Google have announced they will be protecting the privacy of their signed-in users and as a result of this, “websites… won’t receive information about each individual query”.
At first look, this appears to be a change that affects some of our technology, mostly to do with our entrance analysis algorithms that use search term referrer keywords to present relevant products on the first page load. But then we looked through the Google blog post and read some interesting articles, to come up with the following points on where we, and personalisation technology in general, stands.
Firstly, this is only for signed-in users.
Google users who aren’t signed in to any Google services will still have their referring search terms passed over. We’re trying to get some numbers on how many Google searches are made by signed-in users and will update in due course.
PPC ads will still have terms passed over.
Businesses using Google Adwords to drive traffic to their site will still have the referring search terms passed over, as it enables businesses to measure the effectiveness of their advertising. This means, that for PPC advert links, our personalisation technology will still be able to dynamically adapt the site based on the users incoming search term.
Your SEO strategy will be based around the longtail.
Your SEO strategy will probably be based around the longtail and categories – trying to get your product pages and top-level category pages higher up the natural search results. These will be linking direct to the appropriate page, and therefore when a user arrives, they will declare their browse and our technology will begin to adapt based on the product information – such as upselling relevant similar items or listing best sellers in a category.
What does this mean for retailers?
In a nutshell, retailers will be deprived of a large amount of valuable data. But with solid SEO, PPC and personalisation strategies, retailers will still be able to maximise the chances of a conversion by presenting the right products and the right information at the right time.
A badly designed pictoral representation
As you can tell, we’re not designers – but the above represents how referreral terms will be passed depending on a user’s signed in status, and where they are likely to land.
More information?
If we can help you with any information, either on the Google announcement or if you’d like more information on how personalisation can help your site, please get in touch:
Email: hello@predictiveintent.com
Call: +44 (0) 1202 832030 or +1 (877) 298-9380
Tweet: @TweetIntent
LiveChat: if we’re online, click the blue box on the bottom-right corner to talk to us.
