Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Why are plus signs (+) suddenly showing up in Google Analytics organic search keywords reports?
-
Since June 13, 2013, the number of organic search queries containing a plus sign (+) has gone up over 1,000% compared to the previous period on my site in Google Analytics.
These plus signs appear to be taking the place of spaces in these search queries (i.e. "word1+word2+word3").
This appears to be almost (or completely) Google organic traffic, not other search engines.
Since I highly doubt searcher behavior would change so suddenly, I'm trying to figure out why Google is replacing spaces with plus signs.
Is anyone else seeing this? Any ideas?
-
Thanks for the regex insight, Mark.
I haven't been able to find a common denominator yet, but I'll keep looking.
-
Not sure why this is growing recently, but when learning regex for Google Analytics with the awesome LunaMetrics regex guide, I remember coming across the need to write brand names for advanced segments and to cover the possibility of two words being written with or without a space. Don't remember exactly where I saw it, but since then I've been writing them this way (\s|+), if I were writing seomoz for a brand advanced segment, and wanted to cover seo moz and seomoz, I would do it seo(\s|+)?moz
Basically, the regex for a space is \s, but analytics sometimes treats spaces as +, so to cover your bases, you do it either with a \s or a +.
My point is, this has been around for a while - not sure why the sudden increase, but I know this has been around for quite a bit. Maybe try drilling down a bit and seeing if you can find a common denominator here about the traffic and what is causing it.
Mark
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 Search Console not loading some resources
When I check an URL with Search Console it cannot load some page resources, even from other domains (like: ssl.google-analytics.com, www.facebook.com and www.google-analytics.com).
Reporting & Analytics | | TottiataHUN
Have any of you experienced this issue?
Steps to reproduce: open Google Search Console check an URL click "View crawled page" link select "More info" tab click "Page resources" {?}/{?} couldn't be loaded When I check the listed resources, all of them can be loaded from a web browser.
So I do not understand why Google cannot load them.
And there is no additional info why the resources could not be loaded.
Any ideas? google-search-console-other-error-1.png google-search-console-other-error-2.png0 -
Paid traffic or "Paid Search" is not showing in my Google Analytics
Hi, I have two campaigns running in Google Adwords or Google Ads now and I saw in Google Ads account that I had 5 clicks today (09/18/2018) but when I try to search for this clicks in my Google Analytics in ACQUISITION > All Traffic > Channels I don't find nothing about "Paid Search" or something like that. Bellow is a picture of my Google Analytics account to prove it. The accounts are linked and I can find the 2 campaigns in the Analytics. How can I interpret this picture? Where the paid traffic is showing? or not showing there? Thanks Leandro uvAtrsg
Reporting & Analytics | | lmoraes0 -
What is Local SEO in Google Analytics (Organic Source)
Recently, I saw "Local SEO" is mentioned as the organic source. Can someone please tell what is this and from where Google is fetching data for this source?
Reporting & Analytics | | Kevin.Monks0 -
Should Google Trends Match Organic Traffic to My Site?
When looking at Google Trends and my Organic Traffic (using GA) as percentages of their total yearly values I have a correlation of .47. This correlation doesn't seem right when you consider that Google Trends (which is showing relative search traffic data) should match up pretty strongly to your Organic Traffic. Any thoughts on what might be going on? Why isn't Google Trends correlating with Organic Traffic? Shouldn't they be pulling from the same data set? Thanks, Jacob
Reporting & Analytics | | jacob.young.cricut0 -
How does Google Maps/G+ traffic show up in Analytics?
Hi Moz Community, I've been trying to figure out how traffic from Google Maps (and G+) shows up in Google Analytics and am struggling to find a good answer online. If someone finds a business through Google Maps and then clicks on the website in the Maps listing, does that show up as a referral from Google Maps? Our site shows virtually zero traffic from Google Maps even though we have a number of listing. Two related questions: if someone clicks through to a G+ page from a Maps result and then visits our website from the G+ page, does that show up in Analytics as a referral from G+? Is traffic from Google Maps or G+ ALSO counted as organic traffic? (Would it be possible to accidentally double-count a visit as both organic and a referral from Maps/G+? Thanks everybody!
Reporting & Analytics | | JohnGroves0 -
Google Analytics Real Time Not Working! :(
Hello Everyone, Today, the real time feature in my google analytics stopped working. I am able to see that traffic is visiting my site, but not in real time. The real time count is usually at 0. But, there are some instances where real time will come back online, but there will be only 1 unique visitor. At any given time, our website usually has 20 visitors or so..Has anyone encountered this issue? Where should i start looking for fixes? What are the possible problems? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | KarlMarxTheBear0 -
Whats 'Other' in Google Analytics (in Acquisition)
When i look in GA under Channels (under Acquisition) 'other' is listed What is 'other' ? I have been told its other unidentified channels as they did not allow 3rd party cookies or surfers were in anonymous/private mode. Other is usually organic traffic that couldn't be identified for the aformentioned reasons. This data is encrypted and available but it violates Google guidelines as they are not allowed to pass personal info//data to third parties so it is automatically filtered. But they are not 'Not Provided' (since that still shows under organic) but is usually/mainly some form of organic visits. Hence Seo can take credit for much of that traffic, is this correct ? Many Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Comparing % Change, Google Analytics
Hey Mozzers, Is there a simple way to compare the "% Change" in traffic when comparing two separate time periods in a single Google Analytics report? When comparing data from two separate time periods, an exported CSV doesn't include the % Change (booo!), and there's no option to sort by % Change within the GA report, essentially forcing you to scroll through all the results to pinpoint the major movers and shakers. I'm not averse to using spreadsheets to sort this data, but I'm thinking that I'd likely need a macro to make this work, something like this. However, none of the macros on that page are working (possibly because they were designed for a previous version of Analytics). All suggestions are appreciated. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | dangaul0