Dumb SEO Questions

(Entry was posted by Cillian Bracken-Conway on this post in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 08/09/2013).

What do you do about Analytics` "key word not provided"?

#keywordnotprovided Being new to the SEO game and having only 3 clients the biggest stumbling block while reporting their analytics has been "key word not provided" I understand why it happens but is there any information on whether it`s just going to get worse or are google going to make a change.

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YOUR ANSWERS

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

  • Internet Marketing India: Its been growing and reaching two digit percentages on most of our client accounts. Dont see it coming down.
  • Ranu Jain: "Not Provided" data is still a controversial topic and there’s no failsafe way to get this data. However, here are a few ways to conclude something out of it. ;

    1) First thing that can be done is to understand the visitor’s behavior with Landing Page Reports. You can add a filter to your profile with the name "Not Provided". By selecting "Advanced" button, you can add fields - "Not Provided" and "URL". This won't give the exact data but at least you can have an idea about the traffic. ;

    Note: This filter wont work on the old data. ;

    2) Another way could be to see the "Search Optimization Report" in Google Analytics. It isunder Traffic Sources --> Search Engine Optimization --> Queries. ;

    Note: Data in this report is two days out of date. ;

    3) You can also study the Adwords data. In Google Analytics, under Advertising --> Adwords --> Matched Search Queries

    Again, it wont give you an accurate data as this is only related to traffic that you’ve paid for. You can measure the response rates to keywords via PPC.

    4) You can use Webmaster Tools also. You can get a very basic overview of keywords that lead visitors to your site. Here is how you can find it: Under Traffic menu --> Search Queries. ;

    For more information, check out this blog by Avinash Kaushik: http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/google-secure-search-keyword-data-analysis/
  • W.E. Jonk: Since browsers don't really care about SEO but they do care about their users my guess is that browsers will implement secure google search (SSL) by default more and more.

    Like already said by +Ranu Jain ;you can make an educated guess about the keywords in the not provided section since you still have data. Here is another article that explains how to do that:
    http://www.blindfiveyearold.com/not-provided-keyword-in-google-analytics
  • Matt Raynes: If by worse you mean increase in volume then YES! ; Thank you Google. ; We've been looking at different reporting methods like reporting on strong landing pages and other factors that read traffic flow.
  • Cillian Bracken-Conway: Reporting is one thing. At the moment I'm only reporting seo results with a separate developer carrying out work (or not) they pass the buck to the "key word not provided" it's very hard to explain this to to non tech savvy people 

View original question in the Dumb SEO Questions community on Facebook, 08/09/2013).