google-keywords-not-providedIt's been a busy month for Google, the 50 billion pound gorilla of the search world. Even my dog, Zoe, got in on the analysis. She wrote an article for her blog (that's right, she has a blog -- and a Twitter account) summarizing her opinions on the changes from Google. Apparently my dog is not very concerned. Zoe apparently has very defined buyer personas that she's writing content to attract and engage, and the granular keyword analysis provided little value to her.

Earlier this month, Google released the largest update to their search algorithm in years - Hummingbird. Also, this month they decided to encrypt ALL of the keywords from their search traffic. We've been trying to provide you with content on how to deal with the changes if keyword traffic analysis was part of your strategy.

I've also historically looked at keywords that I get very little traffic for to give me ideas for long-tail keyword phrases. Sometimes I'll find keyword phrases that are basically blog article titles writing themselves! For example, one of our recent articles was inspired in part by discovering someone had hit our website searching for "how do I sell to people in the awareness phase of the buying cycle". We'll probably actually roll out an exact-match article with that title as well, since we got a little long-winded on our first attempt to answer that question.

However, my dog had a slightly different use for this data, and one of her favorite activities -- writing about the weird keywords she does get traffic from -- will have to end. So she listed some of the amusing keywords she'll miss tracking. 

At HubSpot, we've written over 3,000 blog articles, published hundreds of free ebooks, webinars, and other free resources, and have an easy-to-use page builder that all of our employees can create pages with -- so the opportunities to rank for valuable keywords is massive, powered by our inbound marketing. However, so much content means that we have some interesting pieces of content for almost anything you can imagine. So we also get some traffic from some keywords we just don't understand, and I thought I'd recap some of my favorites from the last few months. These are verbatim from our data, so the misspellings are intentional:

Google Keywords We Won't Miss Being Able to Track

1) "i want you tagline"

I'm really hoping this is some Valentine's campaign we wrote about, and not someone looking for a pickup line.

2) "horseless headsman pumpkin carving pattern"

A horseless headsman could just, like, buy a horse? Right?

3) "people who don't care about others facebook quotes"

Not sure if that's really mean or highly relatable. Either way, hope we helped!

4) "black humpback whale jewelry"

My personal hope is that they were looking for jewelry to give as a gift to their friend, who's a black humpback whale.

5) "ways to give foe breast cancer awareness"

Breast cancer is a big deal. Spreading awareness is everyone's mission. I think it's really sweet that this person cares enough about their foes to make sure they're aware of the dangers of breast cancer. FYI, it is breast cancer awareness month. Donate here.

6) "catchy headlines about love"

We at HubSpot are known for being hopeless romantics. Not even joking.

7) "why somebody interest working at target"

I'm sure Target is a great company to work for! I guess. I don't really know I'm just being positive. Can't be worse than these jobs.

8) "like facebook but better"

If you find an answer to this, lemme know. I'll be an investor.

9) "what to say on store intercom if child is lost"

Aren't there codes and procedures for this? I'm concerned we showed up as an informational source. I feel that if this is your responsibility that you should already know this.

10) "keywords in the ocean"

There's a joke in here somewhere. Keyword fish? Lots of people think my Inbound Commerce methodology looks like a fish... ok I'm really reaching here.

11) "boring writing"

Now Google is just being hurtful. I think our writing is quite good. Most of it anyways. We're kinda jumping the shark with this post.

12) "automated jokes"

So a robot walks into a bar and orders a beer and asks the bartender how much. Bartender is in a great mood and says "For you buddy, no charge." The robot shuts down.

Get it? Automated robot? He had no charge? Ok moving on...

13) "is it hard running a business"

Yes. At least that's what Brian Halligan tells us.

14) "adverts that bring down other brands"

That's just mean. And probably ineffective. Don't chase your competitors. Lead them.

15) "what percent of people pay companies on time"

I always pay on time, except when the rent is too damn high.

16) "cheat to get 10000tweets"

Cheaters never prosper, friend.

17) "free email spam sender"

Spammers never prosper either. Let's face it, they're just really uncreative cheaters.

18) "can you retweet something about yourself"

You're so vain, you probably think this tweet is about you. Also, yes you can. I do it all the time. In other news, I'm vain.

19) "sick of being customer serice rep"

Come work here. Customer Support Rep happiness is literally a metric we track. Who wants to talk to someone who's sick of their job at the moment when they need support?

20) "do you remember better with bullet points or number"

... I honestly don't know. Is someone studying this? Seems like something we should do a "Science of" webinar for.

21) "can people have a relationship through social media"

But I would tweet 500 times and I would tweet 500 more just to be the man who tweeted 1,000 times to TwitPic your door...

22) "scary costumes list"

HubSpotters are also known for their creative Halloween costumes. This year I'm going as an MQL.

23) "elvis presley & the jamaican wailers"

Thank ya, thank ya very much mon! (try reading that in both accents in your mind, it gets funny over time).

24) "how to make your business facebook"

Go back in time and take over Mark Zuckerberg's life. Just be careful. Terrible things happen to wizards who meddle with time, Harry. #ImANerd

25) "living in parents basement"

... I... I have nothing for this one. Do what you gotta do.

26) "don corleone as a role model"

I guess everyone has redeeming qualities. Like, landing pages should make the prospect an offer they can't refuse. (see what I did right there?)

27) "format of best article ever in the world"

*blushing* awwww... thanks Google for showing us for that. That makes up for that hurtful "boring writing" result from earlier.

28) "it may not work out the way you had planne"

Ain't it the truth.

29) "red color button"

Fair enough. We haz red buttonz.

30) "red better than green"

Boy, that escalated quickly. You should test that yourself, variate testing results will be different site to site.

31) "hubspot rentals"

Like, you want to sublet one of our apartments? We're usually cool to have guests. Just bring cupcakes.

32) "awesome companies"

*blushing again* thanks guys :)

33) "presentation 90 hours"

I've been in some presentations that felt like they lasted 90 hours.

34) "trick to calculate if 1700 per month payment what is the payment of one day"

Divide by number of the days in that month (figured I'd be helpful once today).

35) "fashion focus group questions"

Some of us actually have excellent fashion tastes. But I am not one of them.

36) "how to call back telemarketers"

Please video tape yourself doing this. For me.

37) "some junk words"

I'm hoping this was someone teaching their parents how to use The Google.

38) "dependability as a strong branding in bars"

I get it. My bartender's dependability is a big reason I come back. He never fails to put me back on my bar stool when I fall off.

39) "stuff kids can make for a trade fair"

I used to make crafts out of palm fronds. I'd love to pretend that "used to" means when I was a kid and not last week...

40) "worst thing a customer has ever yelled at you for"

I once yelled at the JetBlue Twitter account for scheduling bad weather while I was flying. They apologized and said they'd do better next time. I <3 them.

41) "what can a 40-65 year old do in america"

Anything they want!

42) "goodbye just means hello will be coming soon"

Don't know what they're searching for -- looks like they have all the answers already!

43) "mack my google plus page"

Add flame decals. Flame decals make everything better.

44) "where in my home can i find some of elements"

You know, questions about elements are the only reason people bring me to trivia nights. I can do the Periodic Table from memory alphabetically, by weight, or by atomic number. They obviously don't bring me to raise the cool factor.

45) "rotten pumpkin"

Load it into a trebuchet and watch it explode. Problem solved.

46) "how to hack a private instagram account"

BAD! BAD GOOGLER!

47) "ignore the haters"

Amen.

48) "jordans shoes boston red sox colors"

#GoSox

49) "pick up lines to make a girl like you"

I'd recommend just having great content to attract people. Content is what's inside. #DeepThoughts

50) "guerrilla football idea"

I really want this to be a real game! Just pop out of the bushes and throw a hail mary.

51) "secret love prediction"

Just tell them how you feel, my friend. Life's too short for secret loves.

52) "how to approach a drug dealer"

... with a badge. Because you should only do this if you're a police officer.

 

I hope you enjoyed this! As marketers, any loss of data makes us sad. We want to create relevant content that helps people answer their questions.

What about you? What weird keywords have you seen in your data? How will losing the keywords data affect you?

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Originally published Oct 9, 2013 2:00:00 PM, updated January 18 2023

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