The Complete Guide toUnlocking

(Not-Provided) Data

in Google Analytics

You can’t manage what you can’t measure

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You definitely need to read this guide if you want to:

Find out how “not-provided” data in Google Analytics impacts SEO Performance.

Test creative ways to break down “not provided” keywords in Google Analytics.

Discover an automated solution that fully reveals “not provided” data, evaluates SEO efforts, and improves SEO campaigns

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The Search Landscape:

more than

currently hidden by Google

search queries performed in Google every day

3.5 billion

2.8 billion

3.5 billionsearches/day

105 billionsearches/month

1.2 trillionsearches/year

x

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With Google now hiding up to 80% of organic search queries, 2.8 billion searches are currently undisclosed to business owners.

* Source : Internet Live Stats

1,600,000,000,000

19990

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Google Searches per Year Search queriesNot provided search queries

1,200,000,000,000

800,000,000,000

400,000,000,000

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People around the world are using search engines to discover products and services

Missed opportunities!

Percentage of people purchasing products/services that used a search engine to do research before purchasing

Unlike you, these users know what they are looking for and that puts you at a disadvantage.

EuropeAsia

Oceania

Africa

NorthAmerica

SouthAmerica

45%36%

36%

29%

34%

34%

* Source : Consumer Barometer

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And a good percentage of these people buy products online

This is the percentage of potential clients you might be missing.Because you don’t know what they are searching for.

PersonalAppliances

12%

DomesticAppliances

15%

Books29%

Clothing & Accessories

13%

CDs/ DVDs25%

Garden Equipement

6%

Computer Hardware

27%

Package Holidays

49%

Gifts, Flowers, Greetings

9%

Digital Cameras

23%

CarInsurance

21%

Toys12%

Computer Software

45%

Cosmetics10%

Footwear8%

VisualDevices

17%

Health Products

9%

Sports equipement

14%

MobilePhones

20%

Eventtickets43%

Home & household

goods7%

Computer Peripherals

22%

CinemaTickets

23%

Home furnishing/

furniture8%

Hotel Stays56%

Video Games

32%

Mobile Phone Subscriptions

20%

Businesstravel55%

AudioDevices

25%

LeisureFlights65%

* Source : Consumer Barometer

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Google Not-Provided or the end of keyword data

Any website owner looks at Google Analytics for visitor trends and behavior data. Bloggers, company and government website managers, advertising agencies rely on Google Analytics for statistics that will help them better and more specifically target their audience.

And what better way to find that out other than knowing what Internet users are searching for? It’s just that Google Analytics does not share that with you anymore. Instead, it hides it under “not provided”.

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How it all started

The first step: On October 18th 2011, invoking privacy issues, Google officially announced the decision to encrypt organic searches. When a search is made on a secure Google webpage and the result is clicked, the search term would no longer pass to the destination website. As a result, many deriving visits were encrypted under “not provided”.

The second step: On September 23rd 2013, Google announced the use of SSL encrypted search for all users, meaning that keyword level data for non-paid traffic will no longer be provided.

Here is Google’s statement at the time:

Be that as it may, this worry is no longer valid when results are paid for. Because in the case of paid ads, Google Analytics grants webmasters access to full keyword data reports.

“We added SSL encryption for our signed-in search users in 2011, as well as searches from the Chrome Omnibox earlier this year. We’re now working to bring this extra protection to more users who are not signed in.”

2011

18 October 2011

100%

50%

25%

23 September 2013

2012 20142013

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What Not-Provided means for your businessYou can’t manage what you can’t measure

Lack of Keyword data insightsThe first thing you notice is that your list of keywords under Organic Traffic is shrinking. You are probably seeing just a few keywords that bring visits to your website and you are losing relevant insights that would help increase your business.

7464

5761

Keywords

Keywords

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The risk of making the wrong decisionsRelying on the keyword data that is still visible in your Analytics may lead to the wrong decisions. On account of fragmented visibility, you will most likely make assumptions on keyword performance and build inaccurate campaigns.

“elegant dresses” keyword performance is also reflected under not-provided

Missleading Organic Traffic : Inability to separate SEO efforts from Branding activitiesWith most keywords falling under not-provided, you cannot distinguish between those related to your brand (people that already know you) and those that bring you new visitors who are reaching your website while looking for solutions to their problems.

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Impossibility to measure your SEO performanceAs long as you don’t know if the keywords in your SEO campaigns are bringing you visits, transactions, and revenue, it’s impossible to measure SEO performance and, implicitly, justify your budget and ROI.

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Drawbacks in creating an SEO strategyIf you’re looking to increase SEO revenue, selecting the best performing keywords is crucial. To do so, you need to rely on historical data, such as keywords that already bring you transactions and revenue and increase their rankings. Without access to not provided data, you cannot prioritize such keywords and, therefore, are missing on valuable opportunities.

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Can I break down “not provided” keywords in Google Analytics?

With as much as 80% “not-provided” keywords in Google Analytics, webmasters found themselves forced to come up with some workarounds. If not to fully break down encrypted data, at least to put some pieces back in the puzzle.

Here are the Google Analytics shortcuts that have been tested so far and you can try as well.

Extracting conclusions on user behavior from Landing Page reports

Search Engine Optimization

Module in Google Analytics

Examining AdWords

data

Analyzing Webmaster

Tools

Solutions

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Solution #1

Extracting conclusions on user behavior from Landing Page reports

Solution: By adding a new “not provided” Filter to your Profile in Google Analytics, you will be able to see where your traffic is going. Dan Barker details how to do that on econsultancy blog.

It tracks down ‘(not provided)’ search terms.

It records the page the visitor landed on when searching for that specific term.

It adds the landing page to your keywords report in Google Analytics, rather than just the vague ‘(not provided)’.

How it works:

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The result:

Disadvantages:

It doesn’t list the precise not provided keywordsYou can’t distinguish between brand and non-brand keywordsThis doesn’t apply to historical data, only to new visits

Solution #2

Search Engine Optimization Module in Google Analytics

Solution: By analyzing the Queries under the Search Engine Optimization area of your Google Analytics account, you will gain access to a minimal report on your queries.

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How it works: To be able to access the report, you need to enable Google Webmasters Tools data in Google Analytics. Disadvantages: Unfortunately, this method only reveals your keywords and visits (clicks), but you don’t have access to their performance (conversion rate, transactions, revenue).

Solution #3

Examining AdWords data

Solution: Of course you can always pay for Adwords and gain insights on what people are looking for. By creating a broad match keyword campaign, your ads will be displayed to people who use all kinds of variations of your main keyword. You can see the queries report under the Dimensions Tab, by selecting Search Terms.

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Disadvantages: You will still not have the full picture, because Adwords will only show you the keywords you’ve paid for, which can vary from organic keywords to a large extent.

Solution #4

Analyzing Webmaster Tools

Solution: Google’s Webmaster Tools reveals your keyword data as well as their rankings and clicks (visits).

How it works: To access the graph, go to the Traffic menu and look under the Search Queries option.

Disadvantages: As with the Search Engine Optimization Module, you don’t have access to keyword performance in terms of conversion rate, transactions, and revenue.

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Why none of these methods will fully solve your problem?

Regardless of how much information they unveil, it’s just not enough. You still need to extract and corroborate a lot of data to be able to draw your own conclusions.

Other than that, in almost all methods, data is not historical, which means that they can’t tell how your keywords performed in previous campaigns.

Without a full overview on the SEO performance of your campaigns, how will you be able to set up a new one? Further more, how will you be able to ask for a new SEO budget, if you can’t provide a fully accurate report on your SEO ROI?

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the real solution to unlock your not-provided dataYou’ve seen how hard it is to gather insights on the lost not-provided data. What you need is an automated solution that reveals easy- to-understand data :

all keywords performed by users to get to your sitetheir performance in terms of visits, conversions, and revenuesegmented brand and non brand queries to show you the real value of your SEO campaign

That’s what SEO monitor does.And even more.

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How it Works

Google Webmaster Tools

SEOmonitor

Google Analytics

Keyword ClicksKeyword ClicksKeyword ClicksKeyword ClicksKeyword Clicks

Keyword Visits Conversions RevenueKeyword Visits Conversions RevenueKeyword Visits Conversions RevenueKeyword Visits Conversions RevenueKeyword Visits Conversions Revenue

Visits Conversions RevenueVisits Conversions RevenueVisits Conversions RevenueVisits Conversions RevenueVisits Conversions Revenue

Corroborating data from your Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools accounts, SEOmonitor reveals what’s hiding behind the “not provided” keywords in Google Analytics.

Landingpage

SEO monitor is Automaticit’s a big data processor

Historicalit offers historic data

Accurateit aggregates Google dataAHA

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Discover your “not provided” keywords

The Organic Traffic dashboard fully discloses your organic search results. With information such as the number of visits, transactions, and revenue for each keyword, you are now able to analyze the performance of your SEO campaigns.

Brand and Non Brand Segmentation

As we mentioned before, the organic traffic can be split in brand related keywords that translate in direct traffic (the users intention is to reach your site directly) and non brand searches which is the real organic traffic generated by your website visibility in Google.

With SEOmonitor, you can now understand and segment your brand from non brand traffic and assess more accurately your branding activities as well as your SEO campaign.

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You can use the Filter function to break down visits, transactions, and revenue for three use-cases:

your entire non-brand keyword list your entire brand keyword list all keywords (brand & non-brand keywords)

Your keyword reports cannot get more accurate than this.

Historical DataWith SEOmonitor, you can analyze your not-provided data historically, by selecting various time intervals.

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Want to learn more about SEOmonitor?Sign up for a free trial or contact us for a customized guided tour of the application.

By signing up, you will discover how to :

You can try all its amazing features for free.

disclose Not Provided datasegment your Brand and Non-brand Trafficunderstand your real SEO performancemanage your SEO Campaignmonitor your Daily Keyword Rankingsmake better decisions with the Keyword Opportunity featuresee Sales Forecasts for each keywordcheck your Visibility Scorecompare your site’s visibility and traffic with all of your competitorsmonitor your Brand Reputation in Google

14 days free trial