EDIT
Keep in mind that Google are still gathering all of the keyword data, they just aren’t passing it through clicks on organic search results anymore. So, even under the guise of “privacy protection” what they’re doing would be protecting your “privacy” from website owners, but not from Google itself. The last thing they’d ever do is reduce the amount of data they gather on anything…
What’s your take on the latest Google shenanigans? Let me know by leaving a comment below!
Note that I don’t reply to all comments, but I do read them all. If I don’t reply to your comment, it most likely means that I agree with what you say and don’t have anything meaningful to add, myself. I appreciate and read all comments and your comments play an important part in what I write about, so keep them coming.
Spammy comments are always filtered or removed. No surprise there.
Might this be a prelude to selling this info to SEO managers? Yes, Google’s proclaimed purpose is to provide the best search experience possible, but their real purpose is to make a profit. I think eventually Google will, like all monopoly’s, make a misstep, and another company will step in to fill the void. For instance, I am sure one of Google’s nightmare scenarios is for Facebook to create and market their own search engine. Or Amazon. And like I did to Netflix, if you screw me over and another opportunity presents itself, you have lost me as a customer.
Possibly. They could make Google Analytics more popular by only passing the keyword info to it, but not to other analytics tools. This would be pretty evil, but certainly not beyond them. They might also start selling the data through an API. I really don’t know what their long term plan is, though.
And I also wonder if in ten years time, anyone will still know what Google is/was. Only time will tell.
I could be mistaken, but according to Aaron Wall at SEOBook.com, this info is still available via AdWords (I am going off a memory of reading his take on this change…I could be totally wrong).
Shane – wanted to say I think your blog RAWKS MAN! All with a Scottish accent? (Don’t tell me you’re Irish…I’d really have to buy you a pint.)
Just wanted to say I enjoy your place, you’ve got some great content and ideas. One of the few honest marketers I’ve found – much obliged for your videos.
Thanks, James! :)
Yes, the information is still passed on through paid PPC ads, which kind of ads insult to injury, for SEO’s…
Hey Shane,
hoped you say something about the newest Panda update in this video…
Concerning the missing keywords in analytics:
I don’t know if this really is a problem. Just because X% of your keywords are missing in your analytics doesn’t mean that you can’t see the whole picture if you take a look at the other 100-X% keywords. As long as X is small enough, of course. Maybe you don’t see one or the other long tail keyword anymore, but you will most likely still see the keywords that refer more than one visitor.
Hope you know what I want to say ;).
I’ll have some Panda related stuff for you soon, don’t worry. :)
I agree, as long as the percentage stays low, it’s not a big deal. Still pretty annoying that they’re doing this at all, though.
I had noticed this week that there were a number of (not provided) showing up in the keyword analysis in my google analytics.
I agree totally with what you say about the reasons behind it but I feel that as long as the logged in searchers are typing in the same spectrum of keywords as the not logged in ones, it won’t be too serious from the analysis point of view.
I wanted to ask though, if you have come to any conclusions about why some sites were hit by the changes of 14th / 15th October whilst some were not. I have four sites, built with the same theme, same layout, same plugins, same backlinking and two are ok and two have been hit hard and I just cannot figure it out!
I would be interested in your take on it.
I look forward to reading the next blog post (can’t believe another month has almost gone by with that network blogs project).
Alison
Don’t know about that yet. One of my sites was also hit by that update. It’s a strange penalty, as it seems that most of my rankings were just moved down by 10-20 positions. I’ll try to figure out what happened and how I can fix it and will, of course, report on what I find.
Same here. I’ve got an authority site from 2007 that has weathered all Google algo updates, but this one finally gave it a good whack, to the tune of about a 50% traffic drop. But, like you, it’s basically an overall lowering of positions of various keywords; not really a “slap” or anything like that as far as I can tell.
So far, the most telling bit of info I’ve found is this little gem from a Google tech in their algo support thread:
“quibble: (…) In addition, it’s important for webmasters to know that low quality content on part of a site can impact a site’s ranking as a whole.
For this reason, if you believe you’ve been impacted by this change you should evaluate all the content on your site and do your best to improve the overall quality of the pages on your domain. Removing low quality pages or moving them to a different domain could help your rankings for the higher quality content.”
I think they are just tightening their on-page and intra-site quality thresholds. I’m in the process of auditing and cleaning up my site and will report back with more info.
That’s possible. What puzzles me, regarding my “smacked” site is that the remaining sites, i.e. the ones currently ranking highly for my target keywords, are not better in any discernible way. They’re all affiliate sites and I’d say that mine has higher quality content than most…
Shane,
Thanks for letting me know that I can start my work week knowing that Google is protecting my privacy and making my keyword life more secure. The only constant at Google is their frequent rule changes. Thanks so much for keeping your eyes and ears to the ground and keeping all of us updated and informed in the IM world.
Jeff B.
Thanks for your comment, Jeff!
Yeah, it’s good to know that Google have your back, isn’t it? …
Hi Shane,
A good to the point post as always. Google protects our privacy? Yeah, its like putting a fox in charge of your chicken coop. I see this move as a beginning of open war on SEO. Let me explain, Google’s #1 aim is to collect accurate information about what people think and what they do, each and every one of us individually.
Some may accuse me of being paranoid but I really took the time to learn about Google, its history (not the official version) and its doings.
SEO efforts worldwide affect the accuracy of Google’s results in terms of topic popularity and human interest due to massive artificial link building efforts and they are not going to tolerate it any longer. I think the next step will be deployment of a very sophisticated system to detect any link building automation.
Thanks for the post again.
Excellent, that’s the perfect analogy for this! :)
I think you have a point, there. I’ve stated elsewhere that SEO is basically a problem for Google. The problem is that the original idea of ranking pages based on backlinks or mentions works. In fact it works perfectly – in a world where Google is the only organization actively trying to make a profit. It breaks down in the real world, because there’s a lot of money in search traffic, so obviously everyone will do everything they can to get that traffic. So a “war” between the search engine and the webmasters is almost inevitable.
Total Google hypocrisy and control freakishness from them… !
Goodness knows what the real reasons are that motivated them to implement this ridiculous ‘privacy’ measure !!
As you say if it was just down to ‘privacy’ then why not also include it on Adwords then!
I worry how will this affect the accuracy of the data from SECockpit in the long run? Of course in reality thats all we have and there’s not much that can be done!
John
I’ve added a comment below the video concerning SECockpit. In short: this will not have any affect at all. :)
I honestly think it’s an overall mistake to use Google Analytics on any site – it’s a useful service but between that and Adsense I just think it gives them too much data to base their next algo change on.
They’re already mining enough data from users and their “privacy” spin is just ridiculous.
Agreed. I’ve moved almost all of my non-AdSense sites over to Clicky now.
Hello Niall,
I’m glad you said this. Some months ago I was reading, oh I dunno, the Warrior Forum or a WSO or something and the author said he NEVER gives his site over to friend Google. Whatever the discussion, it was a little gray hat anyway.
I mulled this over for awhile. Then I removed several of my sites from their program. I guess I ought to do them all. After all, I have the stats program that comes with the site. I don’t HAVE to use Analytics. It’s fun and all, but for value received, I don’t know that it’s worth letting them crawl around in my work any more than I must.
I confess I don’t know nearly as much about this whole thing as others, Shane included.
As always, thanks Shane for your super work! (But you did say “pri-va-cee” twice. Where I come from we pernounce it “preye-va-cee”)
Norm
hi shane
Thanks for the great information.. I had a question about SECockpit software
will this change and have a negative effect on your software and make this tool obsolete?
Because I understand the SECockpit relies on google tools to find where the keywords are getting the most traffic from and even analysis how much traffic you can expect from a keyword..
your feed back on this would be much appreciated,
Mitchell Assin
Hi Mitchell,
I’ve added a note below the video, about the SECockpit question. Short answer is that the update won’t affect keyword research. :)
Thanks for the quick reply shane :)
Do you recommend any plugins or additional software we can use to couter-attack googles latest slap?
I use awstats as a plugin for my sites and also use stat counter so I can keep track of traffic volume .. however I know you are an expert when it comes to these type of things and your feed back would be greatly appreciated .. not just by me but also by all your loyal customers and also my online clients :)
There is a very good reason why Google dropped their known slogan – “don’t be evil”. They are becoming more and more evil each day and if you want more information about their recent moves and the truth behind it I recommend you read Aaron Wall’s SEO blog – SEOBook.com.
It seems Aaron is the only one in the SEO community that is not afraid to speak it (or write it) as it is when it comes to Google and all of their shady moves over the past year.
Here is what he had to say about this recent change – http://www.seobook.com/false-privacy-claims
Actually, it’s Joost de Valk’s blog on SEOBook.
Google analytics?
Hmm, never use it.
I use tools and services that provide me with all information I need.
This will create opportunities for gurus to create software and sell it for mega bucks.
Well, they did state on their blog that
“They (websites that receive traffic from Google) can also receive an aggregated list of the top 1,000 search queries that drove traffic to their site for each of the past 30 days through Google Webmaster Tools.” – http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/making-search-more-secure.html
So the data is available, at least in some form, in limited quantity and for a limited time. Though I doubt you’ll be able to connect a search query to a visitor who used that query (for example, to examine if visitors coming to your site using a certain keyword, were leaving your site earlier than other visitors).
So yeah… Operation “Pinky & The Brain & Google” continues successfully!
Shane,
Maybe you have an idea if this will influence the keyword data in wordpress jetpack too? I use this additional to analytics on WordPress sites, but never compared the two on similarities / differences.
I have a remark on Google Analytics though. I can’t really proof it because I made more changes at the same time, but 2 of my previous non-analytics sites, were really boosted in the SERP’s after adding analytics. The other change was adding all legal stuff pages in the footer. Those are non-adsense too by the way.
Cheers
Emiel
Hi Shane
When the Panda algorithm changes were instituted the ranking of most of the keywords on my main site improved and responded well to minimal backlinking.
Then on October 14th the rankings of many of these keywords, and several other keywords that had been ranking very highly for about a year, suddenly dropped by 5 to 20 places and my earnings decreased by about 70%. I will be spending some time this week creating quality backlinks to some of these keywords to see if I can restore their original rankings. I will be very interested to hear about your successes or failures in this regard and your conclusions about the factors that have triggered this penalty.
There are over 6,000 posts in Google’s Webmaster Help Forum since the first Panda algorithm change, and there are many posts by people like me who have suffered from substantial losses in website earning resulting from the October 14th penalty. I have read through many of these posts by distressed webmasters, but there isn’t any obvious commonality that is helpful in understanding Google’s motivations.
Hi Mervin,
That is exactly what I am talking about in my reply to Shane’s video. I know you are asking Shane but here is what I think. Panda suppose to “learn” quickly and enhance quality analysis of the published material. That certainly concerns content aggregation and back links.
I think now it is just in the beginning stages and will become more sophisticated as time goes since it designed to continuously “learn” about backlinking patterns. I am pretty sure that they pay attention to IP addresses, time stamp of link creation, email account’s that is used to generate let’s say bookmarking account as well as IP address, pattern of activity etc. Of course, the argument could be raised that Google doesn’t have access to all these details. I think they do.
If you think about it, if you for example you would like to completely eliminate link automation and links-for-sale industry how would you go about it, given the fact that you have unlimited resources? I really think that’s what Panda is all about.
Anyway, I think link building should be approached with extreme caution and most of the manuals that come with link automation tools are a bit out of date as far as Panda concerned.
Just to add, some of my websites where I outsourced link building took an immediate dive after Panda, so now I am manually working their way up.
I, too, noticed a huge drop in traffic and revenue after 10/14. I thought it was some wp plugins that I installed that caused it. My posts are all written by me and none are spun articles of any sort but my site was affected by the Google change. This is just horrible for those who put hard work and dedication to their sites.
Little off topic but I’ve been looking for a replacement for anaylitics for multiple reasons. Any chance of a quick review some time soon of Getclicky?
And why not move your adsense websites too? Is there an issue with adsense and GetClicky?
So…for privacy protection, they don’t pass info to webmasters via analytics; yet, they pass it on to PPC’ers?
Hmm…sounds like a double standard to me.
Oh, by the way, does this mean that, with AW Stats, you can’t see which keywords people used to find you?
I think that AW Stats provides–or, at least used to be able to provide–that information. Am I correct?
Yes and no. It used to provide this data and will now no longer. The change will affect all analytics tools.
Google should at least be greedy enough to still pass the data to Google Analytics, but not to other tools. It would be a really mean move, but if they’re already acting like dicks, why not go all out?
Shane,
There is a clear shift toward paid SOCIAL traffic from Facebook using Facebook ads the smart way (meaning to pay less then 1 cent per click) vs Google organic traffic due to;
1. Google’s search algo constant changes and our non-stop ‘rat’ race to address their changes that has no end in the near and far future.
2. Facebook traffic is much more targeting and again you will get much better ROI if you know how to do it properly with Facebook ads.
Usually you will get less ROI for this Google’s “free” traffic, which is actually not free at all, compare to the paid traffic from Facebook.
You have to “pay” by your own time or to outsourcers (e.g. Fiverr.com) to build backlinks to your sites and this is the price of “free” organic traffic you have to pay in any case.
Regarding Google Analytics:
I use Piwik.org stats tool on all my websites for almost 2 years now. It is free and good quality software that shows how many people visited your site, what keywords they used, what countries they are from and so on…
I can recommend this tool. You can check it here: http://piwik.org/.
Here is what they say about Piwik:
Piwik aims to be an open source alternative to Google Analytics.
Piwik is a PHP MySQL software program that you download and install on your own webserver.
It is a real time web analytics software program. It provides you with detailed reports on your website visitors: the search engines and keywords they used, the language they speak, your popular pages… and so much more.
cheers,
Alexander
Thanks for sharing I definitely going to look into it.
Pwiki is certainly a great tool and has quite a large user base now, but if you prefer something that really does look like GA, then Open Web Analytics is certainly worth looking at.
http://openwebanalytics.com
I may be way off on this, but would it be fair to say that if G makes it sufficiently difficult or expensive to drive a majority of the (hated) affiliate marketers and small businesses off the web that G itself would lose out? Involving yourself in business on the web leads to more “distracted” time spent online looking for things totally unrelated to business proper, which of course leads to more searches, giving G and it’s PPC marketers a shot at your cash. Considering all the changing and tightening hoops people have had to jump through for years already, is there some breaking point where the whole thing unravels?
Even for non-affiliate businesses, which now compete and drive up PPC bids and run Adwords ads – all of which add to G’s bottom line – will PPC bids dropping and businesses very possibly opting for other advertising venues make things better for G?
Also, searchers are used to nearly unlimited choice on the internet, and users are getting more savvy with each new generation. They’ll find other ways to broaden their choices if G decides to favor only their paying advertisers. I don’t see any of this happening short term, but I agree with Shane’s statement: “And I also wonder if in ten years time, anyone will still know what Google is/was.”
(Personally, I’ve always been a little creeped out by G’s obsession with stockpiling every peace of data in their system. All your gmail archived, even AFTER you delete it? Why??? I remember when G first came on the scene, and they developed an almost “Apple-like” cult following. I doubt that still holds true today.)
I don’t think that small businesses and affiliates represent a large enough slice of the pie for this kind of effect to take place.
Apart from that, I really don’t know how things will develop. Google may be shooting themselves in the foot with some of the decisions they’re making, but it’s hard to tell as a monster-corporation like them can absorb a lot of error before things start falling apart.
There’s another article about this subject over here:
http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2011/10/google-moves-to-secure-searches-alienates-seo-jockeys.ars
I found pages with Amazon links suffered maximum.
Is there any data or thoughts on whether using Google analytics in preference to other stats programs increases your ranking?
Dale.
There’s a lot of speculation, but no solid data that I know of.
I think all the analytics tools will be affected by this right, not just if you use GA?
John
Yes, that’s right.
Regarding John.N’s post above. Suggestion’s for alternate Analytic companies like Piwick.org or Clicy are appreciated, but don’t they all get the stats from Google?
Jeff
Jeff:
No, it resides on your server.
I changed over to Arvixe hosting: http://www.arvixe.com/ from HostGator because they include the installation of Piwik – no tech issues to contend with. (Also domain for life, which I still control, and $9/mo).
Piwik is free and do not connected in any way to Google. It seats in his own directory on your hosting server and collect data from your websites in real time. There is a free piwik plugin for WordPress so you can monitor your WP sites as well. Piwik gets automatic updates every month so far. Current version is v1.6.
I usually keep one browser’s window open for piwik so i can see all my site’s performance in real time when all data is updated automatically every few minutes.
Yes, that’s an important point. It doesn’t matter which analytics tool you use, you won’t get that keyword data.
The idea of NOT using Google Analytics is simply to not give them even more insight into your websites and everything you do than they already have/than is absolutely necessary.
Hey Shane,
I think its a great business decision for Google in the sense it will mean more money from them, less privacy for us the individual. Will there be enough of a backlash to affect their bottom line? Probably not. In your video you said you ” really dont know why they are doing this” I think you mean your not sure why they would take such a hypocritical stance given they are in the information business, and this latest change is under the guise of ” protecting our collective privacy”
Thanks for the update and keep up the good work.
Yeah, you’re right. I don’t know why they’d make such a ridiculous claim about protecting people’s privacy, when that’s clearly not what’s going on. They just set themselves up for criticizm with that. But Google moves in mysterious ways, I guess…
There is an article about Google’s new approach to Adwords:
Google AdWords Redesign – Instead of taking a keyword and finding relevant pages, the company is taking a page and matching it to the best keyword.
You can read it here:
http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/google-adwords-redesign-looks-beyond-keywords-135950