Is Google Trying to Kill The Art Of SEO?
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Thu, Oct 20, 2011
It’s been the main component of digital marketing strategies since the dawn of the industry, and is the first thing we look at when considering how to drive traffic to a website. SEO facilitates the search engines by giving them information about your website’s content so that it can appear in search results, therefore driving users to your website. But it is possible that Google might be putting a cap on your SEO, or at least trying to.
First, how does SEO work?
How does SEO work? SEO works by using keywords which are matched strategically with your website in terms of what you sell, promote or offer. So if you are a provider of accounting software, “accounting software” will be one of your key words or phrases. Most websites will have a multitude of keywords, and it takes time to research all of them. The best way to do keyword research is to use tools like Google’s Webmaster tools to find out what people are searching for related to your business. You can also learn a lot by examining your own website analytics to find out what your visitors searches to find your website. All this knowledge means your SEO will be great, and if it is great then it can result in your SEO making your website being one of the first few websites to pop up in search when a user searches a relevant term.
Google’s privacy could be the demise of SEO, as we know it
So how is Google effectively killing SEO? Well they have become very interested in privacy, and now when Google account users are signed in, their searches will be encrypted. So what does that mean? It means that information about your search and the keywords you used, and even the link you clicked to get to your website will not be shared with your website.
This is a major problem for your website analytics. Not having access to the keyword data means SEO can’t be kept up to date with the keywords and links people are using to reach your website.
What’s the silver lining?
Currently, this encryption mode is only active when users are signed into their accounts. Only 10% of Google search users have accounts, so 90% of your search engine traffic will still deliver the data you need to your analytics. You will know that that other 10% visited, but you won’t know how.
Google may not be targeting SEO for the kill per se: they really just want to increase privacy. We will be monitoring this development; so do check back on the SiliconCloud blog soon for updates.
Check out our FREE whitepaper 'SEO - A Beginners Guide' for more help with SEO.
