Proof That Google’s Secure Search Now Affects More Users
Did Google just take the next big step in rolling out secure search? It certainly looks that way.
Note: Skip to the bottom of the post for the 11/2 update.
Since our team went through the process last week to exclude all ”(not provided)” traffic from SEER’s Search profiles, the change was obvious this morning. Looking at individual sites, we quickly saw the trend of ”(not provided)” traffic increasing. Upon further analysis, “(not provided)” traffic increased for every site, but by varying degrees.
How big was this increase? The graphs below look at the impact of the change on 37 sites. Comparing yesterday (10/31) to the previous Monday, 27 of the sites had over 100% increase in ”(not provided)” traffic. We looked at the data in a second way, as well. Looking at yesterday’s visits compared to the average daily traffic driven by “(not provided)” last week, 30 of the sites had an increase over 100%.
The full breakdown across 37 sites is as follows:
The biggest percent increase observed was actually our own site. seerinteractive.com had a 625% increase in ”(not provided)” traffic, comparing 10/31 to last Monday. We also saw one site that received 2300 “(not provided)” visits in all of last week, but 1100 yesterday alone.
Key Takeaway – Google is rolling out the new secure search to more users, and we all need to be prepared for the outcome.
For anyone who wants to run through the same process for your sites, here’s the methodology that was used across over 75 initial sites:
- Gathered total “(not provided)” traffic from Monday through Friday last week
- Used Monday through Friday so lower weekend traffic wouldn’t affect the data
- Pulled the ”(not provided)” traffic from last Monday and yesterday
- Calculated average daily ”(not provided)” traffic
- Any sites that did not exceed an average of five ”(not provided)” visits per day in this time period were omitted from the remainder of the analysis.
- Although there were very interesting observations to be found in this data, the initial numbers were too low to provide a significant enough value, and we already had strong enough data from the remaining sites to complete the analysis.
- The remaining 37 sites span a wide variety of industries.
- Compared yesterday’s (10/31) traffic to last Monday (10/24) and compared yesterday’s traffic to the average daily ”(not provided)” visits last week
- Calculated and graphed percent change for each
11/2 Update
This update was partially sparked by AJ Kohn and from wanting to share additional metrics to add context, especially with what we saw this morning.
Yesterday’s post jumped the gun. The big spike we observed was either the result of Google rolling out the changes midday Monday or releasing more users to secure search yesterday. Looking at yesterday’s data, saying the “(not provided)” numbers jumped is an understatement. Since we’ve already seen evidence that this is rolling out, let’s evaluate the actual impact rather than looking at data the same way we did yesterday.
The following chart breaks down the same 37 sites listed above, looking at the percent of yesterday’s Google organic traffic that came in with “(not provided)” in lieu of the actual keywords:
Out of the 37 sites, 16 had over 10% of the Google organic traffic come from “(not provided)” and one of the sites was at 21.05%. Far more than the single digit impact that was estimated early on.
Did you see a big increase in ”(not provided)” traffic yesterday, as well? Share your thoughts in the comments below or via Twitter – @rachaelgerson.
Many thanks to @BrettASnyder for his help both pulling the data and going through ideas for this post, and for convincing me this should be a short blog post, not a quick Tweet.
Posted: 11.01.11
Kristi:
One of my sites was 21 yesterday and only 10 last Monday. 100% increase
Brian:
1-2% of searches my ass Google. They lumped international traffic into their original estimates to lower the percentage. The majority of online US marketers cant do anything with international traffic.
Keith:
Very interesting. Right now most people are still reporting 2-3% blocked referring keywords, I’m guessing that number is about to skyrocket.
Joe Montgomery:
I think the evidence definitely points to a swift rollout… I keep hearing more and more about it, I have yet to analyze my own data and determine what affect it is actually having.
Adrian:
We saw in increase of (not provided) in the past few days and were shocked to see that it just wasn’t us down here.
Doc Sheldon:
While none of my sites have yet seen anything exceeding a 4% drop, I am hearing more and more from others that are seeing that percentage climb exponentially. This has all the earmarks of something that could get very ugly for some folks. But since those of us looking at this from a technical standpoint are a very small minority of G’s users, I suspect we’ll just have to grin and bear it.
Personally, I’m not grinning yet.
Jeremy:
I too noted a substantial increase in ‘term not provided’ visitors. It went from ~3% to ~11% for me.
Ryan Fortin:
My personal sites have seen about a 100% increase from encrypted searches just from monday to tuesday. The worst part about SSL search is that its going to hit small business owners the worst.
Ian:
What REALLY scares me is what’s going to happen on mobile. How many people on Android are NOT logged in to Google? Seriously?
Daniel:
A 266% increase on the 31st, an 18% increase on the 1st and a 69% increase yesterday. So, that is a week on week increase of 266%. Excellent news!!!!!
Tad Chef:
What industries, niches or verticals are the sites in? I guess technology sites for example will have a higher number of logged in visitors.
Mark:
I saw a huge spike october 30 to november 1st, over 112% increase in logged-in users
Derek Edmond:
We are doing greater benchmarking this week as well but I am finding interesting initial patterns in what we believe is the type of demographic using a client site (or searching for terms related to the client).
For example, one technology-centric client has a percentage well above 10% in terms of keyword impact, whereas a much less “techie” client (at least their presumed audience) is well below 5%.
Interesting numbers – I’ll try to share more as we dig deeper
viggen:
…so Analytics jumped the shark, who needs that incomplete garbage now`?
Rachael Gerson:
@Kristi – Did you see a bigger spike in the last two days, as well?
@Brian – That makes sense. I was searching for the “single digit” quote from Google because so many of the sites I looked at exceeded that number, and we’re still not seeing the full roll out.
@Keith – Agreed! I’ve also seen some people calculating the number out of total organic search, rather than limiting it to just Google.
@Joe – Would love to hear once you get to analyze, as well. In the meantime, setting up GA Alerts to notify when (not provided) visits jump by x% is a good, painless way to get that early notification.
@Adrian – Sad to say we saw an effect on every site, too. Many were left out of the analysis because the (not provided) numbers were too low for the initial analysis.
Terry Van Horne:
Keep in mind that there are likely huge differences in “not provided” from one industry to the next. IMO if you are not watching this like a hawk for your clients you are dropping the ball. This isn’t just that they aren’t giving us data… they are… just not referral data. What they are telling us is the degree that Social, local and personal search are affecting a query space…Strongly suggest looking past the big picture and mapping pages to keywords so you have a good idea of the query “theme” or type of query that is driving the SERP.
Turgay:
Great analysis there Rachael and team, currently over in the UK we are also seeing the no provided traffic increase but not at the depth yet (mostly google.co.uk searches).
Thanks for sharing learning’s will come in handy when it hits globally!
Rachael Gerson:
@Doc Sheldon – Grinning yet? :) I’d actually love to hear what your percent looks like from the past few days, if you’re able to share.
@Jeremy – Wow, sorry to hear.
@Ryan – Painful, right? The % increases have been just insane, looking at Tuesday and Wednesday data compared to the previous week. My initial charts were based on Monday traffic, which was actually significantly lower than Tuesday/Wednesday.
@Ian – Oh good call. Looking at several sites, NONE of the (not provided) visits are from mobile. For one site in particular, 64% of their Overall traffic is from mobile. Wonder what will happen to their data if/when this rolls out to mobile.
@Daniel – Yay!! :-/
@Tad – Great question! They run the gamut. We looked internally at the industries to see where the effect is strongest and weakest. The 37 sites that ended up being included in the analysis did not have any overlap. (SEER does not work with competing organizations simultaneously.) The finance industry appeared to have the most minimal impact so far, with our own site having the greatest impact.
@Mark – Crazy, and just going up from there.
Rachael Gerson:
@Derek – Please do share! I just shared some of our internal info in the comment to Ian. Let me know if I can help at all with your analysis, as well.
@Viggen – I’ll still take whatever I can get, and do my best to get useful info from the rest of it. Not a fan of flying blind.
@Terry – Good call! Check out our last post on the topic (http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/dealing-with-not-provided/2011/10/25/), as well.
@Turgay – Thanks, happy to share!
Fraser Cain:
Hi Rachael, we’re detecting 9% encrypted searches across 1,800 websites in our system.
https://www.keywordstrategy.org/1091/9-of-search-queries-were-encrypted-last-week/
Nancy:
My website also got more visit from “not provided” keyword, substantially its visit percentage is increase day by day and most of the visit came from US.
I had noted that this type of issue happen after integrate my site’s WMT account to Google Analytics. Is it true?..
@rachaelgerson what’s your opinion…
Cody Baird:
Most of my clients are dentists. I have been shocked at the increase for all of them. It is very frustrating because GA data for dentists is already thin as it is. UG