By now, everybody who has any interest in SEO has heard the Google will soon be taking away keywords from Google Analytics. It’s amazing how dependent most marketers and webmasters have become on keyword data. True, for years registered users of Google have been able to opt out of Google’s search engine default mode of cataloging what they searched, or ‘Googled’. If you did this, the words you used in your search came through in Google Analytics web traffic reports as ‘(not provided)’. But many people did not bother to opt out. Now Google is making it unnecessary to opt out by changing its default to not collect user keyword search data, at least not all of it.
What’s left
There will still be some keyword search data collection that you’ll be able to get through AdWords and Google Webmaster tools, though it will be less specific and therefore harder to target and measure. There are also techniques you can use in Google Analytics to help make up for the loss of data. Some of these are pointed out in an article at KISSmetrics, but even they admit it will be tough to cope with.
Do you have a CPanel?
Something that many websites have, but don’t use, could help save the day for SEO. If you have a hosting account, and you run a PHP-based website (think WordPress, Joomla or Drupal), you probably have a control panel (aka CPanel). Most CPanels have at least two website traffic measuring tools found under the Logs section.
These programs run on your server on your hosting account and have nothing to do with Google, so comparing stats between the two is useless. The reasons for the differences have been discussed and debated and are too numerous and technical to include here. When analyzing website traffic, it’s best to stick with one tool per metric. When you compare Google Analytics to Webalizer or Awstats as a tool, it would be like putting a 5hp Radial Arm Saw next to a pair of rusty pliers. But hey, that pair of pliers can take the bottle top off your beers, so it has a use.
Back to the future
Awstats and Webalizer are old server log applications, that by most standards have been obsolete for a while. With Google getting rid of keyword data in Google Analytics, these moldy oldies might be getting used for the first time in years. Who know, maybe this move of Google’s will get the creators of these programs to start working on these projects again, or maybe at least get them looking newer than 1998.
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