startup hustle

In mid-October Google announced that all searches conducted while a user is logged into their account will be secured with SSL encryption. Technically not a big deal, till Google mentioned that all organic searches would not pass keyword data to Google Analytics. Instead, GA would show (not provided) in the keyword column. While this extremely valuable information would now be hidden, Google said that it should only be about 10% of the total keyword volume. Lets see how close to 10% we are.

The graph above is looking at three different sites keyword (not provided) percentages. The sites referenced in the graph are all sites I work with and have access to the GA accounts. The ecommerce site is targeted to a technical audience that you would expect have a high google account ratio. It topped out at 12.44% of organic search keywords (not provided). The informational site is targeted to a very non-technical audience but is still seeing a 12%+ (not provided). Bringing home the gold is this blog, with over 32% of all organic search keywords not being reported. Awesome (lame).

Of the 3 sites I have solid statistics for (n=3, which is a not so large sample size), all break the 10% keyword (not provided) estimate provided by Google. There are a few (ton) other sites showing the same high percentages for secured searches. A rough running average bring reported is between 12% to 15%. Now if you are buying search traffic (paid search) Google will still give you all the keyword data in GA. Wonder if that is a not so subtle hint?