Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Why are plus signs (+) suddenly showing up in Google Analytics organic search keywords reports?
-
Since June 13, 2013, the number of organic search queries containing a plus sign (+) has gone up over 1,000% compared to the previous period on my site in Google Analytics.
These plus signs appear to be taking the place of spaces in these search queries (i.e. "word1+word2+word3").
This appears to be almost (or completely) Google organic traffic, not other search engines.
Since I highly doubt searcher behavior would change so suddenly, I'm trying to figure out why Google is replacing spaces with plus signs.
Is anyone else seeing this? Any ideas?
-
Thanks for the regex insight, Mark.
I haven't been able to find a common denominator yet, but I'll keep looking.
-
Not sure why this is growing recently, but when learning regex for Google Analytics with the awesome LunaMetrics regex guide, I remember coming across the need to write brand names for advanced segments and to cover the possibility of two words being written with or without a space. Don't remember exactly where I saw it, but since then I've been writing them this way (\s|+), if I were writing seomoz for a brand advanced segment, and wanted to cover seo moz and seomoz, I would do it seo(\s|+)?moz
Basically, the regex for a space is \s, but analytics sometimes treats spaces as +, so to cover your bases, you do it either with a \s or a +.
My point is, this has been around for a while - not sure why the sudden increase, but I know this has been around for quite a bit. Maybe try drilling down a bit and seeing if you can find a common denominator here about the traffic and what is causing it.
Mark
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Strange landing page in Google Analytics
Hello MOZ Community, The website in question is https://x-y.com/ When i looked at the landing pages report in GA , x-y.com is appended at the end of every URL like this. https://x-y.com/x-y.com When i open the above URL in GA interface, it shows page not found. This is obvious as there is no such URL.
Reporting & Analytics | | Johnroger
The metrics like sessions, Users, Bounce rate all look good. In the property settings, The default URL is written like this http:// cell-gate.com (Please note that s is missing in property settings). But how is traffic tracked correctly How do i solve this problem. What settings should we change to make the landing pages report look ok Thanks0 -
Attribution of conversions to payment gateway in Google Analytics
Hi all, We have been having a problem for a while now where most transactions are attributed to referrals from our payment gateway Sagepay. The issue started a couple of months ago, when we finally upgraded our website to https:// for logged in users and transactions. Before, when we were using http://, transactions were attributed to the correct channel. Even weirder, we upgraded 4 websites and only 2 of them have the issue now, the other two continue to attribute transactions correctly. I added Sagepay to the referral exclusion list which made no difference. Over the weekend, we upgraded to the global site tag and it seems to have improved somewhat, but yesterday 50% of transactions were still attributed to referral/sagepay. I am also seeing an odd issue, where for half of the transactions, the revenue and transaction are attributed to one channel, but the products (quantity) are attributed to another. One of the channels is always referral/sagepay and the other is the channel that the transaction should be attributed to. Has anyone seen this issue before? I'd appreciate any tips that might help us fix this issue. Thanks in advance!
Reporting & Analytics | | ViviCa10 -
Tasks for Google Analytics training
Hi Mozzers, I'm delivering some Google Analytics (Fundamentals level) training, and trying to make it was fun and as interesting as possible... which is quite a challenge when it comes to GA. I was just wondering if you're aware of training tasks, or interactions, I could bring into this kind of training session? The group are particularly interested in user journeys and the effectiveness of content. Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | A_Q0 -
Google Analytics reporting traffic for 404 pages
Hi guys, Unique issue with google analytics reporting for one of our sites. GA is reporting sessions for 404 pages (landing pages, organic traffic) e.g. for this page: http://www.milkandlove.com.au/breastfeeding-dresses/index.php the page is currently a 404 page but GA (see screenshot) is reporting organic traffic (to the landing page). Does anyone know any reasons why this is happening? Cheers. http://www.milkandlove.com.au/breastfeeding-dresses/index.php GK0zDzj.jpg
Reporting & Analytics | | jayoliverwright2 -
Did Analytics change the way to handle Google images searches on Dec 12?
Dear all, One of the sites I'm monitoring receives a lot of traffic from image searches or images that appear in universal search results. On Dec 12th, 2015, the bounce rate for these sessions went from around 30% the day before to around 87%. See screen shot below. Did anybody notice similar bounces in the bounce rate? Did Google change something in the way that image search is handled? Looking forward to your ideas! large?v=mpbl-1&px=999
Reporting & Analytics | | AABMarketing_Frank0 -
New GSC Search Analytics report: position mixes web and image
Dear all, I am auditing a site in Google Seach Console (GSC, formerly Google Webmaster Tools) and find the Position data in the new Search Analytics report very, very improbable. I suspect that even if you filter by "SearchType = web", the Position data does count the ranking of images in the Image search widget as a search position. Has anybody observed this as well? Here is the case: the site targets a quite broad search query in the bath room domain. I have made a number of searches with private browser sessions, different browsers, alternative IP address via a VPN, etc, and the look of the search result in the relevant geographical market is consistently the following. Three Adwords ads #1 organic result Images universal results widget #2-10 organic results The site’s first page ranks consistently around #15 of the organic results, hence on the second SERP. But it also consistently has an image in the Images universal results widget (usually #2 or #3). This is consistent with the data I have in Moz Analytics. Yet, the GSC Search Analytics report shows 2.2 as average position with the default SearchType=Web setting. I have done the search over and over, and never has a PAGE of the site ranked that high. Is there any public information how exactly the position is calculated? I mean, something more precise than the very general information on https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6155685?hl=en Is there any way to get the correct position/ranking? Thanks for sharing your experience!
Reporting & Analytics | | QRN0 -
How to identify rising keywords in analytics?
Hi Guys I just spotted in the Google Analytics > Traffic Sources > Search Engine Optimisation > Queries section a keyword that on the 27th Feb went from generating 35 impressions per day to 2000 impressions per day. This was down to people searching for a newly launched product. Does anyone know how I can identify any increases like this easily? I only came across this by accident, and I am 1 month behind the times. It would have been ideal to pick this up closer to the time so I could capitalise and write some great content on the topic. Thanks Paul
Reporting & Analytics | | TheUniqueSEO0 -
Google Analytics for example.com and www.example.com
Hello. I have had a Google Analytics account set up to track the property www.example.com for several years. In Google Webmaster Tools, I recently set the preferred domain to example.com (without the www), and we put in a rewrite from www to no-www in the .htaccess file. Should I now change the url of the property in Google Analytics to example.com (without the www), or does Google Analytics see the two urls as the same? Thank you!
Reporting & Analytics | | nyc-seo0