobile, you might create a more general segment for all mobile-focused queries (including both iPhone-related and Android-related).

Creating and Modifying Query Segments

Using Pre-Packaged Patterns

It may be useful to start with Keylime Toolbox pre-packaged patterns. You can always edit them once you’ve imported them into your site. To copy pre-packaged patterns:

  1. In the upper right, choose Settings, then choose Reporting Groups from the left menu.
  2. Click Segment Patterns beside Pattern Library.
  3. Review the list of available patterns and decide which might be useful for your business. Patterns are organized into categories.Segment Patterns
  4. Click the checkbox beside each of the patterns you’d like to copy.
  5. Scroll back to the top of the page and click into the Select destination site groups for copy… field. From the dropdown, choose the reporting group you’d like to copy the patterns to.copy segment
  6. Once you get a message that the segments were successfully copied (Keylime Toolbox won’t overwrite any segments that have the same name as segments that are already set up and will instead rename the copied segments) access the reporting group you copied the segments to (from the Segment Patterns drop down menu).segment copy success
  7. Review, edit, and rename the patterns as needed (for instance, you may want to change the name and might want to add or exclude things specific to your business. (See the section below for more details on setting up and editing patterns.)
  8. Keylime Toolbox processes all segments overnight and the following day all segmented reports will be available!

Creating Query Segment Patterns

To create a query segment:

  1. In the upper right, choose Settings, then choose Reporting Groups from the left menu.
  2. Click Segment Patterns beside the reporting group you want to create a segment for.
  3. Click Create a Segment Pattern in the upper right to create a new segment (or click the pencil icon to the right of an existing segment pattern to edit it).
  4. Name the segment.
  5. Define the pattern and and any exclusions. (See below.)
  6. Click the Test button to see what queries will be included and excluded and to identify any errors.
  7. Click Save. Keylime Toolbox processes all segments overnight and the following day all segmented reports will be available! Any modified segments will be reprocessed from the first day data is available in Keylime Toolbox.
  8. Review the list of processed segments. You may want to remove segments with very low volume (or combine specific topics into more general ones) for better insights.

Defining Segments

The segment definition includes a pattern field and an (optional) exclusion field. Both fields use regular expressions. You can create patterns as simple as including a specific word or word stem and as complex as the regular expression library allows.

For exclusions, you can exclude other query segments (for instance, you may want to exclude branded queries from a particular segment) by choosing that segment from the exclusion menu. (You can exclude multiple segments if you’d like.)

define segment pattern

 

Keylime Toolbox uses a Ruby-based regular expression (regex) syntax and includes both a tester and error detection process. 

RegexWhat It DoesExampleMatches
string of charactersMatches any queries that contain those characterscakecake
cakes
pancake
birthday cake
\bSets a boundary either at the beginning or end of a word (or both)cake\b

\bpie
cake but not cakes
pie recipes but not cute puppies
?Matches whether the character that precedes the ? exists or not.crab ?cake

cake ?-? ?balls
crabcake and crab cake
cakeballs, cake balls, and cake-balls
[]Matches on any one character in bracketstheat[re]
[0-9]
[a-z]
theater and theatre
any one digit 0-9
any one letter a-z
.Matches any character. Generally only used in conjunction with exclusion patterns (match everything except xyz).everything
\.Matches a periodkeylimetoolbox\.comkeylimetoolbox.com
^Matches only queries that start with the following characters^cakecake recipes but not pancakes
$Matches only queries that end with the preceding charactersrecipe$



recipes?$
recipe and cake recipe (but not recipes)

recipe and recipes (but not recipe list)
|Indicates "or"cake|piecake
pie
apple pie
cupcake

Editing Query Segments

To edit a query segment:

  1. In the upper right, choose Settings, then choose Reporting Groups from the left menu.
  2. Click Segment Patterns beside the reporting group you want to edit.
  3. Find the segment you want to edit and click the edit icon to the right of it.  edit icon

Deleting Query Segments

To delete a query segment:

  1. In the upper right, choose Settings, then choose Reporting Groups from the left menu.
  2. Click Segment Patterns beside the reporting group you want to edit.
  3. Find the segment you want to delete and click the delete icon to the right of it. delete icon

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