Google stops providing keyword information

It’s news that’s shocking – but not completely surprising – the search marketing world. Effective immediately, Google is no longer providing keyword data from searches on the world’s most-used search engine.

This means that marketers will no longer be able to use marketing software like Google Analytics and Hubspot to track which search keywords send the most traffic to their sites or generate the most leads and sales once users arrive there.

A Google spokesperson contacted by the Web site Search Engine Watch earlier today said, “We added SSL encryption for our signed-in search users in 2011, as well as searches from the Chrome omnibox earlier this year. We’re now working to bring this extra protection to more users who are not signed in.”

The change will make it significantly harder for Web marketers to identify keywords that drive key business results for their businesses and harder to target specific keywords for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Advertisers using Google’s AdWords offering will still be able to see keyword data for their paid search campaigns.