What Does the New Goolge Encryption Mean to You?

By Sarah Giometti | SEO

Nov 14

Search Engine OptimizationOne of the cornerstones of search engine optimization has always been the choice and placement of keywords. Prior to writing an article or a blog post, you would research the keywords that would bring you the most traffic, and then ensure that you placed those terms throughout the article in optimum places. Then, the flip side of that was that you would refer to your website and determine the keywords that brought the majority of people to your site as a means to determine the effectiveness of your choices. Now though, Google has begun the process of encrypting those keywords, resulting in less access to certain types of analytical data. The encryption process has been in the works for some time. In the beginning only a small percentage of searches were impacted based on whether or not you were signed into Google during your search process. Then, over time Google extended the parameters that resulted in an encrypted search. Now, with this final update all keyword data has been encrypted. There are varying degrees of speculation for the reasons behind the change. Some feel like it is a ploy to get more users working with Adwords than other tools, and others are claiming it is about protection in light of the recent NSA activity. Whatever the reason though, this switch has serious implications for all of those involved in the world of search engine optimization.

These changes do not impact your PPC advertising, so rest assured that data is still safe and sound and available to access. Where you will see the difference is in the information that you gained from organic searches. All is not lost however, you just need to shift your thought process when selecting keywords. You may not be able to access a list of the specific keywords that bring people to your site, but you can still examine the performance of a particular URL on your site. Once you determine the page that has the most activity, you are then privy to the keyword that is driving people to your site and you can build your remaining strategy behind that information.

Search engine optimization is an ever changing business, and if you are going to survive the storm, you must be able to roll with the punches. In this case, those punches are simply based on finding another way to get a desired result.

SEO continues to evolve as an ever-more complicated process.  Trust ICT Marketing to navigate the SEO waters for you.

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