Search Terms is fading away :-(

[Tony Wang]

Came across this a few weeks ago. Guess we shouldn't be surprised that Google is taking more data away. Heck, why not just trust their algorithms to do EVERYTHING for you, surely they're smart enough to save us all money!!!

Google's search terms move will make millions in ad spend invisible to advertisers

The change removes visibility into more than 20% of search terms, one agency finds.

searchengineland.com

 

[Phil Rozek]

Yeah. That was a sad development, equaled only by Google's messing with exact-match a year or two ago. It's a good thing my clients and I have always mined the crap out of our STRs, but still. Google didn't give much of a warning.

Not a good time for businesses that haven't been doing AdWords much or for long.

I bet certain "dimensions" reports are next on the chopping clock. I'm seeing "user locations" in fewer clients' accounts. (Those show only "locations" -> "distance.")

 

[Tony Wang]

Wonderful, "user locations" is disappearing too? I hadn't noticed that one.

 

[Phil Rozek]

I hope not. As far as I know, nobody's written about it, so maybe that's a good sign. But I'm not seeing it in accounts / campaigns where I used to dig into it, so I'm concerned it'll disappear slowly before Google takes it away in a hurry.