Keyword Data Hidden Behind Not Provided

A keyword report with one keyword

The monthly website report arrives, and the organic keywords table has one entry far ahead of the rest: (not provided). Below it sit a few dozen terms, each with a visit or two.

Compared with the same month a year ago, the keyword list has all but vanished. Read quickly, it looks as though people stopped finding the site through Google.

They did not. The visits are still counted as Google organic search. Only the words people typed are missing, and they are missing on almost every site.

What changed last September

Since 2011, Google has sent searches by signed-in users over secure connections. Last September it moved all of its searches to secure connections, signed in or not.

On a secure search, the browser no longer tells your site which words led to the click. Analytics still sees a visit from Google, and files the missing words under (not provided).

Advertisers still see the searches behind their paid clicks, inside AdWords. For ordinary search clicks, the words stay with Google, which shares only a summary in Webmaster Tools.

Where search terms can still be seen

The words have not vanished everywhere. They have moved to places that show them in a different form:

• Search Queries in Webmaster Tools, the searches your pages appeared for, with impressions, clicks and average position.
• Analytics linked to Webmaster Tools, which shows the same query figures inside Analytics.
• The AdWords search terms report, listing the actual searches behind paid clicks.
• Site search in Analytics, recording the words visitors type into your own search box.
• Enquiries themselves, where people describe what they were looking for in their own words.

None of these is the old keyword list. Together they show which searches bring the site into view, and what people want once they arrive.

Reading the Search Queries report

Search Queries lists the searches your pages appeared for over the past 90 days, with how often each was shown, how often it was clicked, and its average position.

It describes what happens in Google's results, before anyone reaches your site. It cannot say what a visitor did after arriving, so read it beside Analytics, not instead of it.

Because it holds only 90 days, download it at the start of each month. A year of saved files is the closest thing left to the old keyword history.

Landing pages say more than keywords did

With the words hidden, the page a visitor landed on is the best clue to what they wanted. Google matched their search to that page, so the page describes the question.

A visit from Google that lands on a page about winter tire storage came from someone thinking about winter tires, whatever words they typed.

In Analytics, the Landing Pages report shows this once it is limited to Google organic visits. Add what those visitors did next, such as sending an enquiry, and the picture is fuller than any keyword list gave.

One question to a page

Landing pages work as a guide only when each page answers one kind of question. A single services page covering everything blurs which search brought each visitor.

Separate pages for separate needs make the report readable. They suit visitors too, who land on the answer they came for instead of a list of everything.

On a small site, that may mean splitting one long page into three or four, each with its own title.

A worked example

A business valuator works from a small office in Kamloops, valuing private companies for owners planning a sale, partners parting ways, estates and lenders.

Its monthly report from Analytics still led with a keywords table. By December, almost all the search visits sat in one row reading (not provided).

The valuator verified the site in Webmaster Tools and linked it to Analytics. Search Queries showed searches about what a business is worth and about valuations when a partner leaves.

The landing pages told the rest. Most Google visits arrived on one article about valuing a business before a sale, and few reached the services page, which covered all four kinds of work at once.

The report now shows Google visits by landing page and keeps a monthly download of Search Queries. Each kind of valuation has its own page, and the keywords table is gone.

Reports to stop reading

The organic keywords table is the first to go. With one row holding nearly every visit, it describes Google's change more than your visitors.

The count of keywords that sent visits falls on its own, since one label now swallows almost all of them. So does any split between searches for your name and searches for your services.

Year-over-year keyword comparisons that span last September set two different kinds of data side by side. Note the change on any report that crosses it.

No setting brings the words back

Not provided is not a fault in your tracking code, and no change to the code restores it. The words never reach your site, so there is nothing for Analytics to record.

Some tools offer estimates of the hidden keywords, built from other data. An estimate can be useful, as long as it is labelled as one and not read as a record of real searches.

The counter-case

A business running AdWords still sees full search terms for its paid clicks, and those can guide what its pages should say.

But paid terms show only the searches the business chose to bid on. They are not the whole picture of how people look for it.

And a small site that gets only a handful of search visits each month never learned much from its keyword list. For both, the useful questions now go to Webmaster Tools and to the landing pages.

Rebuilding the monthly report

1. Verify the site in Webmaster Tools.
2. Link Webmaster Tools to Analytics.
3. Download Search Queries at the start of each month.
4. Report Google visits by landing page.
5. Turn on site search tracking in Analytics.
6. Drop the organic keywords table from the report.
7. Mark September 2013 on any comparison that crosses it.

Step three is the one to start this month. Webmaster Tools keeps only 90 days of search queries, so every month left unsaved is a month of search data gone for good.

Whether Google has found every page a visitor could land on is the question behind inventory hidden behind the site search form.

Frequently asked questions

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.