Dark Search refers to the subset of search queries that remain untraceable or hidden from website analytics tools. This term gained prominence after a significant change in 2012, when search engines enhanced user privacy by encrypting search activity. Consequently, the specific keywords or phrases that users enter into search engines to find and visit websites are no longer reported in analytics platforms. This lack of visibility creates a gap in understanding the full spectrum of search traffic, as these concealed queries cannot be analyzed or attributed to user behavior and website performance metrics.
Dark search
Categories: D, SEO Glossary
Other Glossary Terms
- Cost per thousand (CPM)
- Crawl budget
- Crawl Error
- Crawler
- Crawling
- Cross Group Negatives
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)
- Customer Journey
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
- Cybersquatting
- Dark search
- Dayparting
- De-index
- De-listing
- Dead link
- Dead-End Page
- Declined Keywords
- Deep Link
- Deep Link Ratio
- Demographics
- Destination Site