{"id":21281,"date":"2020-01-30T13:00:52","date_gmt":"2020-01-30T13:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/glosario-digital\/not-provided"},"modified":"2026-09-20T12:49:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T12:49:15","slug":"not-provided","status":"publish","type":"encyclopedia","link":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/not-provided","title":{"rendered":"Not Provided"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"boxpad alignright wp-image-14688 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/not_provided.png\" alt=\"Not Provided\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/not_provided.png 300w, https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/not_provided-150x150.png 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Definition:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Not Provided<\/strong> is the label used in web analytics when a visit comes from Google&#8217;s organic search results but the specific query entered by the user is unavailable. The system may identify the channel and landing page without showing the keyword that led to the session.<\/p>\n<p>The term became widely known through Google Analytics as Google expanded encrypted search. Instead of passing the query in referral information, the search engine began withholding it to protect user privacy. The value commonly appears as &#8220;(not provided)&#8221; and relates to organic search, not every traffic source.<\/p>\n<p>Not Provided does not mean that the visit contains no data or that the query did not exist. <strong>It means that the query cannot be directly linked to the session in the analytics report.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n<h2>How Not Provided occurs<\/h2>\n<p>When a person visits a website from an organic result, the browser requests the landing page and passes certain information about the source. With secure HTTPS search, Google stopped including the query in this referral data. Google Analytics could attribute the visit to organic search but could not identify the expression entered in the search engine.<\/p>\n<p>The change began in 2011 for users signed in to their Google Accounts and was gradually expanded. <strong>Encryption protects the query during browsing and prevents the destination website from receiving it as part of the referral information.<\/strong> It is not a block applied by the website owner or a tagging failure.<\/p>\n<p>The interface and dimensions in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/google-analytics\">Google Analytics<\/a> have changed over time, but the underlying limitation remains: session data and search-performance data come from different systems and cannot be freely joined at user level.<\/p>\n<h2>Impact on SEO analysis<\/h2>\n<p>Before encrypted search, analytics reports could connect many organic visits with a keyword. Not Provided reduced that granularity and changed the focus of analysis:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Query attribution:<\/strong> Each organic Google session cannot be associated with the exact query that generated it.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Content evaluation:<\/strong> Performance needs to be assessed through landing pages, topic groups, conversions and trends, rather than session keywords alone.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Conversion interpretation:<\/strong> An organic conversion can be attributed to the channel and landing page, but not necessarily to a particular query.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Historical comparison:<\/strong> Reports from before and after the expansion of encrypted search do not provide the same level of detail.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This loss of information does not prevent SEO measurement. <strong>It changes the unit of analysis:<\/strong> the focus moves from an individual keyword-to-session relationship to a combination of aggregated queries, pages, visibility and website outcomes.<\/p>\n<h2>Alternative data sources<\/h2>\n<p>No tool fully recovers the hidden query for every visit. Several sources can nevertheless be combined to analyze organic demand and performance from different perspectives:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Google Search Console:<\/strong> Shows clicks, impressions, CTR and position by query, page, country, device and date. Its data is aggregated, may omit queries for privacy reasons and does not equal Analytics sessions.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Analytics integration:<\/strong> Linking <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/google-search-console\">Google Search Console<\/a> to Analytics makes organic-query and landing-page reports available. Search Console metrics retain their own dimensions and limitations.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Landing pages:<\/strong> Traffic, engagement and conversions by landing page help assess which content answers a need, although they do not prove which query each person used.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Research and tracking:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/keyword-research\">Keyword research<\/a>, SERPs and rank tracking provide estimated demand and visibility. They are external or aggregated measurements, not a way to decrypt Not Provided.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The useful combination depends on the question. Search Console measures presence in Google Search; Analytics examines subsequent behavior on the website; and SEO tools support opportunity research and visibility monitoring.<\/p>\n<h2>Differences from other values<\/h2>\n<p>Not Provided can be confused with other labels shown when information is missing. They do not have the same cause or interpretation:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>&#8220;(not provided)&#8221;:<\/strong> The organic Google query is not passed to the analytics system because of search privacy protections.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;(not set)&#8221;:<\/strong> Analytics has not received or cannot assign a value for a particular dimension. This may be related to collection, configuration or the event type.<\/li>\n<li><strong>&#8220;(data not available)&#8221;:<\/strong> Certain data is not yet available or cannot be displayed in the report under its processing conditions.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/digital-glossary\/query\">query<\/a> is any request submitted to a system. Not Provided specifically describes the absence of the organic search query from a visit&#8217;s analytics data, so it is not a synonym for an unknown query in every context.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Definition: Not Provided is the label used in web analytics when a visit comes from Google&#8217;s organic search results but the specific query entered by the user is unavailable. The system may identify the channel and landing page without showing the keyword that led to the session. The term became widely known through Google Analytics [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"template":"","encyclopedia-tag":[1292],"class_list":["post-21281","encyclopedia","type-encyclopedia","status-publish","hentry","encyclopedia-tag-traffic-measurement"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia\/21281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/encyclopedia"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"encyclopedia-tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arimetrics.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/encyclopedia-tag?post=21281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}