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Tracking Encrypted Yahoo Search with Google Analytics

February 26, 2014
by Gradiva Couzin

By now you have heard, and may have seen, that Yahoo is now starting to encrypt its search data. Many of the more popular news outlets have already discussed Yahoo’s transition to the new age of encrypted search, and you can read up about it in more detail via this link: Yahoo Makes Secure Search The Default

As with Google, Yahoo is no longer passing the search query from the user, but on top of that, it is no longer coming into Google Analytics as Organic traffic. This is a bit of a pain when you’d like to keep your marketing channels in their respective corners. What does the new encrypted Yahoo come in as? We heard early reports that Yahoo would not send any referrer data, and you’d see an increase in Direct traffic. However, from what we have seen reviewing Yahoo search and our Analytics data, this does not appear to be the case.

At this time, Yahoo appears to be sending referrer data that can still be identified within Google Analytics under the domain: r.search.yahoo.com. So, Yahoo is being categorized as a Referral source as seen in the image below:

Given that Yahoo is sending still sending a referral source, we can grab hold of that and categorize it as Organic traffic within Google Analytics.

The first method you may try is to set it up as a new Organic Search Source which is easily done with Universal Analytics. Unfortunately, this method is not possible as a required component for this setup is a query parameter which is not present in Yahoo’s referring URL.

The next option to try (and the one that worked for us) is to use Google Tag Manager to specify the traditional UTM tracking fields based on the referral source. This setup is pretty simple if you are currently using Google Tag Manager to manage your Google Analytics code. If you don’t know what Google Tag Manager is, check out the site for more details: https://www.google.com/tagmanager/

Steps to Track Yahoo Search in Google Analytics with Google Tag Manager

1. Create a new Rule based on Yahoo’s referrer information: r.search.yahoo.com

2. Create a new Tag for Google Analytics and set it up as a Page View. We are using Universal Analytics, but this should be applicable to Classic Google Analytics as well. Below are the following details you will want to specify:

Under “Fields to Set”

campaignKeyword : (not provided)
campaignMedium : organic
campaignSource : yahoo (encrypted)

Set the Firing Rule to the Yahoo Search rule you previously created. Below are the full details of our tag:

3. To avoid firing the Analytics code twice on the page, you will want to add a Blocking Rule to the main Tag that executes your Google Analytics code. The Blocking Rule you will add is the same rule you created in the first step for the Yahoo referrer.

4. When the new and updated tags and rules are saved, create and publish the new version.

5. Verify! Easiest method is to visit Yahoo, search for your site and view Real-Time tracking within Google Analytics. If all went according to plan, you should see something like this:

If all stays the same on Yahoo’s end, you’ll now start seeing this Yahoo traffic appear under the Organic channels in Google Analytics reporting.

If Yahoo changes the way it processes the encrypted search, this method may no longer work. As you may have heard as well, Bing is starting to encrypt its data; as of now, it is currently optional and still evolving. Unfortunately, the method Bing is using at this moment does not pass any referrer data to most sites, causing their search traffic to come in as Direct traffic. The only work-around is to place your entire site on HTTPS in order to identify Bing’s referring properties. The reason for this is due to browsers not passing information when a site goes from HTTPS to HTTP. In Bing’s instance, unlike Google and Yahoo, they are directing their traffic directly from the HTTPS source.

We hope this helps you start tracking Yahoo as Organic traffic again. And, let us know if you are seeing different behavior from Yahoo than we are seeing.

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Guest Blogging Pointers in the Age of Link Building…

July 16, 2013
by Jennifer Grappone

If you’re working on link building for your website, chances are you’ve thought about guest blogging. Moz reports that guest blogging has seen a “meteoric” increase in 2012 and 2013, and is expected to continue on as a heavy-use tactic over the next year.

But some wonder whether guest blogging is an effective tactic, and if it is now, how long it will remain one. The same Moz survey I just mentioned found that there is a lot of uncertainty in the SEO community about which link building tactics are helpful, and which are harmful. As anyone who’s spent even five minutes following Matt Cutts probably knows, Google’s typical stance for any SEO tactic is that website owners should create high-quality content, provide an excellent user experience, and avoid trying to manipulate links for ranks. Guest blogging often falls outside of those parameters, and in fact Search Engine Land points out that Google’s advice to guest bloggers is to nofollow links when the goal of guest blogging is to build links.

We think guest blogging can benefit your site in terms of driving targeted traffic, improving search visibility for your brand, and if you’re careful to stay out of questionable territory, may even benefit your site’s ranks.

Here are some pointers for your guest blogging efforts:

Write guest posts for high-quality sites that are relevant to your industry and website content. It’s better to write guest posts for a variety of sites rather than writing multiple guest posts on the same site.
Google looks for quality signals, so the article should not be terribly short, keyword stuffed, or very similar in content to another post you’ve published elsewhere.
If possible, get a link back to your site. Whether you work in a link to your home page or deeper pages depends on the content of the blog post – go by what is most useful for your reader. It is not necessary to focus too much on keywords in your links, and it is not advisable to link to your site using the same keyword in the anchor text multiple times – this can be perceived as spammy.
You should not accept payment for guest blog posts, or submit a post to a site that is known for paying for guest posts. (Or, if you do, make sure the payment is disclosed and the link is tagged with “nofollow.”) Google does not want to reward the practice of paying for guest blog posts, so any paid guest blog post that links back to your site probably won’t help your ranks and – without appropriate disclosure and tagging – could even have negative ramifications.
If you can, set up Google+ authorship for every guest blog post (this will cause the author’s photo to be seen in the search results, and can provide other SEO benefits). Here’s an excerpt from The Ultimate Guest Blogger’s Guide for 2013: “More blogs are beginning to support authorship markup, so in many cases, you just need to provide your Google+ profile link to them, or link to it from your byline and list their root domain in the ‘Contributor to’ section of your [Google+] profile.”

Feel free to add your favorite guest blogging tips in the comments!

Tracking Encrypted Yahoo Search with Google Analytics

Guest Blogging Pointers in the Age of Link Building…

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