Many website owners have noticed that Google Analytics has shown an increased number of “Not Provided” status of searches, and for many this is the largest category of search in the Traffic Sources Overview listings.  Many browsers, including Firefox, have begun to use encryption to block tracking of the search data used to access websites.  Especially troubling is the use of encryption by Mobile Safari, whose website visitors show up as direct visitors, not only skewing the Google analytics for search versus direct but also hampering the ability to accurately track the true nature of mobile search. This Holiday Season, a lot of online traffic from iPhone users shifted into the “direct” bucket because a lot of people got new iPhones with iOS6 preloaded.

Google Chrome is now joining the crowd and launching the Chrome 25 beta that uses encryption.  Many SEO firms fear that eventually, the percentage of Not Provided terms will reach 100%.

Google Chrome’s move to encrypted search will likely the average “Not Provided” searches on the average site from the average of 39% now to a higher number, but there are definitely methods in place to recapture some of the lost data.  Below are 3 tools that can be used to identify trends and new developments in search activity resulting from the Organic SEO efforts on your website.

Google Webmaster Tools has most of the lost data. Google webmaster tools will display the top 2,000 search terms for your site for the last 90 days from data from the aggregate storage of terms in the Google query logs. This works for 98% of all websites, and the 2% would be comprised of sites with huge web traffic because of the limitations of only the top 2,000 search terms. Most SEO Strategists will be able good sense of the trends and habits of the website users from this data.

Google Adwords has this data available as well. If you use paid search, you can get some of the same insights into the trends and behaviors of your online audience as you can from organic search data. You can get aggregate data from the general keyword search, but to get information regarding your website, you must have a Google Adwords campaign for your website.

Yahoo and Bing still deliver referrer information in most cases and can provide valuable information on search trends, albeit from a smaller search pool.

Bottom Line:  More Search Providers are moving to secure search terms and it’s likely that other search engines will follow due to competitive pressure. It is important to start using the alternate tools listed above to begin evaluating your search traffic and make this an integral part of your Organic SEO Strategy. Focus your plans on adopting other means of obtaining data as opposed to being frustrated about the data that has been lost.

Eric Van Cleave is a Partner in ZenergyWorks, A Santa Rosa, California based SEO, Online Marketing, and Website Development Firm.

The numbers of “not provided” terms in Google Analytics are beginning to grow. Google began defaulting to an encrypted search for Google Searchers who are logged in to their approximately 12 months ago. “Not Provided” is what Google Analytics shows in cases where Google no longer reports search terms due to encryption.

A new study by Optify reports that 39% of search-related traffic from Google to web sites now has search terms withheld from reporting on Google Analytics.  The study was conducted over eleven months with 424 web sites, involving over 17 million visits and over 7 million referring keywords.  The study also found that 13% of companies see rates as high at 60% of terms being withheld, although upon further examination, most companies have “Not Provided” search terms that account for approximately 35% of their traffic as reported by Google Analytics.  For a full review of the study, please refer to the complete study.

Bottom Line:  As Google + becomes a more powerful tool for Google, the chart below confirms that more and more users are logging in the Google while they search.   This has 2 important implications for those marketing online in organic search:

1.  Search results are influenced by past search behaviors, and may not be the “pure” results that you receive when not logged in to your Google Account.
2. It will become more difficult to identify search terms that are growing in use if your analytics cannot track all of the search terms you are being found by.  It will become vital that SEO marketers become more proactive in their keyword research to get out in front of trends. 

Chart Courtesy of Optify

Eric Van Cleave is a Partner in Zenergy Works, A Santa Rosa, California SEO, Online Marketing, and Website Development Firm.