Google Analytics - Not provided info
-
Morning all,
i am using Google analytics for some time now,
One of the issues that i don't have a clear answer for is, when i am looking at Traffic Source --> overview
In the Keyword column, that is a line (not provided)
What we think here is that we cant see the keywords if someone arrived to our website but was logged-in to Google account
Is this correct?
is there a way to find the keywords behind this (not provided)? - i have many visits for this line (17.3% of all visits) and i don't know which keywords people used.
Thank you
SeoWise
-
Slightly contrary: at SMX last year, there was a panel on this topic and the main takeaway was even after 300+ man hours from one agency who looked at different ways to back into this data, you aren't going to get much success at uncovering it.
I totally understand the attraction for wanting to try to dig, I'm not suggesting otherwise, just pointing out that there's an overall limitation to what you may end up with and comparing that to the time and effort required to unravel it.
-
Whilst you can't get at the actual keywords behind "not provided", you can do a lot to mitigate the black hole using rank tracking.
You can add an Analytics event to track rank, which also shows average rank on not provided, per landing page. This doesn't give actual keywords, but you're now in a place where you can infer a lot. Assuming you have enough site traffic for it to be meaningful, you can now infer likely keywords based on what keywords bring traffic to those pages when you do have the data.
For example clicking into top events, you can now see a list of landing pages behind (not provided). Each page is shown, along with the number of events triggered (meaning visitors), and average value (meaning search rank on whatever hidden keywords were used).
Of course you have no way of knowing when someone used a unique long-tail search, or if for whatever reason the spread of keywords in "not provided" is actually different to visible keywords.
But it is enough to be useful, and vastly better than having no info at all on 20%+ of your traffic. Or in our case 40%+
To set up event based rank tracking, see this post from AJ Kohn : http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/new-ways-to-track-keyword-rank
The info you need is about half way down that post.
-
Hi,
You are exactly right, not provided is shown for users entering the site through organic searches when they are logged into a google account at the same time. 17% is not too bad, I have some sites where it is above 50%!
There are a couple of ways to approach this. The most common is to remove the not provided data from your searches and then look at the percentages of your main keywords/phrases in what remains. All things being equal, your not provided data will likely contain roughly the same percentages of these keywords also.
You can also look at your cpc data if you have it, since google has decided to show all matched queries for paid data. This can be another source of information in regards percentages of keywords used to land on the site which can then be applied to your not provided numbers.
Hope that helps!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google Analytics / Facebook UTM
Hello, I have a quick question. I am setting up conversion tracking for my Facebook ads, so I am giving each ad set a tracking URL (UTM) in order to see which ads are converting etc. Is it possible to see on analytics how much I am spending on these ads or a cost per conversion? Or does the tracking merely track general analytics data such as bounce rate, exit rate, revenue generated etc? Kind Regards, James
Reporting & Analytics | | SO_UK0 -
Google Analytics direct traffic dropped by 50% after switching to https
Hi, everyone, have a little dilemma and was hoping to get some advice here. I recently installed a new SSL (3 months ago) to force our URL to start with https://. The site was earlier accessible through https:// and http:// prefix however now I have made it so that all urls are redirected to the correct https:// version. The problem is that direct traffic has dropped by more than 50% after implementing these changes and I can for the life of me figure out why. Why would the direct traffic drop all of sudden after making these changes? I am starting to suspect that the earlier data was inflated and that Google analytics was counting users coming from a http:// version of the URL to a https:// version of the URL was counted as direct traffic. Could that be it? Any other possible causes? Would really appreciate any guidance on this problem. Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | nsereke0 -
What does 'Safari (in-app)' mean in Google Analytics browser traffic?
Hi, can anyone explain what 'Safari (in-app)' refers to in my browser sources? Also, it has a very high bounce rate - any ideas why?
Reporting & Analytics | | b4cab1 -
Conflicting data in Google Analytics
Hi Guys I've been looking at the data for a client in Google analytics and I was wondering if anyone knows why some of the data doesn't tally up. In my case its the following: Under Aquisition
Reporting & Analytics | | Relative
No of Sessions for a Keyword shown in Organic Search tab (compared to)
No of Clicks for a Query in the Search Engine Optimisation tab For example, for a brand term, Google are showing 17 Sessions in Organic Search.
For the same term Google are showing 90 Clicks in the Queries section of Search Engine Optimisation OK, we know that Google are a little cloak and dagger regarding keyword data but surely Sessions and Clicks for the same keyword should be identical unless I'm missing something.0 -
Registration tracking with Google Analytics
Hi everyone, I want to track user registrations with Google Analytics for a customer's website. The thing is after registration visitors are not directed to a specific page, so I can't set it as a goal. I thought of tracking submit button with event tracking, but that data would not be true as a visitor may click it more than once, and there's the login with facebook and twitter thing. Before convincig customer to create a registration confirmation page, I want to make sure there's no other way as they don't want to make any changes to the current website. Any ideas?
Reporting & Analytics | | ugurcanuzer0 -
Google Analytics Content Experiments don't deliver 50/50?
Our A/B test is actually delivering at about a 70/30 page view rate. 70% in favor of the original version and only 30% of the new. We are sending 100% of our traffic to this homepage test. Has anyone else experienced this? There seems to be a lot of folks experiencing this.....anyone know why?
Reporting & Analytics | | VistageSEO0 -
Where do I find Google Analytics link tracking for outbound links?
We implemented this script in source, where would I find the outbound link tracking; in Events?
Reporting & Analytics | | KnutDSvendsen0 -
Keep multiple Google Analytic / Webmaster accounts seperate?
Hi, I have a paranoid suspicion that putting all my websites on one Webmaster / Analytic account will mean any links between my sites won't carry any weight, and Google might consider similar content much more readily if 2 of my sites are in the same market. So I have about 4 different accounts with my main sites split across them. Am I being over paranoid? Do any of you have any problem with all your sites being on the same account?
Reporting & Analytics | | SpecialCase0