Keyword “Not Provided” – Google Analytics
It’s been around 6 months now that Google is using SSL as the default on their search engine, for the users connected on a Google account. The article “Accessing search query data for your sites” has been added to the Official Google Webmaster Tools Blog on October 18th 2011 to announce this change.
This change this not pleased SEOs and Webmasters, since it reduces the amount of information that is available in web analytics products. Since that change, Google Analytics (and the other web analytics products) do not show the keywords that were searched by visitors connected to a Google account.
What we now see in Google Analytics is that some keywords are not available, so “Not Provided” is now displayed.
Google wrote that this change has been implemented to make the web a more secure place (“…provide a more secure online experience”). It is to be noted though that visits coming from Google Adwords still pass the “refer”. Google Adwords advertisers still have access to their keywords data, so they are not penalized by this change. Google wants to make the web more secure, but do not want to upset the advertisers that bring Google billions of dollars every year…
Other interesting information can be found on the subject in the SEOmoz video, at the “Google Hides Search Referral Data with New SSL Implementation” post.
As written above, this change is not new, but it’s effects can be felt more and more everyday. Since the launch of Google Plus, more and more users are connected on Google, reducing the list of keywords available in the analytics reports.
Complaints are still being sent at Google, and pressure applied so that they revert the situation. It remains to be seen if it will be enough to make Google change it’s mind.
Google Analytics Dashboard
Google Analytics is an amazing web analytics product. No wonder then that more than 50% of the websites on the web have Google Analytics installed. The huge amount of data that can be extracted from Google Analytics for a website are impressive, and can often be overwhelming.
To help managers and website owners to quickly and easily access important information, Trimali Technologies (founded by Stéphane Guérin) developed DashThis!, an executive dashboard extracting data from Google Analytics. This great tool let you on a single page all the data you need without having to connect to Google Analytics or to DashThis!. The data is also easily seen from the iPhone or other smart phones.
For ore details on this great tool, I suggest you take a look at the DashThis! website. A Live Demo is also available, that will convince you of it’s value. How much does it cost? You can use it for free for 30 days, and the offered plans start at the ridiculously low price of 10$ a month.
The new Google Analytics
A few days ago now (April 20th 2011), the new version of Google Analytics (Google Analytics 5) went live for all. Oh, and for those who do not know what Google Analytics is, well, it is the free Google website statistic product.
The version 5 of Google Analytics offers many new features, including:
- Majors changes to the user interface
- Improved report performance
- Multiple customizable dashboards
- Event Goals! It is now easier to track clicks leading to external websites, and document downloads.
The Google Analytics Blog presents the launch of this new version on their « The New Google Analytics Available to Everyone » post, and details Event Goals in their « The New Google Analytics: Events Goals » post.
