Google SSL changes

The UK’s favourite search engine, Google, has announced that it is going to be resetting the boundaries for a private web. Using Secure Socket Layers (SSL), the engine will effectively delete the referring keyword data seen in any analytics platform from searches that occur when a user is signed into their Google account:

• All searchers logged into a Google account will be redirected to the Google Secure Search site
• The click will be marked up to identify that it has come from Google Organic, but won’t identify the query
• In keyword reporting, the visit will be attributed to ‘not provided’

Search privacy and AdWords

This is great news if you are an exponent of privacy and HTTPS Everywhere, as your data will now be protected even further. However, Google will continue to supply the referrer keyword data from all users in AdWords reporting (if they click on a sponsored link), effectively ensuring that the search marketer is buying the search query data from Google.

Affecting SEO

This is a little bit like taking from the poor to feed the rich for the SEO community. I would venture to say that we have put all the hard work into ensuring that our content is good enough for page one, that we have consistently optimised and worked on our pages to feed data to Google so that it can have great results, and we have not paid Google a cent to get our pages on the front pages. Then they take some of our most crucial data from us. On the other hand, their algorithms have encouraged us to be better webmasters and SEOs, and produce a better user experience over the years, but we’re losing data to continue to do this to the best of our ability.

Google’s Matt Cutts has assured the search community that this data will only be limited by a single figure percentage; however, it’s a real worry for many webmasters that even losing a small percentage of their data can have a marked effect on their audience measurement. It currently looks like tablet and mobile device data will not be affected very much, as searches are conducted through apps, so there may be no personalisation… I guess we really have to wait and see!

In essence, this is a step towards improving privacy, but this is not so great if you’re the search marketer who is all about improving search experience by discovering which combinations of keywords are working for your strategy, which landing pages are favourite for which keywords, which keywords provide low traffic but high position, how a small meta description tweak can make the CTR shoot up and which keywords are used by people who actually convert.

All this is now lost to you if your Google natural search audience comprises ardent Google users.

 

This blog post was written by Sarah

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