You may have noticed a change in how Google Analytics is recording and reporting your traffic from Google in the last month; there’s a new keyword in town, and it’s called (not provided). This “keyword” represents any and all keywords used by website readers that found your website through a Google search query while logged into their Google Account.
Google announced this change in their blog on 10/18/2011, stating that “As search becomes an increasingly customized experience, we recognize the growing importance of protecting the personalized search results we deliver.” As internet marketers and website owners, this change has presented us with a new challenge in our quest to determine the health and success of our website in the eyes of the Google.
Do not despair, if you use Google Analytics to regularly monitor the popular keywords that drive traffic to your website, you have another option within Google’s suite of products to help you understand the keywords that are delivering visitors. In Google Webmaster Tools you can find the top 1,000 search queries that have delivered traffic to your website in the last 30 days.
Do you have questions about Google Analytics, Google Webmaster Tools, or how you can use these tools to analyze your website readership? Join us on Twitter or Facebook, or leave a comment here on our blog.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
There should be no privacy breach in providing the figures and keywords to webmasters, as it is never shown precisely that who searched what? Anyways Google is still recording the search history for users. This is one of the most illogical move Google ever made
I have to agree that I don’t follow their logic in calling this privacy related, since the keywords don’t lead back to any identifying information about the user.
I was wondering about it for a while now, at first I though maybe it’s a chinese keyword, silly me. Now I understand. Google trying to level the battlefield for marketeers huh
I have to say this new action by Goolgle is frustrating to say the least. When they first announced it, they stated that “less than 5% of sites will be impacted” and now all of my clients sites number one “Search term” in analytics is “Not Provided.” However, if we use “PPC” or adwords, then they provide it. So basically it’s a force to spend money with Google. When did they lose sight of their original goal to be a non-greedy company? How many small businesses are they hurting during this tough economy?
All of our clients have been affectedby this change as well. In response to your point about AdWords, Google must be responsible for providing paying advertisers with the keyword that is being clicked on through the Sponsored Ads – because that’s what the advertiser is paying for.
I think part of the reason behind this change is related to Google Plus, and the privacy of Google Plus users. With the launch and growing popularity of Google Plus, more users are logged into their Google Account more of the time than ever before. I’m not sure how this is going to shake out as Google Plus continues to grow and change – what do you think?
THIS is just another reason on the long list why GOOGLE SUCKS !!!! They are nothing more than leftist thugs who have made money so now do everything they can to keep us under their thumb. Mark my words… this will bite them in the ass some day sooner than anyone knows. When your support and/or lack of customer service SUCKS… it is just a matter of time before the entire ship sinks. It’s called competition. It will catch up with their sorry asses.
Google don’t block the keyword term if someone clicks AdWords, only if they click a native listing. Because they aggregate all data at the point of gathering it, this change means they have much less data to process in Google Analytics. From my own experience designing web analytics software, I’d guess they could save 15% – 25% (conservatively) in data processing costs for Google Analytics. When I combine this with the new GA interface, which ties everything to Adwords, it makes me suspect Google just see GA as an adword tool, and non-adword GA users as just lost money. If that is the case, we’ll see more changes limiting it to adword reporting.
Hi All,
As a web designer, I want to say I concur on several of the points above.
1. Privacy doesn’t seem like a logical reason for the change.
2. It is affecting all our client data…
3. I appreciate we can get the data anyway so it’s not a big deal.
4. It does look to me like Google is thinking about what they give away for free and what you get when you pay. I use both the Google Adwords External Keyword tool and the Adwords Keyword Internal Tool. Sometime in the last year the results became more limited on the first. You now have to log in to Google Adwords to get more results. Could be wrong. It’s just a hunch.
Best, Karen
In response to 2.) One interesting thing that I have noticed is that with some clients we have experienced a surge in the keyword (not set) rather than (not provided). Has that happened with any of your clients?
Melissa…Just wanted to say your write well and I’ve posted this to my company FB page. Your topics are terrific and relevant. Probably post it to Twitter later today.
Cheers, Karen
Thank you so much for the comments, feedback, and sharing, Karen!
Hi, anyone can figure out how Google will monetize on this move? Launching a paid premium Analytics service which can explore the uncharted “not provided” zone?
That’s an interesting possibility. We’ll certainly be watching out for this as an option.
I can see the reasoning for it, for example; I used to see marketers/competitors doing search queries on our site from time to time, like site:yoursite.com “my keyword” Now thats much less common in our keywords.
I guess in some scenarios you could link this kind of research with actual companies or individuals because of some action they may have taken based on the content or structure of someone elses site.
All this is a very grey area though.
I am as pissed as everyone else that Google sees fit to keep 20% of our referring keywords from us in Alalytics, because the vast majority are just ordinary users and not marketers etc.
It seems to me that Google just keeps defending against ways it can be used by marketers and seo’s to gain more insight into its serps.
Jimmy
Thanks for your input Jimmy – I have to admit, at times it’s easy to interpret Google’s actions this way.