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Based on this blog post,

Google Analytics may not be providing keyword referral data anymore

Google not provide their search keyword to insecure website. Since the keyword is Not provided, looks like Google intentionally replace the keyword with word Not provided.

But is this long-standing 4 years problem only affect non-SSL website?

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  • Not entirely sure what you're asking but all searches carried out on Google are over the secure protocol (https) so no keyword data is passed to Google Analytics, hence all traffic from search engines will show as 'Not Provided'.
    – zigojacko
    Commented May 22, 2015 at 8:27
  • Even to SSL protected website?
    – apasajja
    Commented May 22, 2015 at 11:24
  • It has absolutely nothing to do with the website, but the web search a persona makes. @zigojacko was saying that with Google, any search using HTTPS would result in an anonymous search hence the (not provided), however, it is possible for some Google searches to still be HTTP and not HTTPS though that is disappearing rapidly.
    – closetnoc
    Commented May 22, 2015 at 13:46

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It's not quite a case of Google choosing to replace the keyword with Not Provided. The issue here is that Google runs all of Google search using HTTPS. A safety restriction built into all browsers is not to provide the referrer header when the referrer is a HTTPS site, this is an intentional security feature. The way most libraries have worked in the past to get the keywords used for the Google search that brought the user to the site in question was to get the data out of the referrer header which had the Google SERP URL that the user came from and which contained the search string and keywords. As this is no longer happening due to the HTTPS restriction there is no data provided hence the Not Provided result if you try to get the referrer keyword.

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