Historically Google has made changes to encrypt its search activity in a quiet covert way. This started in 2011 when Google decided to added SSL encryption for signed-in search users. However this policy of gradual change seems to have been changed as Google have reportedly confirmed that this is being expanded to more users who are not signed in and will become their default position. This has first been reported on searchengineland.com.
What this means is that marketers will not in the future be able to get the keyword data for searches that are made by users, even when they are not signed in. The one exception is that data will still be available on their adverts. This could be an attempt to enhance the attractiveness of their Ad words offering. Although the official reason that Google is giving is that they want to provide enhanced protection for searchers. Another suggestion as to why Google has made this change is because they are trying to push back against the suggestion that they are working with the NSA and by increasing encryption they can argue that their systems are more secure.
By encrypting searches, details of the search terms entered by visitors that would normally be provided to marketers, will become hidden and are reported in analytics as “not provided.” Over the last 24 months there has been a huge increase in the number of searches that are recorded as search term “not provided.” New versions of browsers in 2012such as Mozilla’s Firefox, Apple’s Safari Ios6 and then in 2013 in Google’s own chrome have used encrypted search functions even for users who have not signed in. This has resulted in a rapid rise in the reduction of search term data but now seems to be the tip of the iceberg.
An international courier firm in the UK has reported that they have seen this rises of “Not Provided” in the last 24 months from 19% of search to 62%. This had resulted in more difficulty working out exact search terms used by visitors and the marketing strategy that they needed to adopt. However by developing specific internal pages and using analytics they have been able to make assumptions to address this lack of data. They have developed internal pages for specific country services such as "parcel to USA” which has enabled them to estimate what users are entering in search terms and then track their movements onsite, helping to shape their marketing plans.
Whilst everyone wants to see data being secure, it remain unclear why Google have now decided to make this change and where it will end.