Organic traffic has been a key growth driver for online businesses in recent years. Search remains fascinating even when — especially when — the data is incomplete. And it is always incomplete.
SEO as Design Thinking
SEO has evolved considerably and I have written about it multiple times. The number of times the algorithm changes and the rate of evolution of what Google considers quality content prevents establishing a steady, rules-based SEO process. But SEO involves a fair amount of design thinking. The problem behind search visibility keeps changing — it is a wicked problem. Design thinking can address such problems through its test-and-iterate mechanism.
The Data Gaps
Search data has faced persistent challenges since Google’s 2011 encrypted search announcement, which created significant gaps in Google Analytics. As Google Search expands on mobile and digital privacy increases, the percentage of data with clear visibility will keep going down. This is a trend, not a glitch.
What to Do About It
Don’t panic. Work with the documented anomalies list and identify which ones affect you most. Understanding which data gaps exist is more valuable than assuming completeness.
In iterative analysis, the first comparison is always your previous state. Since both periods contain similar data limitations, week-on-week comparisons are more valuable than competitor comparisons. As long as success metrics use the same tool consistently, anomalies cancel out. For most analytical work, we do not need precise data — we can work with coarse data, clearly labelled.