Are Google Privacy Changes Really Affecting SEO?
Nothing stays the same at Google for all that long! Now in the latest Google have announced that they are going to change the way in which search data is reported. However, it is this latest announcement which has sparked concerns into privacy and even utter panic from those in Internet Marketing in regards to Search Engine Optimisation.
This article will show you exactly how the Google privacy changes are going to affect your SEO. In the post by Google they talk about privacy and how from now on all search data will in fact be encrypted. It will be encrypted from anyone who searches whilst signed into the Google account so that when it comes to looking at the analytics either as the site owner or in our case Brick technology web design carrying out one of our internet marketing meeting it will only say the query came from Google.
Although this sounds great in terms of SEO campaigns and reporting them too say one of our web design companies it is not all that great at all! When reporting to a client on a specific campaign Google Analytics is more often than not referred too. The specific keywords or phrases which are typed into Google and which drive traffic to the site are what we need to look at. In particular we need to look at valuable keywords or phrases which have accounted for a conversion or an enquiry which is credible.
It is these valuable keywords which need to rank highly within search engines such as Google. These are the ones important to target. So in reality how will the changes made by Google actually effect analysis?
For signed in users instead of having specific keywords and phrases available for analysis we will be faced with “Not Provided”. In terms of analysis we will know it came from Google but that it all. Data will be all together and seen as one entry. Some people do not have a Google account and those that do sometimes do not keep themselves signed in permanently and this is important because it will mean that little data is affected for now.
Hopefully it will affect less than 2% of the searches online. This figure is seemingly low but it will vary across different websites according also to the types of people they are also trying to target. Plus unfortunately the more people who get Gmail or a Google+ account the more the data will be affected and the “Not Provided” will show; users will be more likely to be permanently signed in.
In the ever changing world of search engine optimisation this will be a gradual change. When this reaches a critical level where loads of data is becoming affected and it is causing a problem the whole world of internet marketing and SEO could have changed all over again.
Reporting will not be changed yet and there will still be enough data available to hold our monthly internet marketing review meetings. Brick technology has an inbuilt website statistics within our clients control centre so they will still have access to data regarding their site specifically.
With the Google privacy changes we will still be in a position to tell you how much traffic from the search engines has changed and also if any leads are generated so all in all there will be enough data for that all important bottom line analysis but remember the affected data currently is in the minority meaning we can help you to generate return on your investment.
If web design is something you are thinking about or maybe you have a website which is not performing well and are thinking about internet marketing and SEO then make sure you contact the professionals. Brick technology has over twenty years experience within this particular industry and can put you on the right path – the path to online success!