Entry Keyword

An entry keyword is the phrase a user typed into a search engine and, from its results, arrived at the site.

The entry keyword was once one of analytics' richest signals, but today it has all but vanished from a web analytics tool's view. The reason is that search engines encrypt the query and do not send it in the referrer — the not-provided wall known for years. The result is that you know the source (Organic from Google) but not the exact phrase, except through a search-engine's own tool such as the search console, which supplies query data apart from the referrer. That distinction is the point: the entry keyword is SEO data, not referral data; and any keyword claim in a web analytics report has usually either come from the search console or is an estimate.