Google makes secure search default for all logged-in users.

Google announced late Tuesday that it has applied an encryption protocol called SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) on all searches originating from users logged into a Google account. As a result, Google Analytics will no longer provide data for keywords driving traffic through organic search (Google AdWords reporting will be unaffected), and these keywords will be listed as “(not provided)”. This has only been rolled out on google.com to date, so should impact on just a small percentage of traffic to your site, but this number can be expected to increase significantly as encryption is implemented across Google’s other domains.

Google says this move reflects the growing need to protect personalised results, and will allow it to further enhance the default search experience for signed-in users. This follows strong pressure from regulators to protect users’ privacy, particularly in Europe where its offerings have been the focus of several enquiries.

There’s much debate to be had about whether this necessitated such a dramatic change, and if the decision to retain AdWords data constitutes a double standard. There’s also the question of what it means for other Analytics packages. As Search Marketers though, more pressing is the discussion around reporting on organic search traffic and the ways in which we can adapt our processes to compensate for the loss of keyword-specific information.

The most obvious answer is to substitute Analytics’ keyword reports with search query data from Google Webmaster Tools, which provides a list of the top 1000 traffic-driving keywords over the past month. This won’t allow us to segment traffic and conversions into brand and non-brand, as we did previously, but it will give us a good view of which terms are working for a site and the areas that require attention.

We’ll also still have all the usual Analytics metrics at our disposal – time on site, pages per visit, bounce rate, etc – and using these in tandem with data extrapolated from Webmaster Tools will provide plenty of insight. Perhaps not quite the same insights as before, but we certainly won’t be in the dark as to what’s working, what’s not, and what needs to be done to achieve our objectives.

Not to say that the drawbacks are insignificant. Most notably, being shorn of keyword data makes it impossible to determine the ROI of a specific term. This also makes it more difficult to identify trends and opportunities, and analyse keyword performance of deeper linked pages. Fortunately, while these are definite challenges, in no way should they stop SEO from delivering excellent results.

There’s a lot of hyperbole flying around at the moment, and as is to be expected, the fear mongers are kicking up a fuss, but this doesn’t represent the “death of SEO”. Not even close. Whether we like it or not, Google Analytics is evolving; now it’s up to us to evolve with it.