You open Google Analytics to find out what people searched before they landed on your site. Instead of a list of search terms, you see a label that says “(not provided),” or no keyword report at all.
That doesn’t mean your tracking is broken. Search engines still send the visit, but they keep the exact words private. The keywords themselves aren’t lost, either. Google shares them in a different tool, as totals rather than visit by visit.
In this guide, we’ll explain what “(not provided)” means, why Google hides search terms, and three ways to see the keywords behind it.
In This Article:
What Does “(not provided)” Mean in Google Analytics?
“(not provided)” is the label Google Analytics shows when someone reached your site from a search engine, but the search engine didn’t pass along the words they searched for. The visit still counts as organic search traffic. Only the keyword itself is missing.
Organic search traffic means visits from unpaid search results, as opposed to clicks on ads. Google is the main source of the label, but organic visits from Bing and Yahoo can show “(not provided)” too.
The label goes back to older versions of Google Analytics, including Universal Analytics. Their Keyword dimension once listed the search term behind each organic visit. Over time, more and more of those rows read “(not provided)” instead of a real word or phrase.
So if you see the label, your tracking isn’t broken. Google Analytics recorded the visit correctly, and the search engine simply kept the query private.
Why Google Hides Search Keywords
Search terms can be personal, so Google keeps them private between the searcher and Google.
Here’s how that works. When you click a link, your browser normally tells the next site which page sent you. For a Google search, that page’s address contains the words you typed.
Google trims the note down to its own address, such as google.com. The site you land on knows the visit came from Google, but not what was searched.
Google first did this for people signed in to a Google account, then for every search. That’s why the label appears whether or not the searcher was signed in.
This doesn’t mean keyword tracking is over. Google still reports which searches bring people to your site, in Google Search Console, its free tool for site owners. It shares them as totals for each search term instead of tying them to individual visits.
Google Ads works the same way. Advertisers see search terms in a report inside Google Ads, not on their own site.
Worth Knowing
“(not provided)” is a privacy decision on the search engine’s side, not a fault in your setup. Google Analytics still credits the visit to organic search, so your traffic totals stay accurate even without the keyword.
Does GA4 Still Show “(not provided)”?
Google Analytics 4 (GA4), the version that replaced Universal Analytics, has no Keyword report. No standard report shows the search term behind each visit.
You can still find the “(not provided)” label in a custom report. In GA4 that’s called an Exploration, and you create one in the Explore section.
Add Session source / medium and Session manual term as rows and Sessions as the value. Then add a filter where Session source / medium exactly matches “google / organic.” Organic visits from Google show “(not provided)” in the term column, and Bing and Yahoo visits show it too if you include them.
Session manual term normally holds the keyword from a tagged campaign link, the utm_term value. For organic search visits, it shows “(not provided)” instead. Any rows with other text came from tagged links that carried a term.
Most of the visits with this label come from organic search, though a small number from other sources, such as email links, can show it too. Read it as a sign of search traffic, not a keyword you can drill into.
“(not provided)” also has four lookalikes in Google Analytics, and mixing them up can send you chasing the wrong fix. Here’s what each label means:
| LABEL | WHAT IT MEANS |
|---|---|
| (not provided) | A search engine sent the visit but kept the search term private. In GA4, it appears mostly on organic search visits. |
| (not set) | Google Analytics didn’t receive a value for that dimension, and the cause can often be fixed. See our guide on fixing (not set) in Google Analytics. |
| (direct) / (none) | Someone reached your site by typing your URL or using a saved link. Google Analytics groups these visits in the Direct channel. Our guide to direct traffic explains more. |
| (other) | A report had more rows than its limit, so the less common values were grouped into one row. |
| (data not available) | The visit carried an ad identifier or UTM tag, but the data wasn’t available or hadn’t been processed yet. |
Of the five, only “(not set)” usually points to something you can fix in your setup. The others describe how Google Analytics or the search engine handled the data.
How to See Your “(not provided)” Keywords (3 Ways)
The keywords behind “(not provided)” live in Google Search Console, as totals for each search term. Here are three ways to see them, from the most direct to the one that takes the most setup.
We keep each method short here. Our full keyword guide walks through each one step by step.
1. Google Search Console
Google Search Console is where the keyword data comes from, and it needs no extra setup once your site is added. Open Performance » Search results, and the Queries tab sits first in the row of tabs below the chart.
Each query shows its clicks, impressions, CTR and average position. Our Search Console tips for SEO cover more ways to use the rest of the tool.
2. MonsterInsights (for WordPress)
If your site runs on WordPress, the MonsterInsights analytics plugin brings your Search Console data into your dashboard, so you can check your search keywords without leaving WordPress. The report is available on the Plus plan and higher, once your site is connected to Search Console.
Go to Insights » Reports and click the Search Console tab. The Top 50 Google Search Terms table lists up to 50 search terms, with Clicks, Impressions, CTR and Avg. Position for each one.
Impressions count how often your site appeared in search results. CTR (click-through rate) is the share of those impressions that turned into clicks.
Terms with plenty of impressions but a low CTR are a good place to start. People see your page in the results for those searches, then choose another one.
3. Google Analytics, Linked to Search Console
Google Analytics can show your search keywords too, but only after you link it to Search Console. In Google Analytics, open Admin, and under Product links, click Search Console links. From there, you link one web data stream to your site’s Search Console property.
You’ll need the Editor role on the Google Analytics property and verified owner access in Search Console. If your site isn’t in Search Console yet, start by adding it to Search Console.
The Search Console reports are unpublished by default, so open Reports » Library and publish the Search Console collection.
Your keywords then appear in the Queries report, with clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position for each organic Google search query.
New data arrives in Google Analytics about 48 hours after Search Console collects it, and Search Console keeps up to 16 months of history. Expect a short wait before the first rows appear after you link the two.
All three views draw on the same Search Console data, so the best choice is the one you’ll actually open every week.
See Your Top Google Search Terms Inside WordPress
MonsterInsights puts your top 50 Google search terms, with their clicks, impressions and average position, right in your WordPress dashboard. The Search Console report is included on the Plus plan and higher.
See Your Search Terms in WordPressWhat Stays Hidden (& Why No Tool Can Unlock It)
Search Console gives you the keywords back as totals, but some details behind “(not provided)” are gone for good. Knowing these limits up front means you won’t spend time, or money, on a fix that doesn’t exist.
The biggest gap is the link between a search and a person. Search Console tells you which queries earned clicks, but not which query brought in a particular visitor, lead or sale.
Search Console also leaves out anonymized queries, which are searches made by very few people. Google’s help page says these rare queries are “omitted from the table, but are included in the chart totals unless a query filter is applied.” That’s why your query rows can add up to less than the total clicks in the chart.
The Queries table itself shows a maximum of 1,000 rows, so less common, long-tail terms can drop off the bottom. Search Console’s bulk export to BigQuery, Google’s data warehouse, goes past that limit. It still excludes anonymized queries, though.
Search Console also covers Google search only. Bing and Yahoo visits can carry the “(not provided)” label in Google Analytics too, but their search terms never reach Search Console. Bing shares its own keyword data in Bing Webmaster Tools.
Some third-party tools advertise that they can unlock “(not provided)” keywords. In practice, they typically estimate those keywords by matching Search Console data to your landing pages. The result is an educated guess, not the original search term.
How to Connect Keywords to Results
A list of search terms is only half the picture. The other half is what those visitors do next. Because “(not provided)” hides which search brought each visitor, the landing page has to connect the two. A landing page is the first page someone sees on your site.
Start in Search Console. Open Performance » Search results, click Add filter, choose Page, and enter the page’s URL. The Queries tab now shows only the searches that brought people to that page.
Then switch to Google Analytics. If you’ve linked Search Console, open the Google organic search traffic report in the Search Console section of Reports.
It lists each landing page with its Search Console clicks and impressions, next to engaged sessions, engagement rate, average engagement time and key events.
Key events are the actions you’ve marked as important, such as a form submission or a purchase.
Put the two side by side. Say a page earns plenty of clicks but has a low engagement rate. That page may not match what those searchers expected, so its headline or intro may need work. A page with strong key events but few impressions is a candidate to expand or promote.
We go further into this approach in our section on connecting keywords to landing pages, including how to spot pages worth improving first.
The Bottom Line
You can’t tie a single search to a single visitor, but you don’t need to. Search Console shows which terms reach each page, and Google Analytics shows what visitors do once they land there. Together, that’s enough to decide which pages and topics deserve more work.
FAQs About “(not provided)” in Google Analytics
Can you unlock (not provided) keywords in Google Analytics?
No. The search term behind an individual visit isn’t sent to your site, so no tool can recover it. What you can do is see the same keywords as totals in Google Search Console, or in Google Analytics once you link the two. That shows which searches bring clicks, just not which search brought a specific visitor.
Is (not provided) still a thing in GA4?
Yes, though it’s harder to spot. GA4 has no Keyword report, but organic search visits show “(not provided)” in the Session manual term dimension. You’ll see it when you add that dimension to an Exploration alongside Session source / medium.
Why did Google start hiding keywords?
Google started hiding search terms to protect searchers’ privacy. It began with people signed in to a Google account and later extended the change to every search. Google doesn’t pass the search term to the sites people reach from its results.
What’s the difference between (not provided) and (not set)?
“(not provided)” means a search engine deliberately withheld the search term, and nothing on your side can change that. “(not set)” means Google Analytics didn’t receive a value for a dimension at all. That’s often a setup issue you can fix.
Why don’t my Search Console query rows add up to the total clicks?
Search Console leaves rare, anonymized queries out of the Queries table to protect searchers’ privacy. Those clicks still count in the chart totals unless you apply a query filter. The table also stops at 1,000 rows, so some long-tail terms are counted in the totals without getting a row.
Why does Search Console show different numbers than Google Analytics organic traffic?
The two tools measure different things, so their numbers won’t match. Search Console counts clicks on your listings in Google search results. Google Analytics counts sessions on your site, and its organic search traffic includes visits from other search engines too.
Can I see which keyword led to a specific sale or lead?
Not for an individual sale or lead from organic search. The closest you can get is the landing page: see which queries bring people to a page in Search Console, then check that page’s key events in Google Analytics. That shows which search topics lead to results, even without a per-visit match.
That’s it! I hope this article helped you make sense of “(not provided)” in Google Analytics. If you liked this article, check out the following beginner-friendly guides:
- Long-Tail Keywords: How to Find & Use Them for SEO
- How to Master SEO Search Intent to Improve Your Rankings
- A Beginners Guide to UTM Parameters (And How to Use Them)
- How to See Google Analytics Referral Traffic Sources
- How to See Which Google Analytics Traffic Sources Convert Best
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