Google Keyword Problem

Have you noticed “Keywords Unavailable” in your StatCounter reports?

Unfortunately, this is due to a decision by Google to withhold this keyword information.

Since 2011 Google has been steadily expanding its policy of withholding keyword data for organic search. This means that website owners and professionals have limited access to the keywords used to find their sites. While we at StatCounter can’t undo what Google has done, we have added a new feature to our service to maximize and streamline access to available keyword data.

We have integrated Google Webmaster Tools (GWT) keyword data into our reporting. This means that you, our members, can have efficient, streamlined access to all available keyword data.

You can read more about it in our press release here.

How to link your StatCounter account with GWT

To integrate your GWT data into your StatCounter account, here is what you need to do:

  • Log in to your StatCounter account
  • Click the “Wrench Icon” beside your project name.
  • gwt-wrench3

  • Click “Import GWT Data”.
  • import-gwt

  • Finally, follow the steps outlined on the page to link StatCounter with your GWT account.
  • import-gwt-page2


New Keyword Analysis Options

After you have completed the steps above, the Keyword Analysis Stat will now have 4 new options as outlined below:

gwt6

1. StatCounter Only

This is the usual Keyword Analysis stat.

gwt2

2. Google Webmaster

This shows the GWT keyword data only. Note that the stats are presented in the familar StatCounter style.

3. Comparison

This shows the GWT keyword data alongside the StatCounter data. You can look at each keyword and compare direct StatCounter data with indirect data collected from GWT.

4. Merged

The ‘Merged’ option includes the standard StatCounter data but redistributes the Google portion of the ‘Keywords Unavailable’ data according to the spread of keywords in the Google Webmaster Tools dataset.

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Email reports will automatically include this merged data.


New Stat: GWT Data

Finally there is an entirely new stat called GWT Data which is based solely on the GWT keyword data. It shows you the clicks, impressions and positions of your keywords.

gwt4

You can click the drill down link beside each result to see how individual keywords have performed over time. See a sample graph below.

gwt5


We hope this new addition to your stats is useful. Please share your thoughts, comments, questions and suggestions below.

196 Comments

  1. Thank you for this quick tutorial, I was being frustrated that I wasnt able to see which keywords user used to get to my website. I am glad you guys found the solution for it.

  2. It sounds like a fantastic feature but I am leery of Google providing the most accurate data for comparison. As of right now, I am extremely happy with the great work performed by Statcounter computer and staff.

    While I admire Google for many things, the move to withhold crucial data from publishers that help make the company dominant just shows what happens when you enable a MONOPOLY.

  3. This is a really great feature … exactly what I was looking for.
    Thank you very much.

  4. This is what i was expecting from statcounter for a long period of time. And now they have given me that feature also… Thank you very much.. Gonna try it now and will give feedback within a week about its functioning.

  5. Very interesting and useful tool.
    I’ll check with my page and subpages as you mentioned above.

    Great work!

  6. This feature looks very promising. I am confused however for my situation: I have various stattcounter projects, they are subpages of one overall website. In google i can only administer the overall website. So if I import the keywords for one of my projects, I get all the keywords for all of the projects.
    How can I fix this?

    1. Hi Peter,

      You can only link one StatCounter project to one website in GWT. I’d suggest picking your main StatCounter project for that site and using it to import your GWT data. All the keyword data will be available through that one project then. You can’t import it for one project and have it added to other projects.

      Alternatively, you can actually add subpages as new sites within GWT. If you do that, then you could link each StatCounter project with each subpage in GWT.

      1. For anyone with the same issue: I followed the suggestion to add the suppages as new sites within GWT and link those to my statcounter projects.
        It worked, BUT with a week delay for the data to come through. So if you do the same: have patience 🙂
        Thanks for this sollution.

  7. Now this is something great from StatCounter. I have always relied on StatCounter and this feature is now yet another reason for me to keep using it for all my sites. Thank you Team StatCounter for this very very useful feature.

  8. Is it possible to exclude links coming in keyword analysis page ? because if a person search the permanent link of a webpage, then keyword analysis page showing the permanent link. It is inappropriate.

    1. Hi Amith,

      I think this would be better answered via a private support ticket were we can look up and discuss your account.

      Please contact us directly about this issue.

  9. A googd solution for Keywords Unavailable problem, Googd work statcounter 🙂

  10. Still we won’t have access to all keywords. Right? 🙁

    1. You will have access to as much keyword data as is possible. All keywords collected by StatCounter directly and indirectly from Google Webmaster Tools.

  11. Surely if your landing pages have been SEOed then you will know what keywords made the page appear in SERPs? Why do we need to find out what we already know?

    1. Hi Justine,

      A lot of members don’t have landing pages that have been SEOed. So they would not have any idea what keywords were being used. Even landing pages which have been SEOed will usually get a variety of different searches. Knowing about these different searches which you didn’t directly optimise for can be very useful.

  12. I have noticed that i get limited keywords from google when in fact they should be able to give me full stats. I hope this helps me with my website SEO. I’ll try it and give feedback.

  13. I have had this set up for a few months now and it’s great. Excellent clear instructions, I had no problem setting it up at all. Thanks Statcounter!

  14. It’s easy to figure out what key words were used as you can tell by the landing page or pages the person went to. So Google doesn’t really effect our ability to track someone on the site or what they are looking at, nor the keywords they are using.

  15. This is wonderful! Thank You so Much!

    There is still a line on all my projects (7) that shows up with “(Keywords Unavailable)” admittedly a very much smaller percentage (4.40%, 2.50%, 1.47%, 20.44% (this one is still pretty large), 4.00%, 1.79%).

    Would this be a different search engine? MSN or Bing?

    Still a lot of wonderful information now!!!

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