How to Get Your ‘Not Provided’ Keywords in Google Analytics

Google Universal Analytics is a incredible resource tool for any website owner or search engine optimizer. From small personal sites to big corporate website, from small bloging to full e-commerce website, Google Analytics is a “goldmine” of useful information and statistics about visitor trends and behavior though out journey of a visitor to lead, lead to prospect, prospect to client.

However, there is little area where Google Universal Analytics frustrates its users: “The Organic Search Query Report.” An increasing number of results in this part of Analytics are listed as ‘not provided’ – not much use when you’re trying to find out what people are searching for when they comes to your website, which is most important inside for you to start working on.

P.S.: the ‘not provided’ is lifted for paid search results. It’s just the organic search results that are often hidden from view.

So everyone who is working on this Universal Google Analytics has this common question in their mind:

 “Why Is Data Hidden and ‘Not Provided’?”

Before 4 years in October 2011, Google changed the way it produces data from search to protect users’ privacy.

If a user is logged into any of the Google product (such as Gmail or Youtube) when searching, their search is conducted over SSL. As such, the referral data relating to that search is hidden.

Referral data includes some constructive information such as the keywords used to perform that search. Google can still see this information, but website owners – and Analytics account holders – can’t access it. This missing data leaves a gaping hole in our analytics reports, making it difficult for us to know the ROI of specific keywords we rank for in organic search.

Luckily, there are a few workarounds that can reveal the data behind these figures.

So here in this blog I am helping everyone who has this common question in their mind:

“How to Unlock ‘Not Provided’ Results in Google Analytics Report?”

Before we get into this guide, first thing first it’s a good idea to verify just how many of your organic search keywords are listed as ‘not provided’, and whether this is increasing with time or not. You’ll need to assess whether it’s worth investing time into decoding these results before you continue with this guide, since none of these techniques provides a single, foolproof solution.

Here in this I am going to cover different methods one at a time. So don’t forget to follow me on this for complete solutions with your Google Analytics problem in your reporting.

Method 1: Recognize the User’s Behavior with Landing Page Reports

The first and most important way to get around the ‘not provided’ result is to mine Google Universal Analytics for other information that will reveal more about those visitors and what they were doing on your site during their visit.

1. In your Analytics account, head to Admin, then Profiles.
2. Click the name of the profile you want to work with, and select the Filters tab.
3. Create a new filter in your Analytics account:

The purpose of this filter is to extract the ‘not provided’ terms. To do this, extract the URL and rewrite the two in place of the original ‘not provided’ text. Although this doesn’t reveal the exact keyword, it can help you to understand where that traffic is going and whether you need to dig deeper with other techniques. (The important part – the rewrite – is highlighted in BLUE in our screenshot.)

P.S.: Here you need to understand one thing that this filter can’t be applied to historical data; you’ll only see it in action for new visits.

Don't Forget to Next Method on this Blog.

If you have any questions, please contact us.