Last week, Google changed how they handle signed in Google searchers by defaulting them to SSL enabled Google search. This change set off the SEO and webmaster and marketing communities because this change destroyed the referrer data passed to webmasters, where it showed webmasters the search query used to find the site.
Google claimed it is only affecting under 10% of the searches. But as Danny Sullivan's Google Puts A Price On Privacy article over the weekend, it is likely going to be expanded to everyone. And the way Google implemented it, may be considered "evil."
That being said, if Google must secure all searches, they should do it to the paid ads as well.
But more importantly, we want the organic free results to pass query data to our analytics tool. They can securely pass this information through Google Webmaster Tools and into Google Analytics if they wanted.
As a WebmasterWorld thread points out, a "Fix for Google, How to Implement Referral Privacy Correctly."
Implement a system which uses encryption of the query string, with site owners given access to the decryption key (through WMT) that could be used with code available from Google - this key could also be shared with analytics programs to decode the querystring.
They already pass query data this way, just pass more of it. Then build an API so other analytics platforms can use it.
Fair?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
