Almost two years after Google made the switch to block 100% of organic keywords in search referrals from Google Search results, Bing is making the move to prevent keywords from being passed on to site owners when a searcher clicks their search result.  Duane Forrester made the announcement about the change on Bing’s Webmaster Blog.

The change also means that searches will also be coming from https://bing.com instead of the http:// version.

Bing will still be passing data so that it will show as a referral from Bing, but the keywords will not be included in that referral string as many of the referrals are now.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to many marketers, as this move has been expected ever since Google made their own switch to 100% “not provided” for organic search referrals.  It did take longer than most people expected, with Google making the 100% switch back in September 2013, while rolling it out in phases for years before that.

Like Google, Bing will still include keyword data within Bing’s Webmaster Tools.   However, Bing does offer six months worth of keyword data, much longer than Google’s 90 day limit.  However, with Bing’s lower search share, as well as a different ranking algorithm compared to Google, makes their keyword data within Webmaster Tools slightly less valuable.

It isn’t clear exactly when this will be taking place, only that Bing will begin to make the transition this summer.