How To See Traffic Affected By iOS6 Switch To Secure Search

UPDATE: iOS7 has ushered in the return of organic traffic. My friend, Shahzad Abbas, broke the story on the Define Media Group blog. This is fantastic news!

When Apple’s iOS6 update hit the market in late September, there was one fallout: referrer data in analytics. You can read the back story on the issue. What I’m going to focus on is how to find out how your site has been affected.

Custom Report …

I created a custom report that will help you isolate traffic from iOS devices using the Safari browser. You can see under the hood of the custom report here:

Plus Advanced Segments …

When you open the custom report in Google Analytics you will need to apply two advanced segments to see the rise of direct and demise of organic traffic to your site as a result of the switch to encrypted search. Don’t worry. You don’t have to create them from scratch. We’re just going to use Direct and Nonpaid Search Traffic, like such:

 

Equals Sobering Realization Of More Data Lost (Thanks, Goog!)

Jerks.

Update

I did a video tutorial of how to create a custom report in Google Analytics so that you can feel empowered to go forth and customize.

Update 2

I updated the custom report to include iphone, ipod, and ipad operating systems — what Apple labeled them before June 2012. Hat tip to AJ Kohn for pointing that out in this fantastic post.