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.
On Google Analytics under search queries, the most popular query is "(not set)", how do I find out what this is?
-
I am trying to discover what users are searching for and what keywords drive traffic to our site.
-
If you wish to see performance of KWs or pags you can see few tricks from today post in Moz:
https://moz.com/blog/single-best-seo-tip-for-improved-web-traffic
Yes - SearchConsole is heavy involved in process. -
Thanks so much!
-
Thank you
-
Not set
The ‘keyword’ (not set) simply identifies traffic that doesn’t arrive via a particular keyword and hence may not come via any search at all. This includes traffic coming from email, referral sites, or even things like Google Images. The latter might be confusing, but it helps to know that visitors coming from Google Images and Google Maps are classified under referrals with the source google.com, not organic search. Because keywords are automatically set for search traffic, the (not set) keyword will never appear in your organic Search reports, so it is likely something you won’t have to worry about. Don’t consider this one in light of keyword performance!
Source: http://www.gravitatedesign.com/blog/not-set-not-provided-mean-google-analytics/
Not set
The ‘keyword’ (not set) simply identifies traffic that doesn’t arrive via a particular keyword and hence may not come via any search at all. This includes traffic coming from email, referral sites, or even things like Google Images. The latter might be confusing, but it helps to know that visitors coming from Google Images and Google Maps are classified under referrals with the source google.com, not organic search. Because keywords are automatically set for search traffic, the (not set) keyword will never appear in your organic Search reports, so it is likely something you won’t have to worry about. Don’t consider this one in light of keyword performance!
Source: http://www.whereoware.com/blog/not-set-vs-not-provided/2013/05/
This is in Acquisition, Campaigns, Organic keywords. If you're talking Acquisition, SearchEngineOptimization, Queries - this works different, see text in below.
So - in general Analytics can't figure keyword there. But this is not how GA should work. You should tracks your KWs in Google SearchConsole. There is "SearchTraffic" -> "Search Analytics" with all impressions, clicks, ctr and positions. There you can make report for web, image or videos. You can split traffic by countries, pages, devices (desktop, tablet, mobile) and much more. Here is link:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/search-analytics?hl=en
but there you must add your site and verify it. -
Hi,
If you see (not set), that means that the traffic coming to your site did not have keyword. It might be from an odd search engine that doesn’t pass that info, or perhaps you’ve manually tagged something as Organic and not supplied a keyword.
are you running any Google Adwords campaign or you are talking about organic search?
I'm sharing an article where you will find all the possible condition for appearing (not set) in analytics
http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2015/06/25/11-places-google-analytics-not-set/
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2820717?hl=en
Hope this helps.
Thankls
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
-
Finding less competitive keywords
Hello, How Moz can help me in finding less competitive keywords for a site based on omega masticating juicer. I had tried other tools but i am not satisfied with it. Kindly tell me the process to find it. Thanks.
Keyword Research | | romanjames0 -
Has the keyword planner search volume metric gone crazy?
I use the search volume found in keyword planner to score and weight my keywords in a similar way as Rand showed us in this WBF. This week I've found that in many cases suddenly the singular and plural version of the keyword have the same search volume. This seems crazy to me as singular and plural is not the same, the intent is different but more importantly they behave very differently from each other when looking at their track record in Adwords (impressions, clicks, conversions, CTR, CVR etc...all different). For example, here's a screenshot of 4 keywords (singular and plural versions of 2 phrases) with search volume captured a couple of months ago. Now here's another screenshot of the same keywords taken from Keyword planner today. Any ideas why this would be happening? Does it makes sense to you? It just seems buggy to me. Thanks!
Keyword Research | | E_F0 -
How does Google treat special characters in titles?
Seems like a stupid question, but one that I never really gave much thought about before. How exactly does Google treat special characters in titles? Do they all get seen as spaces? e.g. Does Awesome Product - OptionA/OptionB/OptionC available get seen the same way as **Awesome Product - OptionA, OptionB, **OptionC available ? Or even **Awesome Product - OptionA OptionB **OptionC available ? Or will Google see the first title as **OptionA/OptionB/OptionC **being a whole "keyword" due to there being no space between them? Like I've always just assumed that with apostrophised words will be seen as keyword s. And when using commas, there's always a space after the comma anyway. Are all "special characters" treated the same?
Keyword Research | | Ria_0 -
Setting Up a Keyword Matrix
Greetings MOZ community!! My real estate web site contains about 500 pages with perhaps 70 pages targeting low volume, somewhat valuable but not very competitive keywords. Three to four URLs target very competitive terms. The following terms are among the most valuable: New York City office space,
Keyword Research | | Kingalan1
New York office space,
Manhattan office space,
NYC office space Such variants as: Office space in New York City,
Office space in New York,
Office space in Manhattan,
Office space in NYC
ETCETERA convert really well How would I match different terms to different URLs? For example I have just re-written the following two critical URLs: www.nyc-officespace-leader.com (home page)
http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/commercial-space/office-space (product page) Would it make sense to use "Manhattan office space" and variants on the home page while excluding "New York City office space" variants? At the same time I would use "New York City office space" variants on the "office-space" product page while excluding all mention of "Manhattan office space". Is this logical and does it conform to SEO best practices? For the "NYC office space" terms I would add them to http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/listings. This URL has almost no text but a strong potential to rent because of a high number of incoming internal links. Is this approach sensible? In general what measures should I take to prevent URLs from competing for the same keywords? Also, is there a software package or tools that I can use to come up with keyword variants? As a non SEO professional, can I create my own keyword matrix or is this really in the realm of a professional SEO consultant? Thanks, Alan0 -
Why does this keyword have much greater volume in Bing Keyword Research Tool than Google AdWords Keyword Planner?
I'm using the Google AdWords keyword planner and Bing Webmaster Keyword Research tool. For both, I'm trying to get accurate search volume for the exact term "advertising sales". Over the last thirty days, Bing reports a volume of 5,988. Google's average monthly search volume is 880. Given the market share Google has, I would expect a much higher volume, especially when compared to Bing. Can you offer some ideas of why this might be happening?
Keyword Research | | Kevin_P0 -
How do I find out what low-volume keywords are best to target?
Since many of our products and services are purpose-built for a niche community, I find that many of the keywords I am researching are all low-volume. Data on the Keyword Difficulty Tool show '0' under Bing Search Volume (exact match). I know what my competitors are targeting based on their title tags and web content, but I'm not sure if they did their keyword research homework, so I don't want to assume. Is there any other way to determine which keywords I should be targeting?
Keyword Research | | ULCRobotics0 -
Is there a way to search 400+ urls for a specific keyword?
I have a large list of URL's that need to be checked for a specific keyword. I've been doing them one at a time and it's painful. Is there a web based tool out there that can search many different URL's at once?
Keyword Research | | billnet0 -
How do search engines score "nested" keywords?
I use "nested" for lack of a better term; what I mean is keyword phrases that contain other keyword phrases. For example, if I have a page that is extremely well optimized (on-page) for the phrase "old silver coins", is that page by default also extremely well optimized (on-page) for the phrase "silver coins"? Or does google understand that I am optimizing for the longer phrase "old silver coins" and somehow exclude me from contention for the sub-phrase "silver coins"? I understand that this gets more complicated when talking about backlinks (off-page), but the same general question remains. If I am getting good backlinks for "old silver coins", am I also getting good backlinks for "silver coins" at the same time? I do understand that "silver coins" may be more competitive than "old silver coins" and so my page may not rank the same for the two phrases. But I am really curious if there is some kind of multiplier effect with nested keyword phrases like the example I have provided, or whether google somehow only credits for the full phrase and not for any sub-phrases contained therein. Any insight would be greatly appreciated! (And sorry if this has been addressed already. I have looked around the site and have googled this question, but haven't found anything useful yet.) Thanks. BONUS QUESTION: Are the answers to my questions above exactly the same when discussing singular versus plural keywords ("coins" versus "coin")? After all, that is a "nested case just like my examples above. On the other hand, I can see there being some special treatment of singular and plural.
Keyword Research | | Kp2221