On September 23rd 2013 Google confirmed the use of SSL (Secure socket layers) encrypted search for all users. This change to 100 per cent secure search means keyword level data for non-paid traffic will no longer be provided. The below is a statement from Google on the forthcoming change:
“We added SSL encryption for our signed-in search users in 2011, as well as searches from the Chrome Omnibox earlier this year. We’re now working to bring this extra protection to more users who are not signed in.”
This change from Google means it will be no longer possible to do in-depth analysis on how specific keywords have performed and generated ROI. The below chart shows the increase of ‘not provided’ in the UK, which has been growing rapidly since the SSL change back in 2011. For many sites the ‘not provided’ data is already well above 60 per cent.
How does this affect reporting?
This change from Google means it is now more difficult to measure SEO campaigns based on the performance of individual keywords. Some correlation of keyword performance can be gained by using ranking data combined with traffic data from Google Webmaster Tools, however, this will lose much of its accuracy.
This change from Google means that SEOs will need to move away from analysis at an individual keyword level, and start to perform analysis around semantically related keyword themes.
This change means it is now vital to gain access to clients Google Webmaster Tools data. For those clients where you also manage the PPC account, you can link Adwords and Google Webmaster Tools so that organic keyword data is accessible within the AdWords Paid and Organic Report.
At what point will all organic data not be provided?
By adding a simple trend line to a graph showing the adoption of Secure Search, we can see that 100 per cent of organic search terms ‘not provided’ could be reached by February 21st 2014. While this is a crude method, it does help demonstrate we are not far off reaching this point.
Realistically, however, we won’t see all organic traffic accounted for a ‘not provided’ by February 2014 because ‘not provided’ currently only affects Google search traffic. The other main search engines; such as Bing and Yahoo are still passing full referrer information and it will take a long time before all active browsers support SSL and have Secure Search enabled by default.
What Next?
The future of SEO keyword data looks to be from Google Webmaster Tools, though the lack of granularity of the data is disappointing. The data is not only sampled (and therefore not fully accurate) but also offers much less detail than we’ve become used to from standard analytics packages.
This stance from Google means that SEOs will find it harder to analyse the keyword performance of a website, and then optimize for individual search terms with on site content and link building. Instead SEOs will need to focus on content marketing campaigns which aid the audience, are based around keyword themes and gain natural and social links by the quality of the content.