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.
Exhibit B: Weighted Sorting by Decreasing Bounce Rate
Result: Shorter keyword phrases with more than 1 visit are displayed at the top.
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. 🙂