I wish there were a balance between privacy and providing site owners with some sort of analytics. Correlating search terms to destinations on my site is something that I find very valuable.
For example, I recently noticed that searches for "invalid JSON primitive" were bringing users to a page on my site where that error was briefly discussed a few places within its over 200 comments, but no where within the body of the post. I think people may have eventually been finding their answers by searching on the page, but I can't imagine that it was a very good experience.
So, I wrote a new post that directly addresses that error in more detail, and now that newer post is ranking for the query instead of the older one. A win for everyone involved.
If I had been unable to see what search terms were bringing people to my site, I couldn't have done that.
For example, I recently noticed that searches for "invalid JSON primitive" were bringing users to a page on my site where that error was briefly discussed a few places within its over 200 comments, but no where within the body of the post. I think people may have eventually been finding their answers by searching on the page, but I can't imagine that it was a very good experience.
So, I wrote a new post that directly addresses that error in more detail, and now that newer post is ranking for the query instead of the older one. A win for everyone involved.
If I had been unable to see what search terms were bringing people to my site, I couldn't have done that.