“ I T ’ S N O T Y O U , I T ’ S M E ”W H Y L O S I N G G O O G L E K E Y W O R D D A T A I S N ’ T W O R T H T H E H E A R T A C H E

B Y A L E X K I N G

W H AT H A P P E N E D , I T H O U G H T W E W E R E O K AY ?

On September 25th 2013, Google decided to stop providing all keyword data from all Google searches.

Seems sudden, right?

W E L L , I ’ V E B E E N F E E L I N G T H I S WAY F O R A W H I L E .

It started in October 2011, when Google started withholding the keyword data of everyone logged into any kind of Google account. Google said that it was only

going to be a small change.

But then...

In July 2012, Google stopped providing any keyword search data from Firefox 14 and above.

In February 2013, Google stopped providing any keyword search data from Chrome 25 and above.

S O I G U E S S W E’ R E OV E R , T H E N ?

Yes.

But it’s not the end of the world, the end of Internet marketing, or the end of SEO.

K E E P T H I S I N M I N D W H I L E Y O U M O U R N T H E L O S S O F Y O U R K E Y W O R D D A T A

I T WA S N ’ T R E A L LY A G O O DR E L AT I O N S H I P, A N Y WAY.

The average percent of our accounts not provided keywords went from less than 10% on 10/18/2011 to more than 60% on 9/26/13, when keyword data was completely shut down.

K E E P T H I S I N M I N D W H I L E Y O U M O U R N T H E L O S S O F Y O U R K E Y W O R D D A T A

I T WA S N ’ T R E A L LY A G O O DR E L AT I O N S H I P, A N Y WAY.

Between 10-20% of our sites users were coming from Firefox 14 and above, starting on 7/1/12 through 9/26/13

Between 13-23% of our sites users were coming from Chrome 25 and above, starting on 2/1/13 through 9/26/12

I T WA S N ’ T R E A L LY A G O O DR E L AT I O N S H I P, A N Y WAY.

Google’s image carousel for local search was introduced in June 2013, and with it also came some keyword changes.

K E E P T H I S I N M I N D W H I L E Y O U M O U R N T H E L O S S O F Y O U R K E Y W O R D D A T A

I T WA S N ’ T R E A L LY A G O O D R E L AT I O N S H I P, A N Y WAY.

When you click one of the results in the carousel, it revises your search query, instead of taking you directly to the site.

So you weren’t getting the original search query in the first place.

My original query After clicking an image on the carousel

K E E P T H I S I N M I N D W H I L E Y O U M O U R N T H E L O S S O F Y O U R K E Y W O R D D A T A

I T ’ S T I M E TO M OV E O N .

Before Google shut keyword data down, we were already losing at least an average of 61% of your keywords.

When you’re doing research, accuracy results from a representative sample. If you were using keyword data recently, your sample was limited.

Let’s look at this as an opportunity for improvement.

T H E R E A R E O T H E R W A Y S T O G E T Y O U R D A T A

S O , N OW W H AT ?

- Webmaster Tools

- AdWords PPC Data

- A/B Testing

A

B

W E B M A S T E R T O O L S

M OV I N G O N . . .

- Webmaster tools will show you the top 2,000 search queries each day, going back to up to 90 days

- Google has talked about upgrading the data to be available further back

- In the meantime, log this data and your keyword rankings

- The downside:

- You can’t see page or conversion correlation.

SEARCHRESULTS

G O O G L E A D W O R D S P P C

M OV I N G O N . . .

- If you connect your Google Webmaster Tools account to your AdWords account, you can pull in those queries

- The downside: No page or conversion correlation

LILAC YOGA STUDIO?

SANTA MONICABIKRAM

VEGAN

A / B T E S T I N G

M OV I N G O N . . .

- You can perform A/B conversion testing to see what’s working and what’s not.

- You will need to track your keyword rankings to do this. But you should be doing that already, anyway.

- The downside: It may take time for you to get enough data

DOODLE

DRAWING

L O S I N G Y O U R K E Y W O R D D A T A I S N O T T H E E N D O F T H E W O R L D

S E E , I T ’ S N OT S O B A D .

- The data most SEOs had been using before wasn’t a representative sample

- Google Carousel local search was changing some of your users queries, anyway

- There are several other ways to get good, representative keyword data

J.A.G.JUST ASKGOOGLE

L E T M E B AC K U P M Y FAC T S .

- http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/what-googles-keyword-data-grab-means-and-five-ways-around-it.html

- http://www.annielytics.com/breaking-up-with-your-keyword-data-my-mozcon-presentation/?utm

- http://searchengineland.com/post-prism-google-secure-searches-172487

- http://moz.com/blog/100-percent-keyword-not-provided-whiteboard-tuesday

S O U R C E S

Y O U ’ L L B E O K A Y .

B Y A L E X K I N G

Q U E S T I O N S ? C O N T A C T M E O N T W I T T E R @ A K I N G 9 0