Brand Rules

In this guide you will learn what brand rules are in Moz Pro and how they impact your data. We will also cover how to add and remove brand rules as well as how to make exceptions to the rules to better tailor your data.

Quick Links

• Overview of Brand Rules in Moz Pro
• Adding Brand Rules
• Deleting Brand Rules
• Brand Rules and Tracked Keywords
• Keyword Exceptions
• Brand Rules and Site Traffic

Within your Moz Pro Campaign, Brand Rules are used to help identify which of your keywords are Branded and Non-Branded. Additionally, they help the tool in determining the number of Non-Branded Keyword Visits in your Site Traffic.

The first Brand Rule for your Campaign is determined during Campaign creation, when you are asked to identify your brand and name your Campaign.

If you find that the brand designation you entered during Campaign creation isn’t accurately capturing your Branded keywords or if you have additional terms and phrases associated with your brand you’d like to add as rules, you can edit your Brand Rules within your Campaign Settings at any time.

If you ever need to add additional Brand Rules to your Campaign to help better define what keywords are marked as Branded you can do so via your Campaign Settings.

To add Brand Rules, follow these steps:

1. From your Campaign Settings, click Rankings
2. Scroll down to Manage Brand Rules
3. Click Add Rule
4. Select either Include terms that contain or Exclude terms that contain
5. Enter your term or phrase
6. Click Add Rule

If you have multiple words and/or phrases you would like to enter as Brand Rules, they will each need to be added separately using the same process. Once created, the new Brand Rules will be automatically applied to your Tracked Keywords, and all keywords that fit the new rules will be tagged as Branded.

Please note: There is no ability to edit existing Brand Rules. If you need to edit an existing Brand Rule, you will need to create a new rule for the updated word or phrase and then delete the old Brand Rule. Please see below for more information on how to remove Brand Rules.

If you no longer need a specific Brand Rule in your Campaign Settings for any reason, you can delete it. This will remove the Branded tag from any keywords that fit that particular rule. If a keyword fits more than one rule, it will remain tagged unless all applicable rules are removed.

To delete Brand Rules, follow these steps:

1. From your Campaign Settings, click Rankings
2. Scroll down to Manage Brand Rules
3. Select the Brand Rules you want to delete using the check boxes on the left
4. Click Delete

Please note: When you add/remove Brand Rules, your historical traffic data in Moz around Non-Branded Keyword Visits updates to match your new rules. This will not impact the traffic data in your Google Analytics account.

Once you have your Brand Rules in place, you will be able to compare the Search Visibility of your Branded versus Non-Branded keywords over time in your Rankings section. This can help you get a better understanding of how your site is performing for tracked keywords that are or are not brand-related so you’re able to make decisions around your SEO strategy.

You will also have the opportunity to add or remove the Branded tag for keywords that might fall outside your specified Brand Rules.

• Learn more about segmenting your Rankings data
• Learn more about Search Visibility
• Learn more about adding keyword labels
• Learn more about removing keyword labels

If you add or remove the Branded label from keywords within your Tracked Keywords Overview, you can keep track of those changes in your Campaign Settings under Keyword Exceptions. This can help you further tailor the branding in your Campaign and better hone your data.

Keywords you have labeled as branded - This list consists of keywords you have manually tagged as Branded because they fell outside the scope of your designated Brand Rules.

Keywords where you have removed the branded label - This list consists of keywords that were automatically tagged as Branded based on the Brand Rules designated in your Campaign Settings, but from which you have manually removed the Branded tag.

If you ever want to undo an action noted in these lists, click the x beside the keyword. Doing so will revert the keyword back to its original branding designation based on your Brand Rules.

Within the Site Traffic section of your Campaign, Brand Rules are used to determine the Non-Branded Keyword Visits noted in the Visits view of Traffic from Organic Search.

This count represents the number of visits to your site from search engines originating from keywords not tagged as Branded based on your Brand Rules. Traffic data (Visits) is pulled in from your connected Google Analytics account. Estimated visits by keyword are further outlined in the Landing Pages section of Rankings.

Please note: Google does not provide keyword data, which can make it more difficult to determine which keywords are sending traffic to your site and your pages. Keyword visit counts may be low as a result of this.

• Learn more about Site Traffic
• Learn more about Landing Pages