Privacy For Sale?
On October 18th, Google made the announcement that they would begin encrypting search queries for users that were signed-in or chose to use the https url to initiate searches. Their reasoning for this change was to enhance the default search experience and protect the personalized search results they deliver.
What is encrypting?
In this instance, encryption refers to utilizing a secure sockets layer, or SSL connection. An SSL connection allows the information you enter on a web page and submit to be encrypted, or protected, from unauthorized, prying eyes. Most browsers recognize SSL connections, or secure forms, by displaying an https url instead of the standard http version. For example, Google’s standard url – http://www.google.com is the unencrypted url and the newer https://www.google.com is the encrypted page.
Why Should I Care?
If you are signed-in to Google and submit a search query, certain attributes of your query will no longer be passed to the sites you visit. Let’s say you want to order a pizza, so you go to Google, sign in, and then type a search for “pizza delivery in Spokane, WA.” When you visit the pizzeria website, information such as the city you are in, the search query you typed in, which browser you were using, etc. were passed on to the pizzeria’s analytics tracking program. This was a great benefit to business and website owners as they could run reports on where their traffic was coming from, and attributes of their customers. If they put up a new billboard in Spokane and traffic to the website increased in that city because people were searching for their company name, they could attribute some of that success to the billboard and calculate a return on advertising investment.
With Google now encrypting the search query on signed-in user queries, this information will no longer be available to businesses and webmasters. Google estimated in their news release that this would impact 10% or less of reporting viewable by businesses and webmasters. I assume this 10% number is based on the total percentage of searches performed by signed-in users. What if certain businesses have a client base that are much more likely (than the national average) to be signed-in Google users? What happens to their ability to analyze website traffic data? Answer: They’re out of luck.
Privacy for Sale?
The real kicker in this announcement is that after all the concern for privacy being the reason behind the move to encrypted search, if the user clicks on an ad or paid result (the right column of search results pages and also the top couple of listings on some results page) the information that Google is encrypting on organic clicks is actually not encrypted on paid clicks. That’s right. If the business pays for the click, the information is passed. If they don’t, no data. So it’s not really about your privacy, it’s a business decision on Google’s part to monetize the “private” information. After all, privacy is when your information stays your own. Even with Google’s encrypted search, they still retain all of the private information, they just don’t pass it along to webmasters unless you pay for it.
Take Aways
Here are some quotes from industry leaders on the subject that seem to sum it all up. Peter Young, with Holistic Search Marketing, says, “To be honest the fact that it’s perfectly acceptable for PPC [paid] data to be tracked in the same circumstance that Google says it cannot pass organic data through for “privacy purposes” would suggest again this privacy is the least of their concerns. ‘You can have the data – as long as you pay us’ would appear to be the rhetoric here.” Joost deValk, from SEO Book explains, “This is what I call hypocrisy at work. Google cares about your privacy, unless they make money on you, then they don’t. The fact is that due to this change, AdWords gets favored over organic results. Once again, Google gets to claim that it cares about your privacy and pulls a major public ‘stunt’. The issue is, they don’t care about your privacy enough to not give that data to their advertisers.”
The bottom line: If Google had just said it was a business decision designed to increase profits, most people would have understood that. They’d still grumble, but at least it would make sense. This false pretense of protecting privacy goes out the window Google if you’re going to give it away if you get paid.
Google Webmasters Blog Hacked?
Around 10:30 PM Central time last night (April 2), Google’s Webmaster Central Blog feed seems to have been hacked, albeit not maliciously. Take a look at the screen shot below. Many entries of various photos from what seems to be a photographer’s website.
Proof of Google's Webmaster Central Blog Being Hacked?
Clicking the user link on the posts takes you to mismo334′s (Joe Hewes) Flickr page.
Seeing as how it’s not April 1st, I doubt it’s a joke on Google’s part. I also can’t see how it could be intentional. No Google representatives have publically addressed what happened as of yet. So what’s up?
Share ideas below. We’ll update the post as more information becomes available.
Why Does Google Contradict Itself?
This post is a bit on the geek-centric side of SEO. You’ve been warned. Also, this is strictly an opinion rant. I still love Google and believe every client should optimize their site for the best rankings in Google. <hugs></hugs>
Ever wonder why the number of pages indexed in Google (as shown in the Sitemaps section of Webmaster Tools) is different from the number of pages indexed in Google (as shown in a site: search of Google itself)?
<rant>Google forums and blogs, as well as other industry sources say that it could be because of the way Google stores data. You see, Google utilizes what are called data centers. According to the Webmaster Central Blog, “Occasionally, fluctuation in search results is the result of differences in our data centers. When you perform a Google search, your query is sent to a Google data center in order to retrieve search results. There are numerous data centers, and many factors (such as geographic location and search traffic) determine where a query is sent. Because not all of our data centers are updated simultaneously, it’s possible to see slightly different search results depending on which data center handles your query.” Read more…
Online Negativity – Embrace the Dark Side
As Michael Fauscette describes in his post How to Deal with Negativity Online, there are a few different types of online negativity you may be required to deal with (Real Issue, Constructive Criticism, and Unwarranted Attack)- regardless of whether or not your company has an online presence. This post focuses mainly on the third type. You’ll need to be honest with yourself or get an unbiased third party opinion to decide which of these types applies to your situation.
Regardless of what’s been said about you or your company, there are 5 rules of the road that will keep you from escalating the situation and making it a total disaster. Read more…
Web Content Is King
In the eleven years I’ve been developing web sites I continue to notice the same issue. CONTENT. It’s one of many areas that can make or break a web site in many cases. There never seems to be a lack of images or keywords people want to put into a site, but content is the key to a great web presence. Some clients don’t have the time, don’t like to write, or just don’t know how to write for the web.
Face it, without telling your audience who you are and why you’re better than your competition, having a web site is nothing more than a web gallery for images or a quick electronic brochure. Web users have outgrown those types of sites and simply expect more. Read more…