SEO will get harder: Google about to introduce SSL for logged-in user searches, hiding keywords

Google have announced that more of their search traffic will be served from an encrypted SSL web server. What this means is that anyone arriving on your site will no longer pass through the keywords using in the search. This currently only applies to users who explicitly search from https://encrypted.google.com/. This latest change means anyone who is logged into a Google account will end up on the encrypted search.

This move suggests a trend of Google moving everyone to encrypted traffic, though undoubtedly it has taken some time to get the more complex and more difficult-to-scale SSL infrastructure built up to support the traffic. This is undoubtedly a good thing for security and freedom. The analogy that cypherpunks use is that if everyone wrote their letters on postcards, anyone who put a letter in an envelope would be suspicious. By putting all search traffic behind encryption, your boss, your network staff, your ISP, your censorship-obsessed control freak government or your despotic dictator won't be able to see what you're searching, whether you have something to hide or not.

The downside for online marketers, and particularly search marketers, is that organic search keywords will no longer be available in your web analytics data. The search keywords are passed through on the Referrer header when someone clicks on a link in a search engine, but only when the search engine is served by HTTP. When served from HTTPS (SSL) the referrer is not sent by standards-compliant browsers.

What this means is that search marketers will need to rely on search engine-supplied data to know what keywords people are searching for, and will have very little useful feedback of organic optimisation strategies. We're going to be flying blind.

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Google adds page level data to its Webmaster Tools providing AdWords equivalent for organic search

Exciting news for all data obsessed search marketers, Google just added page level data to its Webmaster Tools! Previously Google would only show you how your entire domain was ranking for organic search terms but now you can also see the same data for your top pages (see below).

Google Webmaster Tools will tell you what pages are ranking organically for what search terms, how many times your pages were displayed on search results pages (i.e. impressions), your average rank, the amount of clicks and the click-through rate including change over time.

Essentially Google is now providing marketers with the organic equivalent of AdWords data so download your paid search data from AdWords, your organic search data from Webmaster Tools and compare the two and I'm sure you will find some interesting insights that will allow you to optimise both your paid and organic search campaigns. 

Given there's already and integration between Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools (i.e. you can use the Google Analytics code to authenticate your site rather than having to add meta data), I'm also wondering how long it will take for Google Webmaster data to appear in Google Analytics so we don't have to manually compare the two data sets.

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Google launches another new search results page feature: Preview popup for organic search listings

Just in case you haven't noticed yet, Google introduced a new search results page feature - previews! If you don't click on the actual search result page link but just somewhere in the vicinity of the listing an overlay pops up showing a preview of what you will get if you decide to click through. 

Interestingly enough, the preview function is only available for organic search results (which seems a bit inconsequential) but nevertheless an interesting innovation and I'm wondering how this will impact click-through rates (please share if you notice anything in your data). If anything, the new feature will elevate the importance of appealing website design as I cannot imagine people clicking through to lame looking landing pages anymore.

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Trada marketplace: Outsource your SEM and have multiple search experts compete for your $$$

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I just had a chat with the guys from Trada and wanted to share some of my insights with you as I think this could be a very interesting way of managing search for advertisers and even some agencies.

Trada is basically a marketplace that allows search experts from around the world to compete against each other on search campaigns. Instead of one or two search experts optimising a campaign in the standard agency model you now have multiple resources optimising an account all trying to outdo each other. More brains is always good and I think it's definitely a cool idea but there's pros and cons.

The model itself is quite attractive as it allows you to set a target CPC or CPA and the search experts only get paid if they can do better than that target, i.e. they can keep the difference between the real cost and the target you set them so there's a clear incentive. You can brief and communicate with the search experts that have decided to work on your account and change the target CPC or CPA daily if you want, but you have to commit to a minium monthly spend of USD 3,000 and an optimisation period of 3 months which is only fair I think.

Now here comes the catch, you cannot import existing accounts into Trada but have to create new ones for Google, Bing and Yahoo through the Trada platform which means you will use your quality score for existing campaigns. This might be a big deal for some people and less for others, I think it's not the end of the world but definitely has to be considered. Also, the search experts don't compete per keyword but on an ad group level which has potential for overlap and I'm not entirely sure what happens if one of the guys decides to stop working on an ad group or entire account. Finally, the way the model is set-up it leads to an initial burst of optimisation and set-up of ad groups similar to a normal agency relationship which peters off after a while when the search experts are looking to cash in on their initial time investment. That's not a bad thing, it's just normal and means even if you decide to give Trada a go you will have to keep in mind that you are working with humans that have to be managed and motivated, how you do that is up to you.

All in all, I think the Trada platform is pretty cool and I can only recommend to look into it and decide for yourself if it might help you business or agency, watching the below video might be a good start. I definitely see potential for small to medium size businesses to get access to some top international search optimisation talent and for agencies to basically grow their capacity over night.

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Gigya and Compete report on increasing importance of social network referral traffic over Google

We all heard the news when Facebook overtook Google as the most popular website in the US in March this year according to Hitwise but now the guys at Gigya have released a research report based on Compete data that adds an interesting new perspective to this trend suggesting that social networks are becoming the next/new search.

Although Facebook has overaken Google as the most populate website, marketers were wondering if that would actually translate into increased traffic to their sites which according to the Gigya reports is exactly the case. The below chart clearly shows that referral traffic from social networks has become a major traffic source that rivals Google and marketers would be well advised to develop suitable strategies to address this trend.
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A social revolution is dictating dramatic changes in how companies run their websites, and their business. With the advent of social feeds - a live stream of friends’ activity shared on social networks like Facebook and Twitter - consumers can more easily rely on trusted personal relationships to determine what’s worthwhile to read, watch, play and buy online. For many, the conclusion is startling; referral traffic is as significant from social networks as it is from search engines, making Social the next Search.
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