The document discusses the evolution of Google's "not provided" search data and its implications for marketers. It began in 2011 when Google encrypted search queries, hiding keyword data from websites. By 2013, this became the default for all searches. This limits marketers' ability to analyze keywords and match intent. However, the document provides several solutions to adapt, including analyzing landing pages, search rankings, data from other search engines, Google Trends, surveys, and paid tools to overcome "not provided" limitations.

1. The Not Provided Gate
October 2013

2. AGENDA
1. Evolution of the ‘not provided’ situation
2. Reasons behind Google’s decision
3. Implications of the actual ‘not provided’ situation
4. Solutions to make the most of the new reality
2

3. EVOLUTION OF THE ‘NOT
PROVIDED’ SITUATION

4. MAKING SEARCH MORE SECURE: APRIL 8, 2011
Evolution of the ‘Not Provided’ Situation
“
Over the next few weeks, many of you will find yourselves
redirected to https://www.google.com when you’re signed in to your
Google Account. This change encrypts your search queries and
Google’s results page.
What does this mean for sites that receive clicks from Google search
results? When you search from https://www.google.com, websites
you visit from our organic search listings will still know you came
from Google, but won’t receive information about each individual
query.
4

5. THE BEGINNING OF A GREATER CHANGE
Evolution of the ‘Not Provided’ Situation
5

6. FALL 2013
Evolution of the ‘Not Provided’ Situation
As of the month of September, all signs point to secure search
becoming the default for everybody – signed into a Google account
of not.
September 2013
Source: www.notprovidedcount.com
6

7. EXAMPLE: OUR SITE, JANUARY 2013
Evolution of the ‘Not Provided’ Situation
51%
of organic trafic
is (not provided)
Google Analytics
> Acquisition
> Keywords
> Organic
7

8. EXAMPLE: OUR SITE, SEPTEMBER 2013
Evolution of the ‘Not Provided’ Situation
88%
of organic trafic
is (not provided)
8

9. REASONS BEHIND GOOGLE’S
DECISION

10. REASON 1: PROTECT PRIVACY
Reasons Behind Google’s Decision
In light of the recent
Edward Snowden affair
and NSA issue, Google
might be masking
people’s search queries to
protect the privacy of
their searches.
10

11. REASON 2: INFORMATION RETENTION
Reasons Behind Google’s Decision
Google might want to
keep the keyword
information private, in
order to avoid sharing it
with competitors: other
search engines, RTB
players,…
11

12. REASON 3: LET ME SEE… WHAT COULD IT BE…
Reasons Behind Google’s Decision
12

13. REASON 3: INCREASE PPC INVESTMENTS
Reasons Behind Google’s Decision
In addition to the actual benefits of using their search ads system,
Google adds the advantage of getting access, through paid ads, to
performance of keywords.
13

14. IMPLICATIONS OF THE ACTUAL
‘NOT PROVIDED’ SITUATION

15. OBSOLESCENCE OF GOOGLE KEYWORD DATA
Implications of the Actual ‘Not Provided’ Situation
As organic keyword data from the most used
search engine becomes increasingly
obsolete, the implications and consequences
will impact digital marketing teams in different
ways.
15

16. FAST DATA DEEP-DIVING
Implications of the Actual ‘Not Provided’ Situation
Being able to match search query to searcher intent has been vital to
the execution of successful web marketing strategies:
• Define how people search for and land on content.
• Enable optimization of key pages to respond to intents.
• Easily slice and dice keywords into clusters, and to associate
them with certain website pages, events, goals.
This kind of fast data deep-diving is quite powerful and insightful and
crucially, very quick and easy to access. We simply don’t get that
from other tools yet…
16

17. ROLE OF SEO AS A DISCOVERY TOOL
Implications of the Actual ‘Not Provided’ Situation
SEO has always been a very resourceful tool for discovering those
out-of-the-box keyword ideas and themes for organic traffic, but
also, for paid search campaigns.
As a result, terms that you may not have expected to rank for and
end up driving qualified traffic, will go undiscovered and likely,
unanswered.
17

18. MOVING TO A NEW SEARCH ERA
Implications of the Actual ‘Not Provided’ Situation
With localization, personalization, knowledge graph, etc., keywords
themselves have become less foundational than they have been in
the past.
They now serve as a stepping
stone somewhere between
awareness and
conversion,
remains the true
of a website.
which
objective
.
18

19. SOLUTIONS TO MAKE THE
MOST OF THE NEW REALITY

20. ADAPTING TO THE LOSS OF KEYWORD SPECIFIC DATA
Solutions to Make the Most of the New Reality
In addition to the
Yes, there is HOPE!
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21. ANALYZING LANDING PAGE DATA
Solutions to Make the Most of the New Reality
Analyzing the evolution of the performance of your landing pages
will inform you on the optimization of main keywords groups.
• Visits
• Bounce rate, time on site, visit duration
• Conversions, conversion rate
Google Analytics
> Behavior
> Site Content
> Landing Pages
21

22. ANALYZING LANDING PAGE DATA: EXAMPLE
Solutions to Make the Most of the New Reality
Branded keywords
Services keywords
(dev, SEO, social)
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23. KEEPING AN EYE ON ORGANIC SEARCH RANKINGS
Solutions to Make the Most of the New Reality
• Group targeted keywords by theme.
• Add information about competition’s rankings.
• Compare rankings evolution with traffic.
Theme
Keywords
branded
nvi
ppc
ppc à montréal
ppc
pay per click à montréal
design web
conception web
agence
Local Search
Volume (Large
Match)
Local Search
Volume (Exact
Match)
Ranking Google.ca
FR (previous)
Ranking
Google.ca FR
(actual)
Évolution
4400
590
1
1
0
720
390
3
2
1
58
12
4
4
0
12100
720
40
5
35
agence de marketing
2400
73
50
7
43
agence
agence web
3600
590
50
7
43
agence
agence web marketing à montréal
91
16
6
7
-1
seo
seo à montréal
6600
880
7
7
0
agence
agence marketing web à montréal
91
16
8
9
-1
stratégie web
marketing internet
40500
260
50
9
41
ppc
ppc montreal
36
12
9
9
0
design web
conception de site web
12100
590
50
11
39
23

24. USING DATA FROM OTHER SEARCH ENGINES
Solutions to Make the Most of the New Reality
Since other search engines
are still providing keywordlevel data, it could be
interesting to rely on their
information to understand
the intent of organic visitors.
Google Analytics
> Acquisition
> Channels
> Primary dimension: source
> Secondary dimension: keywords
24

25. USING DATA FROM GOOGLE WEBMASTER TOOLS
Solutions to Make the Most of the New Reality
Google Webmaster Tools provides organic search data for a 3-months
rolling period. By regularly downloading the data, it is possible to keep
track of estimated traffic per keyword.
Conversion data for landing pages should be added to this data.
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26. GOOGLE TRENDS AND ADWORDS KEYWORD PLANNER
Solutions to Make the Most of the New Reality
Google Trends can indicate the comparative value of different
interesting keywords, and suggest keywords.
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27. GOOGLE TRENDS AND ADWORDS KEYWORD PLANNER
Solutions to Make the Most of the New Reality
Adding actual search volumes and suggested bids from Adwords
Keyword Planner gives more context about the value of keywords
discovered with Google Trends.
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28. INTERNAL SEARCH INFORMATION
Solutions to Make the Most of the New Reality
Site Search gives you information about the terms users entered on
your website.
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29. EXAMPLE
Solutions to Make the Most of the New Reality
• With Adwords, you find out there are 1000 local searches for a
keyword.
• Your ranking report tells you your page ranks 2nd for this keyword.
• Google Webmaster Tools provides information about the value of
this 2nd position, with CTRs and historical data: it gives you 7% of
the clicks.
• Using Google Analytics landing page information, you can
correlate this keyword with the 70 visits on the page ranking for
that keyword.
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30. ASK USERS!
Solutions to Make the Most of the New Reality
Rely on a technique that has been used by offline marketers forever:
ask your users how they found you!
• Identify the users coming from Google (source = google) or to
specific landing pages only
• Setup an online survey
• And/or contact them through email if you have their contact
information (after a transaction or conversion)
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31. NOTPROVIDEDKIT.COM FOR GOOGLE ANALYTICS
Solutions to Make the Most of the New Reality
• Your Current ‘Not Provided’ Percentage
• Full ‘Not Provided’ Dashboard: A full dashboard of trends for ‘not
provided’, including graphs, metrics, and breakdowns by
browser, device, etc.
• ‘Not Provided’ Segment: An advanced segment allowing you to
see any Google Analytics reports for just ‘not provided’ traffic.
• ‘Keyword Known’ Segment: An advanced segment showing any
report only where Google organic keyword data was known.
• A ‘Not Google’ Segment: This ‘Non-Google’ organic search
segment shows you data only where you do have perfect keyword
data from other search engines that you can act on.
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32. PAID TOOLS
Solutions to Make the Most of the New Reality
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33. Any questions?