Not provided in Google Analytics
"(not provided)" is the label Google Analytics shows in place of the search terms Google no longer passes on to websites.
"(not provided)" is the label Google Analytics shows where you'd expect to see the search terms that brought people to your site. Google stopped passing those terms on when it moved search to secure connections, so analytics tools can see that a visit came from Google search but not what the person searched for.
For most sites today, almost every organic search visit from Google is "(not provided)."
What it means in practice
You can still see how many people come from Google search, and which pages they land on. You can't see, visit by visit, which words they typed.
For example, Fernhill Coffee's analytics show 3,200 visits from Google search last month, landing mostly on its subscription page. Which searches sent them? Analytics can't say. The page is ranking for something, and Fernhill has to look elsewhere to find out what.
Where to find the search terms
Google Search Console has them. Its performance report shows the searches your pages appeared for, with clicks, impressions and average position. Some rare searches are left out to protect privacy, so it won't line up with your analytics visit for visit, but it shows which searches matter. Bing Webmaster Tools does the same for Bing.
You can also infer intent from the landing page. A visit that lands on your "how to brew cold brew" guide almost certainly searched for something about cold brew.
The AI search version
AI assistants go further. When someone clicks a link in an AI answer, your analytics may see that the visit came from ChatGPT or Perplexity, but never the question the person asked, and there's no Search Console for prompts. You know a conversation sent someone to you, and nothing about what was said.
That's the gap AnswerOrbit works from the other side. Instead of guessing which prompts sent visitors, we ask the prompts you choose every day and keep the answers. The Demand tab in Topics estimates how often people ask about a phrase on the AI platforms, and the AI traffic tab in Website shows which pages AI visitors land on.