What is com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox?
Note:
- This post talks exclusively about the com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox / referral in the Google Analytics tool.
- The post has nothing to do with the error/message on Androids phones.
Despite its unusual name, com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox is valid traffic coming from Android phones! However, the traffic is displayed in the wrong report. I'll explain a bit why the weird name and most importantly how to put it in the right place
com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox is part of the Google Search app for Android. If you pay attention to the first two words, Android you will see that it's google.com written backward. This is a common way of naming apps in Android. If you check the URL of the Google app in the Play store you will find the same name:
Most applications use a similar naming:
- Twitter app com.twitter.android
- Facebook app com.facebook.katana
What is com.google.android.gm?
com.google.android.gm is another referral that has been showing lately on Google Analytics. This referral comes from the Gmail Android application.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.gm
How to move com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox from referral to organic?
Since this traffic comes from Google Search, it should be cataloged as organic instead of a referral. So you have to create an advanced filter to direct the visit into the right category. To create this filter:
- Go to your Google Analytics Admin tab and select Filters under the last column
- Click on +Add Filter and enter an appropriate name for the filter like "Google Search Android."
- Configure the filter:
- Filter Type: Custom > Advanced
- Field A > Extract A (copy the expression below)
^com\.google\.android\.googlequicksearchbox$
- Field B > Extract B: referral
- Output To > Constructor: organic
- Once everything is set, save your filter
And that's it! Now future traffic coming from com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox will be stored as organic instead of a referral.
Improve the quality of your Analytics data
Answer the following basic questions:
- Do you have filters for ghost, crawler and language spam?
- If yes, Are those filters efficient? meaning you don't have to create/update them constantly.
- Are you blocking good bots and spiders?
- Are you filtering development and test environments?
- Are you filtering internal traffic (traffic generated by you or your team)?
- Do you have a clean segment to remove spam from your historical data?
If any of your answers is "NO," then you probably are getting junk traffic that is corrupting your data.
The following guide will help you set everything your Analytics needs to receive not only clean but also meaningful data! Go to the guide and get your Google Analytics in shape.
