Does google give the info to website owners / administrators... is I guess how it would work?
Do website owners know what keywords a visitor typed in google search to get to their site? [closed]
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This is out off topic. Ask Google user services instead.– user45139Dec 14, 2014 at 19:06
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1With respect to privacy, I believe this is on topic.– makerofthings7Dec 14, 2014 at 20:28
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1if you meant there to be a security/privacy question here, could you edit your question to include that?– schroeder ♦Dec 14, 2014 at 21:47
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Yes, they do. I can tell you for a fact that google webmaster tools displays search queries that lead users to your website.– k1DBLITZDec 16, 2014 at 22:12
2 Answers
Unsure what this has to do with security, but I will answer anyway. Website owners can see where someone came from via the http referrer tag. For example, this user came to one of my websites while looking for the search:
intext:"password" intext:"email" inurl:"logs.txt"
This is what I see in my logs:
8.37.227.99 - - [13/Dec/2014:10:42:49 -0600] "GET /mysite/somepage.txt HTTP/1.1" 200 1337 "http://www.google.com/search?q=intext%3a%22password%22+intext%3a%22email%22+inurl%3a%22logs.txt%22&hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&tbm=
Each search provider is different (or can be). This article discusses Google, though I wonder what Bing, Yahoo, and Duck Duck Go provide.
In the old days, Google used to send the actual search text to the vendor, but their SSL search now means this privacy hole has gone dark.
I skimmed this article, and you may find it interesting: http://marketingland.com/dark-google-search-terms-not-provided-one-year-later-24341
On the other hand, even for "dark searches", those keywords might appear in the Google Webmaster portal
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DuckDuckGo strips out the referring part: 172.56.31.11 - - [19/Nov/2014:19:45:51 -0600] "GET /xxxxx HTTP/1.1" 200 106643 "duckduckgo.com" BING: shows referrer: "bing.com/images/search?q=Seen+On+TV&Form=IQFRDR" Dec 14, 2014 at 23:15
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As for Yahoo, same (you can see it but referrer content is long) (961 characters total) Dec 14, 2014 at 23:17