Google has given SEO’s an early Christmas present (roll eyes). They have rolled out new SSL changes to make all searches on organic search now come up as “Not provided” data segment.
The issue with this is that currently where websites see possibly 50% of the keyword referral data from SEO it will probably be 100% by the end of the year.
So where does this leave us?
Basically it means now we have to monitor keyword data using:
Method 1. Paid search data – I think this is Google’s way of saying if you are not using paid search data you now should be.
Method 2. Historic Keyword Data – I mean you really need to track back into your traffic logs and match things up too get some guess on traffic.
Method 3. Landing page comparison – Ideally you can still break down the not provided segment by landing page comparison, which sill allows websites to break down traffic by landing pages.
Method 4. Wait till Google releases paid analytic’s data.
Method 5. If you have a huge site with internal search you can drive people to search for things lol.
Method 6. The “Search Queries” report in webmaster tools / Google Analytics (Hat Tip Dennis Graham) for this one.
Method 7. Complain to Google and try to get these changed removed – I can not see this happening.
Method 8. Build your own search engine which is made for SEO people!
So in the end it seems that SEO’s have once again been Screwoogled by Google. As a white hat SEO your job is to make the Google index clearer we are pretty much the street sweepers for Google fixing up websites and making things better for Google. What does Google do in return it says you cant see any more data.
