Google has started giving notifications to advertisers about the update in the Search Term Reports. Queries with no “significant” data that are come in the ads will not be visible now.
According to Google,
“We are updating the search terms report to only include terms that were searched by a significant number of users. As a result you may see fewer terms in your report going forward,”
Source – Search Engine Land
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Hey @GoogleAds, what’s this about? So we will be potentially paying for search terms tht are irrelevant but won’t be privy to the keywords we need to add as negatives? What’s the logic behind this please? Thanks. #ppcchat @gregfinn pic.twitter.com/B8oK149YiU
— Rachel (she/her) (@PPCRachel) September 2, 2020
Google Stated:
“In order to maintain our standards of privacy and strengthen our protections around user data, we have made changes to our Search Terms Report to only include terms that a significant number of users searched for. We’re continuing to invest in new and efficient ways to share insights that enable advertisers to make critical business decisions,”
Source – Search Engine Land
“Significant” Meaning
Google has not defined the word “significant” as of now, however, the impact of this update and how it will affect advertisers will depend on how Google defines it.
At the present time, it’s very normal to see search terms with one impression or a single tick in search term reporting. We can expect that will never again be the situation when this change produces results, however, we’ll need to sit back and watch what the limits look like.
The main reason for this update is to provide benefits to the advertisers by which they can identify users by query data or getting access to PII (personally identifiable information).
Google has limitations in Search console for user privacy. The main thing is whenever user clicks on the ad that comes when the user searches any query, then advertiser has to pay. Advertisers may face financial loss if the data is lost as they won’t know what we can’t see.