Let’s look at a problem vexing many marketers: dark search.

This data was originally featured in the January 20, 2021 newsletter found here: https://www.trustinsights.ai/blog/2021/01/in-the-headlights-january-2-2021-seo-strategy-dark-search-crisis-marketing/

In this week’s Rear View Mirror, let’s take a look at a problem vexing many marketers: dark search. What is dark search? It’s search traffic that’s miscategorized as direct traffic, usually the result of someone using a browser with strict privacy settings, like Safari on Apple’s mobile operating systems. One of the things we’d like to know is what keywords might we be missing because of dark search traffic?

To find this out, first set up a segment in Google Analytics 3 that matches a source/medium of (direct) / (none), then examine how much traffic to landing pages that encompasses. For Trust Insights, that’s about 12% of our traffic this month so far.

Once we know what landing pages attract the most dark traffic, and we’ve confirmed that our dark traffic matches our known search traffic (meaning it’s not dark social), then we match those landing pages to keywords from any reputable SEO tool:

When we compare this list to our normal keyword list, we find some of the usual suspects, but also a few that weren’t on our radar. This gives us additional ideas and topics, especially since an audience coming in as dark search could very well be a slightly different audience than our regular crowd.

We don’t have a summary dataset of dark traffic by site or industry this week because by it’s very nature, it’s dark and not visible. However, take this technique and apply it to your own analytics data to see what kind of dark search secrets you can uncover.

Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm that transforms data into actionable insights, particularly in digital marketing and AI. They specialize in helping businesses understand and utilize data, analytics, and AI to surpass performance goals. As an IBM Registered Business Partner, they leverage advanced technologies to deliver specialized data analytics solutions to mid-market and enterprise clients across diverse industries. Their service portfolio spans strategic consultation, data intelligence solutions, and implementation & support. Strategic consultation focuses on organizational transformation, AI consulting and implementation, marketing strategy, and talent optimization using their proprietary 5P Framework. Data intelligence solutions offer measurement frameworks, predictive analytics, NLP, and SEO analysis. Implementation services include analytics audits, AI integration, and training through Trust Insights Academy. Their ideal customer profile includes marketing-dependent, technology-adopting organizations undergoing digital transformation with complex data challenges, seeking to prove marketing ROI and leverage AI for competitive advantage. Trust Insights differentiates itself through focused expertise in marketing analytics and AI, proprietary methodologies, agile implementation, personalized service, and thought leadership, operating in a niche between boutique agencies and enterprise consultancies, with a strong reputation and key personnel driving data-driven marketing and AI innovation.