One morning, jolting awake after a bad dream and with the speed of a sloth, I got ready for my traditional day as a webworker, unaware of the “tragedy” that was waiting for me. I arrived at work. I sat down. I turned on the PC. I opened Google Analytics….and there it was…that word that, on Coming from Search Keys, I never wanted to see...NOT PROVIDED!
“Gee,” I thought. “Not provided!?”-“Why? Why? Why?” In a moment I went back over my career, marked by SEO strategies and keyword research, and saw it plummet…then, however, I began to think. Why did Google decide during 2012 and 2013 to introduce obscured search? What would happen to the keywords with which effective statistics could be tracked? As a good web maker I began “poking around” in the vast sea of the web in desperate search for plausible explanations.
“Protecting user privacy more
”
so Google justified this change, but the rationale held water for 2 reasons:
- in the blacked-out data there was no serious risk to users’ privacy;
- On Adwords, a paid program, the data were all in the clear.
In a nutshell, users, logged in via their Google Plus account were automatically redirected to the protected https (no longer http) protocol, no longer being able to access the estimated keywords used to reach the searched sites. However, its general visits, which did not have a defined keyword, were directly counted in traffic, defined as Not Set. So what did this mean? Why didn’t Big G provide the same method for AdWords as well? Simple. The people who said that “those who show up with money in their mouths get first dibs” were right, and Adwords makes a lot of money. This commercial turn made me think of at least two explanations:
- force our hand on Adwords and “force” us to use its already incredibly profitable advertising tool more intensively;
- forward-looking move that would pave the way for a potential change in the Google Analytics user license, flanking the free service with a paid version that includes keyword tracking.
Actually, these two motivations are part of the same coin. Should Google decide to actually create a new version of Analytics, it is not certain that everyone will want to pay for the service. This will depend on the price adopted: if Google chooses to charge a mid-range fee, it might be more attractive and convenient for many to use AdWords anyway, in order to derive certain data.
Otherwise, alas, Google would secure a larger investment. I don’t know how you would have felt, but I found myself as if with my back against the wall. The concept was blatant: either you pay..or you are destined to live in oblivion!
But it’s not over, just this morning I made a further discovery that left me speechless. If you are logged in and type in www.google.it not only are you directed to the secure protocol but you are asked to enter data: gender, age and interests to create a complete profile of “clients”…so what about the privacy policy? Do we throw it in the trash? By now I try not to be surprised anymore..but there is never a limit. I have tried to do this other times to see if I had seen it right or not, but unfortunately I have not “stumbled” on this useless detail again. If it really were so, it would be a nice low blow that would show us the real economic/commercial wishes of the great minds at Mountain View and the whole theatrical charade that has been built upon it and which we have witnessed as helpless spectators.
SEO in all of this?
For the purposes of the work of SEO agencies and in general of web marketing doesn’t really change much other than the different procedures to be implemented and the time spent…the real difference is mental. You have to roll up our sleeves and do our jobs as best we can, and if that is only possible by depriving ourselves of keyword analysis in favor of different tracking..so be it! Probably Google’s goal is to fix the whole setup, first with intuitive search, Hummingbird, then with the analysis Not Set e Not Provided. The purpose? If we wanted, for a moment, to close our eyes to the business question, we might go so far as to think that the reason is to make it easier for users to work and to protect their reputations. But mind you ..don’t get used to being too much with your eyes closed! But, despite initial perplexity and cursing, the right attitude is to resign yourself and take more time to get great results. Whereas with Web Analytics we used to be able to know “which keywords gave better results in terms of conversions, site stay, number of page views, and which ones, on the other hand, generated low-quality visits, intercepting users with low propensity to contact/purchase”; now, however, we have to review optimization and positioning strategies. Those who have made SEO their livelihood will surely know how to unravel this Ariadne’s thread and realize that, with a little extra effort, we can get better results than before.After all, the long-debated privacy issue is still a hot-button issue and we may have surprises at any moment.
“And when the going gets tough, the tough get going
”
It’s time to demonstrate your skill, expertise and familiarity with the different sources you have at your disposal to get useful data to compare to previous ones, “cross-referencing” those from different sources in an advanced SEO audit, for example:
- Google Webmaster Tools;
- Adwords Campaigns;
- the other Search Engines, which did not obscure keyword data, increasing traffic, particularly Bing.
If for some, including me, the outlook is not so dramatic; not everyone has the same opinion. Finally, then, the fateful moment that catastrophists have been waiting for since 2011 has arrived: the SEO apocalypse! When Google began to eliminate keywords and the not provided started to grow, the most “hopeful” saw, in this change, the death of SEO…for the hundredth time.
The web landscape is constantly changing, making changes sometimes useful sometimes less so, but not to be considered harmful; it is wrong, whenever, to get stuck and panic, or even worse, to judge the end of theoptimization activity, because it would mean not valuing its real potential. Strategies are our bread and butter, and we would be wrong if we got stuck at the first obstacle…the world is in “continuous becoming,” following the flow will benefit us…even economically!
Let’s treasure the data in web analytics that confirm us the obvious growth of “not provided” keywords involving particularly significant search volumes, soaring even up to80% making Keyword reports useless.
At the end of the article you can take a look (and if you like to share) at our infographic in sympathetic key on Not Provided and the figure of the SEO. You will realize the increase achieved from March 2012 to now, in line with the latest algorithmic updates and the reactions to it. There is even speculation of an overwhelming surge of 100% for November 2013. In the meantime…we wait and wish….
“Long live SEO, with keywords or without!”
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