Google Keyword "Not Provided" is this action by Google OK?

[invendio]

I'm not sure if you noticed it on your stats but since October last your a more and more popular keyword seems to break the stats... it is "not provided"... who would search on this???


Well truth is it is not a keyword... rather it is missing tracking data. Google announced October 18th last year that it would begin encrypting search queries with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) as the default experience at Google.com for users who are logged in to their Google accounts.
As you can see on the graphics it is a significant part of the organic traffic on one of my sites and I think it sucks... I simply cant use this data as I was used to to learn about what keywords users search on when arriving at my site.
There are many rumors about why Google did this and I'm not going to take part in this blame game but I would like to hear your opinion about this... is it OK? Is Google breaking the "rules" here and go against the entire SEO industry?... Is it time to focus on other search engines before google increase this 10-15% to something close to 100% leaving us in complete blindness... effectively killing SEO?

[Nomar]

Interesting, I noticed it too and first I thought I had spyware on my site, but its not.. I don't know why they do this.... its just weird

[ghazia]

When the user is in login and searches for some keywords and reach your site, the keyword will not be displayed in your analytics account.

[jimimartin52]

I'm not sure if you noticed it on your stats but since October last your a more and more popular keyword seems to break the stats... it is "not provided"... who would search on this???


Well truth is it is not a keyword... rather it is missing tracking data. Google announced October 18th last year that it would begin encrypting search queries with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) as the default experience at Google.com for users who are logged in to their Google accounts.
As you can see on the graphics it is a significant part of the organic traffic on one of my sites and I think it sucks... I simply cant use this data as I was used to to learn about what keywords users search on when arriving at my site.
There are many rumors about why Google did this and I'm not going to take part in this blame game but I would like to hear your opinion about this... is it OK? Is Google breaking the "rules" here and go against the entire SEO industry?... Is it time to focus on other search engines before google increase this 10-15% to something close to 100% leaving us in complete blindness... effectively killing SEO?

Thanks ,good posting.

[willsondany]

Now firefox too has decided to provide "not provided" for keywords which are searched by typing in address bar and keywords searched in google's firefox page(google.com/firefox). This may be also a reason for more "not provided" keywords in analytics.