Tuesday, 17 September 2013

Undefined Keyword Spikes In Analytic Reports

By Cindy Rodriguez


If you have been a long while customer of analytics software like Clicky, Google Analytics, or perhaps Piwik you probably observed a rise in undefined keywords. For anyone who is a new comer to the statistics world, maybe you think the programs do not appropriately track keywords.

I had just finished a crucial remodel of a web site. All of a sudden, I began seeing keyword not defined in my Piwik reports. At the time I was not using Google analytics, however I decided I would set it up assuming that my redesign shattered my software program. Once I got Google Analytics establish I saw a whole lot of my visitors originated from "not provided" keyword phrases. Thus the great news was that I had not destroyed my website. But why couldn't I see those keywords and phrases?

Not long ago, Google executed a brand new measure of security for search results. This Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) of protection keeps the user's search info confidential. This can be great to shield your private information. Not so ideal for the webmasters on the other end receiving undefined keywords.

SSL searches are automatically enabled when users are logged into their Google accounts (which includes being logged into Gmail.) Secure searches are also enabled by default on many browsers, including Safari on iPhone. I just checked from my Chrome browser as well as Safari on OS X, while not logged onto Google and searches were secure by default. As you can see, this is causing an increasing number of searches to show up as undefined keyword errors.

I check out the Visitors in Real Time view on Piwik and check out my user's entrance pages. While it still makes use of the undefined keyword, I can observe what page website visitors came into. In the event that the keyword they utilized ranks well on Google it also gives you it's rank number. While this is not the perfect remedy, you will at least get an idea of what individuals may have searched for to land on specific pages of your site.




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