It's not pretty, I warn you.
Anyone who has, as their remit, the responsibility to match keyword terms to landing pages will, as of this Google update, be unable to fulfill that responsibility as a basic Google user. Other search engines, making up a smaller proportion of traffic are, for now, differentiating by not adopting the same practice but may well follow suit.
That said, here's the science. In order to tell you what keyword terms have been used to find your page, services (like Google's own Blogger platform, Squidoo, Analytics, StatCounter etc.) check the referring URL, and extract keywords from the query that was used to get the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).
Removing that by encrypting the URL, means that those terms are lost forever. That's it. There's no room for anyone to say "Yes, but..." and come up with a technical solution based on search.
SEO that relies on knowing what keyword terms brought in a visitor, and what they did next, will fail.
No longer can you say that 'how to defrag my hard drive' is the keyword phrase to target, because it results in a 15% conversion, based on the visitor path (visitor flow) through your site. You just won't know, because Google won't tell you.
It also means you can't keyword fish. Remember that technique? Putting up pages on high value / high traffic sites like Squidoo in order to capture keyword phrases? Doesn't work any more.
In-site search is still going to throw up some good results, but that doesn't mean that every landing page should be a Google-esque search form, just in case you had that in mind. By all means promote your in-site search boxes, though, to make it easier for visitors to find the good stuff, just avoid asking 'What did you come here for today' like some over-effusive shop assistant.
'Cos it probably might not work.
Also, promote your tag clouds, and - even better - get the tag cloud involved in the sales funnel so you can see what's on your visitor's minds. That way, at least you're getting some intelligence that is based on triggers, even if you have to set them in advance.
There's also another swathe of businesses that have just lost out, too - those custom 404 companies that couple expired domain names with knowing what query produced the listing in order to redirect to paying customers web sites.
They're sunk. They can only send the visitor at random, and hope. They've lost their ability to target, along with everyone else.
Now, the good news is that the AdWords data is still available, so we can still spy on what people think are 'good' search terms. We can also hope that Google has maintained a link between AdWords, AdSense and their search data, so that we will be able to research, and infer, search term (keywords) intelligence.
So, the Keyword Cracker isn't dead. Keyword Research isn't a lost cause. SEO hasn't fallen over the edge of a cliff.
But the rules have changed, and we will be forced to work smarter, better, and create higher quality content than ever before as a result. That can only be a good thing for the people who are most important in this discussion - the customers.
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