Secure Searches in Google – Keyword Data Blocked in Analytics

Google has made an announcement, which might come as a shock to all SEOs. Google has however, sugar coated this statement very carefully by stating that it is making all the keyword searches secure. What does Google mean by this? When a signed in users make a search in Google their keyword search details will not be passed on to the Google analytics. Google states that it is protecting the privacy of the signed in users. Ultimately, what is happening here is that the website owners or the webmasters will not be getting any keyword information on what brought the visitor to the website. As an SEO expert or as a business owner you are going to be blindfolded. You will not be able to know what strategies are working and what strategies are not working in terms of driving traffic to your website.

This change is applicable only to organic searches. If the users are going to click the Adwords listing and come to your website, then Google will pass on the keyword information to your analytics account. This clearly shows the double standard of Google. If privacy is the issue then whether you are paying for Adwords or not should not affect the internet user who is in no way part of the loop. Web analysts opine that this new move to block organic search keyword data is only an effort to boost the Adwords revenue by Google. If you want to see the keywords data then you had better pay for it.

When a signed in user comes to your website through organic search, Google will display a note that states, “Not Provided”. This is a very important move by Google and this certainly does not work for the best interests of the SEOs and webmasters. You will have to now have a round about way of finding out what brought your traffic. This applies not only to Google Analytics data but also to all the other analytics tools that you may be using. Google simply does not pass on this information to any tool that one may be using.

You are required to revisit your strategies to understand your Google traffic better. Google however will pass on the other details such as the referral data like from where they came to your website, etc. This could be your last resort to identify what keywords could have brought the users to your website.

Another way to have a clear understanding of your Google traffic is to first have a clear understanding of your own ranking. Rank tracking becomes even more crucial here. You should know what are the keywords that are ranking better in Google. Here, you may not know what keywords exactly brought the visitor to your website but you will know at least what keywords could have brought the visitor to your website. Google cannot take away this piece of information from you at any point of time.

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