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.
Troubleshooting Decline of Branded Keyword Searches
-
Hi,
Over the past year, I have seen a huge change in the distribution of our organic keyword traffic.
I'm trying to research why our branded keywords have gone down. Google analytics only shows me impressions for the past three months.
Does anyone have ideas on how to explain this change in traffic?
Please see the attached chart.
Thanks!
-
It absolutely stands out, consistently as the top. So basically, you're telling me that an enormous portion of my web traffic is unaccounted for (in my case about 25%).
Yep, if I add Keyword = (not provided) to this chart, it's pretty clear. And it does look like it's wreaking havoc on my reporting.
Thanks a ton!
-
not provided isnt anything to do with Panda or Penguin. For pretty much every site its their #1 referring organic keyword - Google doe snot provide keyword info for users who are logged into their services anymore
Have you looked at your keywords? I would be surprised if (not provided) did not stand out massively
-
If "not provided" means Panda/Penguin, would that really affect our branded terms? We still rank at the top for them....
Segments haven't changed. I'm the only one that touches them.
Thanks!
-
Have you checked against (not provided)? That may well have swallowed a large chunk of branded
BTW, the big (not provided) switch was early March for the UK and it makes a heck of an impact on reporting
Other things to check:
have you stopped any marketing activities in other channels that would have driven brand traffic?
Are your segments correct? Double check, maybe someone changed whats in them. How are you handling (not provided) with respect to assigning brand or non brand?
Very unlikely: tracking code misfiring on your homepage i.e. affects brand count but not longtail
Stephen
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
-
Huge difference between GSC ranking and browser ranking for certain keywords: How to proceed?
Hi, There is a huge ranking difference between the GSC and browser for our primary keyword. As per GSC, our ranking is around 15 and when checking on the multiple different incognito browsers it's around 50. How to handle this? Which is the accurate one? Product expert from Google forums claim that what I see on browsers are the personalized results; but I tried on different browsers with different connections. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Can 'Jump link'/'Anchor tag' urls rank in Google for keywords?
E.g. www.website.com/page/#keyword-anchor-text Where the part after the # is a section of the page you can jump to, and the title of that section is a secondary keyword you want the page to rank for?
Algorithm Updates | | rwat0 -
The importance of meta keywords?
Hello, Is adding meta keywords still worth doing nowadays? I have been reading and hearing some different opinions about it. For a ' beginner ' in this field it is hard to find a definite answer to this questions.. Thank you for reading(and answering) my question!
Algorithm Updates | | EPPD0 -
How to formulate keyword in language that has cases and foreign characters
Hello everybody, this is my first but foremost headache causing question that i can't seem to find answear to for a month already. I live in Lithuania - small eastern European country and my native language has all "fancy" things that one could probably immagine (tenses, cases, compound forms, foreign letters: ąčęėį..., genders, declensions etc.) The problem is: how to formulate keywords correctly for my SEO to get the best results? I'll try to explain my problem in detail by using few different cases on the same aspect: 1. If i'm using keyword in nominative case which is "atvirkštinis stogas" (reverse roof eng.) - i usually can't follow all of the recommendations for SEO: add keyword in topic, follow the keyword rate in text, because the same keyword will be repeated for numerous times but in many different forms because of the nature of language itself i.e. genitive case - "atvirkštiniam stogui", locative - "atvirkštiniame stoge". Even MOZ page analysis doesn't recognize these cases as the same keyword. How about Google? Searching for keywords in different cases also gives slightly different results - some websites drop by 5 - 7 places on google searchpage No.1. Possible solutions: a) Formulate all keywords in text by using only nominative case which would totaly limit writer to a first-former kid writting capabilities and result in nobody reading the text at all. b) Formulate keywords according to mostly used keyword in text, which would affect organic search because everybody is searching for keywords in nominative case. Note that everybody here in Lithuania usually use the nominative case in search window on google. 2. The use of foreign letters (ąčęėįšųž). If we use the same keyword "atvirkštinis stogas", we have only one letter "š" that is causing a problem.
Algorithm Updates | | StatybosMarketingas
In normal texts we use all of these letters, HOWEVER, nobody is ever writting these letters while searching for keyword in google, so normally they would search for "atvirkstinis stogas" with "s" instead of "š". If you search for these two keywords "atvirkštinis stogas" and "atvirkstinis stogas" you also get slightly different results. Possible solutions: 1. Use keyword with foreign letters and have perversed search results, because everybody will still search for keywords without them. 2. Use keyword without foreign letters which will affect SEO and tell me that I don't have any of my keywords in text, topic, url, etc. Any ideas on how to solve these puzzles? 🙂0 -
Medical Marijuana Keywords
Has anyone seen any evidence of Google penalizing for Medical Marijuana related keywords in states where that is legal? Thanks in advance.
Algorithm Updates | | eocreative0 -
Google sets brand/domain name at the end of SERP titles
Hi all, I am experiencing that Google puts our domain name at the end of the titles in SERPs. So if ia have a title: "See our super cool website", Google would show "See our super cool website - Betxpert.com" in the SERPs Well. This is okay. Apart from the fact that i myself often put the brand name in the title AND the fact that Google mispells the site name. The brand is BetXpert with a upper case X...so when i get a SERP with "See our super cool website - BetXpert - Betxpert.com" I am annoyed 🙂 Any one out the know how to tell Google the EXACT brand name, such that they do not set a value the site owner does not want to have? -Rasmus
Algorithm Updates | | rasmusbang0 -
Do search engines always pay heed to no index instructions?
Hi, I am currently working on a site that relies solely on it's images to attract traffic. My concern is that search engines will index our images, make them available through image searches and therefore allow our potential visitors to bypass our website completely. I know that there are a number of methods available such as disallowing images in robots.txt or using "noimageindex" tags in the HTML etc. but do search engines always pay attention to these requests? Does anyone have any experience with no indexing images? Or are there any methods that are guaranteed to work? Thanks in Advance.
Algorithm Updates | | BallyhooLtd0 -
Low Domain Authority - Rank Well For Competitive Keywords
I have been following a competitor's link profile on OSE for over 8 months. Their linkbacks have remained the same (3 follow, 9 nofollow links), all from low-quality directory sites. However, my competitor continues to improve in rankings and is now #1 for competitive keyword searches. How is this possible? Is there a way to hide your link profile or links from OSE? Any tips are appreciated - Thanks!
Algorithm Updates | | TheSEODR0