A client asked: "Are you guys aware of any recent changes to Google noquery traffic? I am seeing some chatter around this." Is he referring to "not provided" traffic?

[DA2013]

I'm not sure what my client means by this question. I assume he's talking about "not provided" traffic. Is there something I'm missing?

Thanks for reading!

[Jonathan1979]

I am not sure your client fully understands what is meant by this, and indeed I am not sure I fully understand.  However, as I see it, there is an increasing trend for your Google Analytics to report no information when it reports to you, making it harder to get decent view of where your traffic is coming from.

To quote an article: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2290098/3-Ways-Ecommerce-Websites-Can-Grow-or-Maintain-Organic-Search-Traffic

"Those with their sleeves pushed up working day-to-day on SEO know the reasons why this is happening – searchers who are logged into Google accounts, Firefox users, and most mobile searchers pass "no query" when they click on organic-search links – causing analytics systems to report it without a query."

[jesse-landry]

Yes I would say they're referring to (not provided) which is currently SKYROCKETING at unprecedented levels. I would wonder why they are asking this question and what exactly they are expecting you to do with GA keyword entry data. I would personally try to get to the root of this question.

They may just be testing your knowledge of SEO or they may be wondering how you are going to research keywords and prove that your targeted phrases are gaining visitors. This should be something you can address if so.

But look at this:

http://www.notprovidedcount.com/

[Jonathan1979]

Interesting link.  Thanks

[tresnic]

I'm very concerned about  losing all of that insight, not only for reporting but for making decisions based on the traffic were getting from which keywords. Does anyone have any alternatives or suggestions?

Here's a good article going over the change - http://searchengineland.com/post-prism-google-secure-searches-172487

[jesse-landry]

Bing?

[Jonathan1979]

So what I get from that is that tools using adwords data are fine for keyword research, but that actual visitor analytics is not going to reveal much anymore.

[tresnic]

I feel dumb for asking this, but Bing has a Google Analytics alternative?

[jesse-landry]

Don't feel dumb, I only recently started using it myself. Yes it's called their "webmaster tools" and is pretty decent. I'd recommend checking it out.

http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster

[tresnic]

I just logged in and actually did have it set up already haha I guess it's time to learn a little more about it. Certainly not as robust as GA and I'm assuming this is only Bing data?

Our pages that drive traffic all usually rank well on Google but Bing doesn't look like it has nearly the same numbers, even relative to each other.

[WestAdvertising]

excellent link. Thanks for sharing.