How to Find Not Provided Keywords in Google Analytics

Seeing "(not provided)" in your Google Analytics keyword report can feel like hitting a brick wall. This article will show you the exact methods to uncover the valuable organic search queries that are actually bringing visitors to your site, turning that frustration into actionable insight.

Why Did Google Hide Keywords in the First Place?

Back in 2011, this all started with a simple and well-intentioned goal: user privacy. Google began an initiative to make browsing more secure by implementing secure search (via HTTPS) for users signed into their Google accounts. This encryption process protected user search data from third parties, but a side effect was that it also stripped the specific search query from the referral information sent to websites. The keyword data that marketers had relied on was suddenly replaced with the now-infamous term: "(not provided)."

Over time, Google expanded this encryption to cover nearly all searches, logged in or not. While great for user privacy, it left marketing and SEO professionals in the dark. It forced a shift from analyzing individual keyword performance within Analytics to adopting new, more holistic methods of understanding organic search traffic. The good news is, Google didn't leave everyone completely stranded. They provided a new tool that would become the primary key to unlocking this data - Google Search Console.

Method 1: Connect Google Search Console to Google Analytics

This is the most direct and reliable way to get access to your organic keyword data. Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool from Google designed to help you monitor your site's performance in Google search results. It tracks impressions, clicks, click-through rates (CTR), and average search positions for the specific queries that your site appears for. By linking it with Google Analytics, you bring this essential data directly into your Analytics interface for easier analysis.

Step-by-Step Guide to Linking GSC and GA4

Before you start, make sure you have the necessary permissions. You’ll need "Editor" role access for the Google Analytics 4 property and be a verified site owner in Google Search Console.

1. Navigate to Admin in GA4: From your GA4 dashboard, click on the 'Admin' gear icon in the bottom-left corner.
2. Find Product Links: In the 'Property' column, scroll down to the "Product Links" section and click on "Search Console Links".
3. Initiate the Linking Process: Click the blue "Link" button. You’ll then see a screen to choose a Search Console property you manage. Click "Choose accounts" and select the GSC property that matches your GA4 property URL.
4. Select Your Web Stream: Next, you'll choose the web data stream from your GA4 property to link the data to. Click "Select" and choose the appropriate data stream.
5. Submit and Confirm: Review your selections on the next screen and click "Submit". Just like that, your accounts are now linked. Keep in mind it may take up to 24-48 hours for data to start populating in your GA4 reports.

Where to Find the Keyword Data in GA4

Once data begins flowing, a new 'Search Console' section will appear in your GA4 reports.

• In the left-hand navigation, go to Reports > Acquisition > Search Console.
• Here, you will find two default reports: "Queries" and "Google Organic Search Traffic".

The Queries report is your new best friend. It lists the actual search terms users typed to find your site. You'll see critical metrics next to each query:

• Clicks: The number of times users clicked on your site from the search results for that query.
• Impressions: The number of times your site appeared in the search results for that query.
• Click-through rate (CTR): The percentage of impressions that resulted in a click (Clicks ÷ Impressions).
• Average position: Your site's average ranking in the search results for that query.

This report is a goldmine. You can identify keywords with high impressions but low CTR - these are your "opportunity keywords" that could drive more traffic with a title tag optimization or meta description tune-up. You can also spot the high-traffic keywords you should double down on in your content strategy.

Method 2: Analyze Landing Page Performance

Even without direct keyword data for every session, you can make highly educated guesses by analyzing your organic landing pages. The logic is simple: if a specific page receives a lot of organic traffic, the keywords driving that traffic are almost certainly related to that page's main topic.

By connecting landing page data in Google Analytics with the query data you just unlocked in Search Console, you can paint a much clearer picture of your performance.

How to Find and Filter Organic Landing Pages

1. In GA4, go to Reports > Engagement > Landing Pages. This report shows the first page users saw upon arriving at your site.
2. By default, this shows traffic from all channels. To isolate organic search traffic, click "Add filter" at the top of the report.
3. Build your filter like this:
4. Click "Apply". Now you are only looking at your top-performing landing pages from search.

Take your top organic landing page, like a blog post titled "5 Best Dog Breeds for Apartment Living." Chances are, it's ranking for and getting traffic from queries like "best dogs for apartments," "apartment friendly dog breeds," and "small dogs for small apartments." You can then cross-reference the URL of that landing page in your Google Search Console account (under the 'Pages' tab) to see the exact queries that are driving traffic to that specific page, confirming your assumptions.

Method 3: Leverage Google Ads' 'Search Terms' Report

If you're running paid search campaigns with Google Ads, you have access to another powerful source of keyword data: the Search Terms report. While this data is for paid traffic, it reveals the exact, unfiltered language your target audience uses when searching for solutions you provide.

To find this report:

1. Log in to your Google Ads account.
2. Navigate to Keywords > Search terms in the left-hand menu.

This report shows you every user query that triggered one of your ads. You might discover long-tail keywords, question-based searches, and variations you never thought to target. If certain search terms from this report are converting well and turning paid clicks into customers, it’s a strong signal that you should create organic content around those topics to capture free, high-intent traffic for them as well.

Method 4: Check Your Site's Internal Search Data

Your own website’s internal search bar is an often-overlooked source of intent data. The queries people type into your search bar tell you exactly what they are looking for, in their own words, once they are already on your site.

This data can help you:

• Identify content gaps: If many users are searching for a topic you haven't covered, it's time to create that content.
• Improve site navigation: If users are frequently searching for a page that's difficult to find, you can make your navigation clearer.
• Understand user terminology: See if users are searching for "sneakers" while you're calling them "leisure footwear" in your product descriptions.

How to View Site Search Data in GA4

First, you need to ensure site search tracking is enabled. GA4's "Enhanced measurement" feature is usually smart enough to track this automatically for most sites.

1. Go to Admin > Data Streams and click on your web stream.
2. Under "Enhanced measurement," click the cog icon.
3. Ensure that "Site search" is toggled on. If you use a different URL query parameter than the standard ones (q, s, search, query, keyword), you can specify those here.

Once it's active and collecting data, you can find the search terms in your reports:

1. Go to Reports > Engagement > Events.
2. Click on the event named view_search_results.
3. In the report that opens, you’ll see cards with different parameters. One of them will be named search_term. This card shows you what people are searching for.

By analyzing these internal search terms, you are listening directly to your visitors, uncovering their needs, and gaining insights you'd never find through external keyword research alone.

Final Thoughts

While the days of seeing every keyword tied to every session in Google Analytics are over, you are far from flying blind. By combining the powerful data in Google Search Console with landing page analysis, paid search insights, and internal site search data, you can build a comprehensive understanding of the search queries that matter most to your business.

Stitching reports together from Google Analytics, Search Console, and Google Ads often means hours of downloading CSVs and building makeshift pivot tables to see the full picture. When we need a complete view of performance, we connect these sources to Graphed. It allows our whole team to skip the manual work and get immediate answers using simple conversational prompts. You can just ask, "Show me my top 10 organic landing pages by sessions from GA4 and the corresponding search queries from GSC for last month," and get a real-time dashboard in seconds.