Google SSL Encryption of Searches – a poke in the eye for SEO and conversion rate analysis?

What searches bring people to your website? Which are ending up in landing you customers and which are just generating bounces?
Vital questions for anyone serious about maximising the performance of their website. Not to mention SEO professionals, marketing folks, web designers, copywriters and others charged with generating more business for their customers.

Without it you're just blindly stumbling around in the dark.

Google moving to SSL Encryption…

Last year Google added an SSL-encrypted version (i.e. https) of it's search as a Beta test. That didn't cause too much fuss (Although search analytics software providers Clicky did blog 'Say goodbye to search analytics'.

If you were signed into Google you could choose to search via a secured connection. Good for those worried about the relative ease in which folks can snoop while you're on WiFi.

Now Google have announced that encrypted search will now be the default for logged in users. This has caused a fuss. A big fuss. And the reason? Because it's like they've just poked website owners and analysts in the eye with a big pointy stick.

Why SSL Encryption of Google Search will hurt you

When somebody clicks on a SERPs entry from the https version of Google, you'll no longer be able to see what it was they searched for.

I'll say that again.

Someone logged into Google does a search, finds you in the results and then clicks through to your website… you won't be able to see what keywords brought them to your site.

And that's a big deal.

It means losing a whole chunk of invaluable data that you can use to improve your organic search performance.

Think about it…. You'll see someone came from Google, but you won't know what they searched for. That puts the blinkers on any website owner wanting to optimise their organic search. However, it's an eyeball-gouging poke in the eye for SEO and a cheekbone-smashing slap in the face for analytic software providers.

Google say the change will only account for about 10% of searches (so apparently not many folks log into Google). Maybe so at the moment, but what about the future? Which makes you wonder why the move to encryption?

Secure search or something else…

Google say the move to https is for security. Maybe so. But isn't it handy that it's a great way to shut-out rival ad networks? And it's not too bad a ploy to pick-up those disappointing sign-in rates (10% after all) and then up-sell some other Google products while you're in their clutches.

Which then gets you thinking… this is only for logged-in users (for now). If it's all about security then why only those folks who've logged in. Oh, and Google adwords will still pass this information along… security be damned (folks wouldn't swallow losing that information).

So referrer data is worthy of protection so your privacy isn't invaded, just not when it's for someone paying Google lots of pennies for PPC ads.

The upshot…

This looks very much like it's the future of search… no referral data (unless of course Google is making money from you). Which, simply put, means if you're into optimising your website, PPC becomes much more attractive than SEO.

Not a bad outcome for Google. After all… it's the PPC where they make their millions. But a blinding blow to the future of the SEO and web analytics industry.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed search engine giant is king.

Written by Jason John Mills