14 Apr Why Google is Blocking Keyword Data for Paid Search
It was a surprise to the online marketing community when Google began blocking keyword search terms for organic searches, and at that point many people started wondering if Google would eventually block access to paid search data as well. Marketers depend on this information to optimize their online marketing campaigns, which means that losing access to keyword data might impact the success of their campaign.
Paid Search Keyword Data Access
Up until this point, you could still access the data from your paid search campaign using third party tools, in order to see the keyword search results that people were using to find your website. But, Google has recently made the change that blocks this information within third party tools, because changes were made to implement secure search features.
In a blog post published on April 9, 2014, Google announced that those changes were being implemented for paid traffic. They said:
Most people agree that these changes to paid search have been expected, and it actually won’t have as much of a negative impact as some people are making it out to be. With the announcement, there has been doomsday talk online about these changes, but it seems as though these types of complaints are quite common for every big announcement made by Google. If you consider the impact of these changes, the truth is that there was a greater impact when the organic keyword data was taken away.
Will Your Paid Campaign Be Impacted?
If you are using the Google AdWords dashboard to manage your keyword data, then you probably won’t notice a difference in what you have been doing. The keyword data will still be available within the dashboard so that advertisers can utilize the information to improve their campaigns.
The main difference will impact people who are using third party sources to access keyword data, because third parties will no longer be supplied with the data. Many of these third parties utilize a referral keyword string that is placed within the ad URL, and that information can be accessed by using the third party tool. Now that Google is changing the way the data is shared, this tracking information will be removed from the URL so that it is no longer sent to the third party tracker.
Keyword Data Will Never Disappear
There is no need to fear about losing complete access to keyword data, because Google understands that the keyword information is critical to give the advertisers confidence in the ads that they are running. If the data access was completely taken away, then it would likely result in advertisers who stop running their campaigns, and could drastically decrease the price per click that people are willing to pay.
At this point, we will have to wait to see the overall impact that these changes will have on the internet marketing community. Some people are speculating that Google Analytics might go away, or other things might be impacted such as the how third party tools will fare with the changes.
Only time will tell if these changes will impact your paid search campaigns. Based on the information that has been shared online, the best thing that you can do to accommodate the changes is to make sure that you are utilizing the dashboard provided by Google AdWords instead of using a third party source.