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
-
How to do Google Multivariate Testing via Google Tag Manager with Universal Analytic?
Hello All, How to do Google Multivariate Testing via Google Tag Manager with Universal Analytic? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | dsouzac0 -
Apple.com showing in Google Analytics "My Top Active Pages" - Why?
Hi Mozzers This has more than likely been asked before but my searches have left me empty handed so I have asked on here ( sorry! ) Please see attached screenshot, do you have any idea why apple.com is showing in my top pages? I'm just curious more than anything as this isn't the first time I've noticed it. Anybody know? Happy Friday people, cheers Jamie CiTCA5b.png
Reporting & Analytics | | SanjidaKazi1 -
Alternative to Google Analytics
Hey Everyone, My company has just changed the order processing software we are using and it's causing some issues with Google Analytics conversion funnel tracking. Specifically, there is one point in the funnel where making certain selections (which about half the people do) causes the page to reload. Also, on the login/register page, if they miss a field, the software tells them missed the field, but loads a new page which has a different URL which is not a part of the funnel when a mistake like that isn't made. All of this is causing Google Analytics to report people as leaving the conversion funnel when they really haven't. About a third of the traffic is being shown as exiting the funnel with the exit URL being the exact same URL as the step they are supposedly exiting from (example: the visitor enters on page1, moves to page2, Google is showing that they exit on page2 and go to...page2. Does anyone have any suggestions of how to deal with this in Google Analytics? If not, do you have a recommendation of an alternative analytics program which can deal with the situations mentioned above? PS - Changing the way the checkout software works does not appear to be a viable option. Kurt Steinbrueck
Reporting & Analytics | | Kurt_Steinbrueck
OurChurch.Com1 -
Google Analytics Showing Inflated Product Revenue
Hi- For the month of Feb on two of our sites we are seeing inflated product revenues. I have not seen this before and I am not having any luck searching for answers. Here is the issue: Product B sells for $159.95 For the month of Feb we sold 3 thus revenue should be ~$479.85 GA is showing Product B's revenue at $3,360.00 I read online that sometimes folks will bookmark the receipt page and that can cause this and we would need to put a catch in place for this but I am guessing this is not the case as it is happening on two sites. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Reporting & Analytics | | K2_Sports0 -
Mobile Site on Google Analytics
Hi mozzers, We just launched a mobile site and I was wondering what are the main steps to follow for gettting your mobile site tracked via GA (m.example.com)? We have a profile for www.example.com GATC: javascript or PHP to install? Should the profile be on a subdomain? What else to consider when implementing a mobile site on GA? Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | Ideas-Money-Art0 -
Any updates regarding 'not provided' organic keyword referrals in Google Analytics?
I know that the encrypted searches done by people logged into their Google accounts is causing the error, is there any workaround or any update from Google as to IF they will give us our keyword data back? I'm currently losing data on about 20% of my daily searches . . .
Reporting & Analytics | | nsauser0 -
How do shortened links show up in Google Analytics?
Hey, How do shortened links show up in GA? So if I tweet about something and use bitly, does twitter get the referral? I am thinking not. I have never seen bitly show up as a referrer, but we gets lots of clicks from those links. Hmmmm. Anyone? E
Reporting & Analytics | | ErinTM0