Ashley Hoff
By: Ashley Hoff – Bayshore Solutions Senior Account Manager
(not provided) – I will never look at those words the same again. These two words have changed SEO and shifted professionals like myself into a new era.
What does (not provided) mean?
Google has slowly been pulling the blinds shut on keyword data, blocking keywords for all users signed in. For the last year, we continued to see more and more keyword data withheld. As of late September, Google has made more updates which will no longer provides any keyword data for the majority of users who are now not signed in, too.
How does this affect your website?
Technically, it doesn’t affect your website. Your rankings will not change based on this update. Unlike algorithm updates, this is very different and only affects analytics. The biggest change will be that your reporting will be more limited.
Previously, we could see organic search terms that sent traffic to your site. We would review which keywords resulted in a conversion, which ones bounced and which ones were not bringing our target audience. Most importantly we could track back how our optimization efforts were doing. In the diagram below you can see the difference in regards to the percentage of organic searches which are now (not provided).
What can we see now?
We can see search keywords from other search engines. We can also see how many visitors are coming from Google organic searches, just not the specific keywords. Also, thanks to the Webmaster data in analytics, we can see search query impressions, clicks, average position, CTR and landing pages. This report will used to supplement what we can longer see in other areas of analytics.
What’s next?
As we wait in anticipation to see what other changes Google has up its sleeve we will continue to use Webmaster Tool reports to help us understand the effectiveness of our SEO. Our tactics will not shift at this time but our reporting will be. Although this is a hurdle it’s something we can overcome and at Bayshore Solutions we are already rolling out new reports to help report the right data for our clients. To learn about our digital marketing efforts can help you, Contact Us today!
Ashley Hoff is on the Digital Marketing Team at Bayshore Solutions—a Web Design, Web Development, and Digital Marketing Company.