How to See Organic Keywords in Google Analytics 4

Staring at an organic keyword report in Google Analytics 4 filled mostly with "(not provided)" can leave you feeling completely in the dark about your SEO performance. This isn't a bug, for over a decade, Google has hidden most individual keyword data from analytics tools to protect user privacy. This article will show you how to pull back the curtain by connecting Google Search Console directly to GA4. You’ll learn exactly where to find your organic keyword data and, more importantly, how to use it to drive more traffic.

Graphed

Still Building Reports Manually?

Watch how growth teams are getting answers in seconds — not days.

Watch the Demo

Why Are Most Organic Keywords "Not Provided" in Google Analytics?

If you used the old Universal Analytics, you’re already familiar with the dreaded "(not provided)" label. Back in 2011, Google began encrypting searches for users who were signed into a Google account, transitioning from http to the more secure https. This change was a win for user privacy, but it meant that the specific search terms people used weren't passed along to website analytics tools.

Today, virtually all searches are encrypted, so GA4 continues this practice. When it can't identify the specific search term that brought a user to your site, it buckets that visit under "(not provided)". While this protects individuals, it creates a massive blind spot for marketers, SEOs, and business owners trying to understand what searches are actually driving their traffic.

Fortunately, there's a free and official solution. By linking Google Search Console (GSC) with Google Analytics 4, you can pipe valuable keyword data directly into your GA4 property, giving you a powerful, integrated view of your organic search performance.

The Solution: Connecting Google Search Console to Google Analytics 4

Google Search Console is a powerful free tool from Google designed to help you monitor your site's performance in Google search results. It’s where you find information about keywords, clicks, impressions, crawling errors, and indexing status. Connecting it to GA4 is the single most important step you can take to understand your organic keyword landscape.

Before you start, make sure you have the right permissions:

• You must have Administrator role permissions for the Google Analytics 4 property.
• You must be a verified owner of the Google Search Console property for the website. Your permissions in GSC can't just be 'Full' or 'Restricted', you must be the "owner."

Once you've confirmed your access, linking the two is straightforward. Here’s how to do it step-by-step:

Graphed

Still Building Reports Manually?

Watch how growth teams are getting answers in seconds — not days.

Watch the Demo

Step-by-Step Guide to Linking GSC and GA4

1. Log in to your Google Analytics 4 property.
2. In the bottom-left corner, click on the gear icon for Admin.
3. In the Property column, scroll down to the "Product Links" section and click on Search Console Links.
4. You’ll see a table of existing links (if any). In the top right corner of the table, click the blue Link button.
5. A new screen will pop up to guide you through the linking process. Click on Choose accounts. A list of Search Console properties for which you are a verified owner will appear. Select the one that matches your GA4 property and click Confirm.
6. Next, click Next. Then, on the "Select web stream" screen, click Choose to select the appropriate web data stream for your website. Click Next again.
7. Finally, review the configuration on the "Review and submit" screen. If everything looks correct - the correct GSC property is paired with the correct web stream - click Submit.

That's it! You'll be taken back to the link and see a "Link created" message. It can take up to 48 hours for data to start flowing into GA4 from Search Console, so don't worry if the reports aren't populated immediately.

How to Find the Organic Keyword Reports in GA4

After successfully linking GSC, Google Analytics 4 automatically adds a new collection of "Search Console" reports to your property. But here’s something a lot of people miss: these reports aren't automatically added to your left-hand reporting navigation menu. You have to publish them yourself from the Library.

Adding Search Console Reports to Your Navigation

1. In GA4, go to the Reports section (the chart icon on the left).
2. At the very bottom of the left-hand navigation menu, click on Library.
3. In the "Collections" section, you should see a tile called Search Console. Under the card, click on the three dots and then select Publish. If you don't see it there, simply create a new custom collection and look for the published reports to drag-and-drop.

Once published, you'll see a new "Search Console" section appear in your left-hand menu, containing two valuable new reports: "Queries" and "Google Organic Search Traffic."

Exploring the "Queries" Report

The Queries report is where you'll spend most of your time analyzing keywords. This report pulls data directly from Google Search Console and shows you the actual search terms (queries) people used on Google to find your website.

In this report, you'll find four key GSC metrics:

• Organic Google Search Clicks: The number of times users clicked your site’s link in Google search results for a specific query. Note: a "click" in GSC is not the same as a "session" in GA4. One user might click on your site from search multiple times for different reasons, resulting in multiple sessions from a single click.
• Organic Google Search Impressions: The number of times your site's link appeared in search results for a query. An impression is counted even if the user didn't scroll down to see your listing.
• Average Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of impressions that resulted in a click (Clicks / Impressions).
• Average Position: The average ranking of your website in the search results for a specific query over the time period. An average position of 4.5 means your site sometimes showed up in position 4 and sometimes in position 5.

Graphed

Still Building Reports Manually?

Watch how growth teams are getting answers in seconds — not days.

Watch the Demo

De-mystifying the "Google Organic Search Traffic" Report

At first glance, this report looks a lot like a standard GA4 traffic report, but it’s enhanced with Search Console metrics. The primary dimension here is typically Landing Page, not the search query.

This report marries GSC click and impression data with post-click GA4 website behavior metrics like:

• Users
• Sessions
• Engaged Sessions
• Average Engagement Time

This view is powerful for answering questions like, "Which of my blog posts and landing pages gets the most impressions and clicks from Google?" "What's the engagement rate for users who arrive on my top organic landing pages?" It helps you understand which pieces of content are pulling their weight in terms of organic search performance.

A key limitation to note is that GA4 does not allow you to see the query and the landing page in the same report alongside behavioral metrics like sessions or conversions. You see query performance in one report, and landing page performance in another. However, you can make strong educated guesses — if a specific landing page about "blue widgets" is getting a lot of clicks, the associated keywords in your Queries report are likely also about "blue widgets."

Analyzing Your Keyword Data for Growth Opportunities

With access to your keyword data, you can move from just reporting to proactive optimization. Here are a few practical ways to analyze your Search Console reports inside GA4 to find your next SEO win.

Identify Your Top-Performing Keywords

Start with the easy wins. Go to the Queries report and sort the table by Organic Google Search Clicks in descending order. The queries at the top are your current workhorses. These are the terms your audience is already using to find you. Monitor these terms to ensure their position and CTR remain strong, and consider creating more content around related topics to double down on what’s working.

Find "Low-Hanging Fruit" Opportunities

This is where SEO gets exciting. "Low-hanging fruit" refers to keywords where you are on the cusp of ranking on the first page of Google. In the Queries report, you can find these opportunities with a simple filter:

1. Sort your table by Impressions to see keywords that are getting seen frequently.
2. Scan the Average Position column for keywords ranking between 9 and 20.

These terms are your "striking distance" keywords. Your site already has some relevance for them, and a little push could launch them onto page one, where they can bring in significantly more traffic. Strategies for boosting these keywords include internal linking from higher-authority pages, refreshing the content on the target page, or building a new piece of content that more directly targets the term.

Graphed

Still Building Reports Manually?

Watch how growth teams are getting answers in seconds — not days.

Watch the Demo

Improve Your Click-Through Rate (CTR)

Great rankings are useless if no one clicks on your link. Scan your Queries report for terms where you have a high number of impressions and a strong average position (e.g., in the top 5) but a poor CTR.

A low CTR often signals a disconnect between what the user expects and what your title tag and meta description are communicating. Is your headline boring? Does it fail to match the user's intent? Re-writing your title and description to be more compelling and relevant to the search query can make a huge impact on your clicks without any change in rankings.

Discover New Content Ideas

Look for opportunity in what's not working yet. Filter your Queries report for terms with a high number of impressions but a weak average position (e.g., 20+). This indicates that there's a significant search demand for a topic, but your current content isn’t satisfying Google’s criteria for a top result.

These queries are a goldmine for new content ideas. They represent gaps in your content strategy. It may mean the existing page is too thin, doesn’t match user intent, or you might need to create a dedicated new article or landing page from scratch to properly address that specific topic.

Final Thoughts

While the "(not provided)" keyword designation is here to stay, it doesn't mean your entire organic search strategy has to be a guessing game. By connecting Google Search Console with Google Analytics 4, you unlock the critical query data needed to understand how users find you and where your biggest growth opportunities lie.

Connecting disparate sources and flipping between different reports to hunt for these insights can quickly become time-consuming. We built Graphed to remove this friction by connecting all your data sources — like GA4 and Search Console — in one place. Instead of learning the intricacies of custom reports, you can just ask questions in plain English, such as "show me keywords with a position between 10 and 20 sorted by impressions" or "what are my top organic landing pages by engagement rate?" You get immediate, real-time answers and dashboards, letting you focus on strategy instead of report-building.