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
-
"Display" referrals on google analytics
We have just had 200+ visits on the 'Display' channel within 5 minutes - these referrals are from all over the world and this is very out the ordinary for our business - should we be concerned? 9cHllwW
Reporting & Analytics | | RayflexGroup0 -
Android Webview & Safari (in-app) without any referrer information in Google Analytics
I've got a client that gets a considerable amount of traffic that: Enters on an interior page (that we are running properly tagged ads for on various platforms) Bounces Has a browser of either Android Webview or Safari (in-app) which I believe indicates the website is being viewed within a mobile app Has no referrer data: (direct) / (none) We've tested several scenarios (Facebook app, Gmail app, etc.) and ruled them out. Anyone know what this might be? Thanks in advance!!
Reporting & Analytics | | SarahLK0 -
I am tracking my domain e.g www.xyz.com to an existing google analytics account . I want to track www.xyz.com/blog separately in the google analytics account. How can I do that?
I am tracking my domain e.g www.xyz.com to an existing google analytics account . I want to track www.xyz.com/blog separately in the google analytics account. How can I do that?
Reporting & Analytics | | Windlass0 -
Universal Analytics: Why does Google Organic appear as Direct traffic?
Hi there, When I enter the site via Google Search and follow myself via Real-Time Analytics I appear an organic visitor (which is good). When I browse and visit the site I still am an organic visitor. However, as soon as I fill in the contact form (gravity forms) and land on the "thank you page" I appear as a direct visitor with Google as the source. Since I have the thank you page set-up as a goal, Analytics incorrectly attributes these conversions to the direct medium instead of the organic medium. The tracking code has been installed on all the pages and all conversions are being recorded. What is going on?
Reporting & Analytics | | Robbern0 -
Google Analytics
Good Morning, I am trying to understand 2 issues in Google Analytics. 1. When look at : Traffic Source --> SEO --> Quesrios - i see the impressions column and its always a whole number 1550, 500, 5500, etc.. I never saw (for example) 702, 313, etc... impressions Can anyone explain why and how does it work? 2. In the same report i see my AVG. position for each query, the question is how come i have AVG, position of (290, 230, 190) for some of the queries and still i get clicks on these queries. My guess is that from time to time these queries have better position and the clicks are from these time. Do you familiar with a way to the the distribution of a specific query over time? for example: 1.3.2013 avg position = 4 2.3.2013 avg position = 7 3.3.2013 avg position = 2 4.3.2013 avg position = 8 etc... 3. This report say its for: "Top 1,000 daily queries" - What does it mean? Thank you and sorry for this long question SEOwiseUs
Reporting & Analytics | | iivgi0 -
Google Analytics - Keywords (not set) or ( not provided) WHY???
In Analytics, most of my visitors are landing on my home page, but when trying to see wich keywords they use, most of them are: (not set) or ( not provided) See screencast: http://screencast.com/t/AKwPW76qLVsN Can you tell why? What is going on? Is there a way to solve this? Thank you, BigBlaze
Reporting & Analytics | | BigBlaze2050 -
How do I best segment tablets on Google Analytics
I would like to find a way to best segment out my tablet traffic to measure performance; however I'm finding that there are road blocks. It doesn't seem that device operating systems or screen resolutions have clear cut differences in the tablet/mobile versions. Has anyone here found a good way to create a "tablet" segment in Google Analytics? Right now I'm having to lean on solely the ipad traffic to get indicators of tablet performance. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | lvstrickland0 -
Tracking Required Form Fields in Google Analytics
I tried searching for this elsewhere but am having a hard time finding a good answer. Is it possible to track the effect of required form fields on conversions in Google Analytics? In other words, how do I track whether or not more/less people fill out a form if I make "Last Name" a required field? Thanks 🙂
Reporting & Analytics | | kylesuss0