We recently mentioned that Google announced that they will be encrypting Search for Google users who are logged into their accounts and we are now starting to see some real impact from that. Some clients are being affected more than others. Ultimately it’s not a huge issue. Yes it’s absolutely annoying and frustrating but not the end of the world kind of stuff.

If you’re the type who likes to go into their analytics account or you may notice on some of our reports that one of your keyword search referrals says (not provided). Some may have more for this category than others. In fact I recently saw 1 client get 3 sales from (not provided). Hooray to the sales but unfortunately we don’t know the actual converting phrases, just that they came via Google organic search.

So what are we doing about it? Unfortunately there is not a whole lot that we can do about it. It doesn’t change the way we approach a campaign, we’re still going to be increasing your online visibility, driving traffic to your website and focusing on getting those conversions, we’re just not going to have the exact data to work with and report on. In some cases it may actually be worth including Adwords with your campaign, even a small one. It is still a solid marketing channel, it just feels a little dirtier in light of this seemingly deceptive rollout (yeah paid search referral data is still available even if you are logged into your Google account). Does seem a bit strange.