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How to reveal Google Encrypted Searches?

by Mkcoy Banned
6 replies
Hi folks, as you may know, recently Google has encrypted its searches for logged in users.

Does anyone know a way of revealing them?

Thanks.
#encrypted #google #reveal #searches
  • Profile picture of the author Melkur
    I don't think they can be revealed - the popup tooltip help thing next to the entry says "Google deliberately strips out keyword search information for logged in users."

    It's not simply hidden, it's not there at all, so there's nothing to reveal. I remember reading about this some time ago, but it I've only just started seeing these entries in my stats - of course, that may be that Statcounter has only just started flagging them!

    Out of interest, what percentage of visits are being butchered in this way? I'm seeing in the region of 30% in my Statcounter's Keyword Analysis on one site, 24% on another, which, as I recall, is MUCH higher than Google originally suggested.
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  • Profile picture of the author Daniel Canfield
    It has to do with the SSL Search. Making search more secure: Accessing search query data in Google Analytics - Analytics Blog

    I am seeing about 25 percent of unknown keywords in my analytics.
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  • Profile picture of the author trevord92
    It's annoying to say the least.

    The only thing I do is assume that the ones they keep secret are in roughly the same proportion as the ones they reveal.

    Which will be OK until encrypted searches make up the majority of keywords, then we'll be back to the dark ages and will only be able to work from page views.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mkcoy
    Banned
    It says on the Google blog it was meant to be for logged in users of the .com version of Google only.

    But as you can see, that is clearly not the case as it is encrypting searches from other Google TLD's as well.

    I'm all for Google protecting our search privacy but this could have an effect on how to diagnose what type of content to add to your site in the future.

    I can only assume that eventually, ALL searches will be encrypted. Both for logged in and non-logged in Google users.

    That's going to be fun!!
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    • Profile picture of the author Melkur
      Originally Posted by Mkcoy View Post

      It says on the Google blog it was meant to be for logged in users of the .com version of Google only.

      But as you can see, that is clearly not the case as it is encrypting searches from other Google TLD's as well.

      I'm all for Google protecting our search privacy but this could have an effect on how to diagnose what type of content to add to your site in the future.

      I can only assume that eventually, ALL searches will be encrypted. Both for logged in and non-logged in Google users.

      That's going to be fun!!
      I'm sure I read somewhere that the intention was to roll this out to all Googles eventually when the change was first introduced (though that may well just have been someone speculating in an article or blog post!) but, until you pointed it out, I hadn't noticed that it was now applying to sites other than google.com.

      Fun isn't quite the word I'd use for it

      Since google seem to be stripping out - or at least tampering with - the Referrer data that is usually passed along with an HTTP request, it follows that (for searches made on Google, obviously) Google will become the only source of that information. How long, I wonder, before we have to pay to see it in any meaningful form, if we can see it at all?
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    • Profile picture of the author Melkur
      Originally Posted by Mkcoy View Post

      I can only assume that eventually, ALL searches will be encrypted. Both for logged in and non-logged in Google users.
      Looks like you were right, too, or soon will be:

      Chrome 25 Gets Encrypted Search For Users Who Aren’t Signed In | WebProNews
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