XOVI's online value index (OVI) allows you easily measure and evaluate the success or your SEO strategies. The OVI represents the value of a domain in Google based on our database.
The online value index (OVI) is a value exclusively developed by XOVI to measure the visibility of a domain in Google and other search engines. It is expressed as a concrete figure and is updated on a weekly basis. XOVI's unique algorithm calculates how well a domain is positioned in Google's organic search results. The aim of XOVI's data collection is not to determine exact traffic flows and quantities for individual websites. For this reason, users have the possibility of examining competitor trends. This method of data presentation allows for an independent calculation and evaluation of your own SEO measures.
Data collection from Google takes place on an national level. XOVI's crawlers simulate real internet users with their national Google settings. XOVI then takes all rankings in the top 100 search results and weighs them based on the static keyword set and according to click rate, search volume and the number of words forming the keyword (long/short tail). A traffic heavy keyword with a high search volume which ranks a domain at position 10 such as “photographer” will be weighted more heavily than “photographer York” which ranks a domain at position 1. In short, the higher the OVI, the better a domain's rankings in search engines, the higher the domain's visibility and the more traffic generated via Google & co.
OVI visibility trend
The OVI is calculated using search results crawled by XOVI combined with keywords' total monthly search volume. XOVI then weighs the results using various factors to produce a reliable visibility value.
XOVI has been crawling Google data since 2009. Initially, we crawled around 1 million keywords per week and included all keywords in our visibility calculation. However, this had the drawback that regional keywords for niche sites were vastly under-represented in the database. For instance, no differentiation was made between car dealers in major cities and local car dealers in outlying towns. Keywords for the latter were searched for less frequently and consequently didn't feature in our database. XOVI therefore decided to give customers the possibility to add their own keywords to the database, enabling the database to grow not just in the direction we wanted, but to include the search terms that our customers really wanted.
To ensure the database remained reliable and orderly however, all keywords were double-checked for their monthly search volume and average Google AdWords CPC. Only once the suggested keywords had achieved a specific search volume were they then manually categorised and added to the official database.
Upwards dynamic OVI trend
XOVI's new static visibility value is calculated based on a pre-defined set of 500,000 most frequently searched for keywords from key sectors such as shopping, travel, finance, education, health, sport, etc. To avoid distorting the visibility trend, the static OVI is calculated using only those keywords crawled since the start of data collection for the respective Google country variant. The main advantage of the static OVI lies in the value of the keywords themselves. Whilst the dynamic OVI is based on all 6 million keywords in our (google.co.uk) database, including those with relatively low monthly search volume, such “niche” keywords don't form part of the static OVI. For large websites who use lots of longtail keywords (such as Next, for example, and variants on the keyword “shoes”), the difference wont always be immediately recognisable, since the loss of longtail keywords in the static OVI will be compensated by high performaing shorttails. Since 2009, thousands have keywords have been contributed by thousands of users – making the static OVI more reliable than ever. A change in a website's ranking can now be accurately tracked and evaluated as far back as 6 years.
static OVI, downwards trend
Real traffic streams can be analysed using web analytics tools such as Google Analytics, etracker and Piwik. Users often try to tie the OVI trend to the number of visitors to a site. Whilst a rise in the OVI is certainly linked to increase traffic, all it measures is the organic visibility of a domain in search engine results – not traffic to a domain itself.
Only users themselves have access to their web analytics account. In order to carry out comparisons with market competitors when it comes to SEO however, external data is also needed in conjunction with web analytics data.
Many online shops are dependent on seasonal trends and fluctuations. A shop selling Christmas decorations and gifts for instance will expect to attract the most visitors and make the most profit in December. In XOVI, the OVI is calculated independently of seaons or short-term trends. In the example mentioned then, there would be no sudden increase in visibility in December.
The static OVI and the dynamic OVI are calculated based on different sized keyword sets. The classic, dynamic visibility is based on our databse of 6 million keywords for google.co.uk / google.com whereas the static visibility is based on just 500,000 high value, high traffic generating keywords.
If an increase in a domain's dynamic visibility coincides with a drop in static OVI, the first conclusion to draw is a loss in rankings for particularly high value, common keywords. However, it is likely that the visibility of the domain has increased for more specific niche keywords which aren't generally popular, but are important for you particular field.
The static OVI is based on a limited number of particularly valuable keywords whereas the dynamic OVI takes over 6 million keywords into account, including niche keywords. Sometimes if a niche site only ranks for very specialist keywords, it could be the case that it has no static OVI at all.
| Search engine | Static OVI | Dynamic OVI |
|---|---|---|
| Google.com | 500.000 | 6.000.000 |
| Google.co.uk | 500.000 | 6.000.000 |
| Google.de | 500.000 | 3.000.000 |
| Bing.de | 500.000 | 3.000.000 |
| Google.at | 500.000 | 1.000.000 |
| Google.ch | 500.000 | 1.000.000 |
The OVI is a visibility value for a domain on search engine results pages (SERPs). The higher the value, the more visible the site is and the more visitors will be able to find the domain via Google.
Google carries out regular changes and updates to it's search algorithm which can chage the relative importance of ranking factors, whether content-based such as irrelevant text or keyword spamming, or external factors such as harmful backlinks. Updates can lead to significant ranking changes for individual keywords. Many domains fall victim to Google's algorithm updates and lose good positions to their competitors.
If only the keyword trend were taken into account, the effects of such updates would sometimes be barely recognisable. Google penalties target the website itself, causing it to plumet down the rankings, but the number of keywords can remain.
Other tool providers calculate visibility based on 250,000 keywords. XOVI's static OVI is based on twice as many, and the dynamic OVI on over 20 times that. This has several advantages: a website could rank for 100 keywords in Google but only a fraction of them may actually play a role in determining an actual, reliable visibility for the domain. This could result in extreme OVI changes – both positive and negative – which don't actually reflect reality.
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