The day long feared by webmasters and SEO experts has finally come: Google has decided to encrypt all keyword searches.
The writing has been on the digital wall for some time. Google rolled out encrypted search as an option three years ago, and in 2011 extended it to all users who were signed in to their Google accounts. Secure searching was then made the default for Firefox, and in the Chrome "omnibox" (the browser's URL address field, which doubles as a search box if you type in keywords instead). But now, Google is working to make all searches secure, regardless of how users access the search site.
Why It Matters
For the person doing the searching, Google's SSL encryption provides greater privacy. It makes it far more difficult for any outside parties to see what you are searching for.
But that same benefit is a big disadvantage for marketers. It means that you can no longer see what keywords people are searching for when they access your site. The visits are still listed as organic traffic in your Google Analytics reports, but in the list of keywords which produced those visits, secure searches are displayed as "(not provided)."
The annoying "(not provided)" keyword started out as a small percentage of all searches, and was not too difficult to work around: assuming secure searches were statistically similar to non-secure searches, you could estimate the makeup of the "(not provided)" segment by looking at the percentages of the visible keywords. However, "(not provided)" now makes up the vast majority of all organic traffic. With all Google searches encrypted, the keyword report--easily one of the most important features in Google Analytics--becomes rather useless.
Why the Change
Google itself clearly knows the impact that "(not provided)" has on its analytics platform. And although providing encrypted search as an option for users makes sense, Google is now removing options by getting rid of non-encrypted search. So why make the change?
The official response from Google is that they "believe it's is a good thing for users." Though the company has not mentioned the NSA in regards to the change, the agency has been in the news for allegedly spying on citizens, and Google has challenged the NSA in court over the terms of its information requests. Making encrypted search universal may be considered "a good thing for users" because of these NSA concerns.
However, encrypted searches are not completely private, as Google still records keyword data for its AdWords program. Though Google expressly denies that the change is designed to sell more ads, the fact is that you can still get data on individual keywords if you advertise with them through AdWords.
How to Cope
Though "(not provided)" makes it much more difficult to see which keywords are effectively driving traffic to your site, there are still some ways to get the data you need.
- Google Webmaster Tools. The "Search Queries" tab in Google Webmaster Tools does still list the keywords that your site ranks for. Specifically, it will tell you the site's average position on search results pages (whether you rank first, second, third, etc.) for each keyword; how many times you appear in such search results; and your click-through rate for each term. Though these numbers are rounded and therefore not exact, they still provide some very useful insights.
- Google Analytics Search Engine Optimization Queries. The "Search Engine Optimization" tab under "Traffic" in Google Analytics provides similar insights, especially through its "Queries" report.
- Landing pages analysis. Google Analytics does still tell you when someone arrives at your site via search, and you can filter the "(not provided)" traffic to see which pages they are landing on. Since you know which keywords each landing page is focused on, you can get some idea of which keywords are performing well and driving sales.
- On-site search. You can see what keywords people are using when they utilize your on-site search box. Though this does not give you the keywords they used to find your site, it does let you know what your visitors are looking for.
- Surveys. You can determine statistically what keywords people used to find your site by asking them, via a one-question survey on your landing pages. Care must be taken not to drive people away by requiring this information, though.
- AdWords. As mentioned, you can do keyword research through Google AdWords. You can only measure your response rates to keywords by paying to advertise with them, though
*Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
