Not knowing which keywords referred visitors would be terribly annoying to webmasters. Unless you're using dodgy 3rd party advertisers, I don't see what's so bad about aggregating referrer data.
I have a feeling Google might be keen to hold onto their duck.com domain a little longer :)
If I don't buy the "Feel sorry for me! Prop up my business!" argument when the newspapers make it, and I don't buy it when the record companies make it, why should I buy it when people running websites make it?
When I go into a shop and buy a newspaper, the shop owner doesn't know how I came to the decision of going to that shop.
They would like to know this information, and could probably do better business if they did know it. But it would be a breach of my privacy for them to know this information without even asking me for it.
I don't see why websites should continue to be treated differently, just because historically they have been...
Yeah, unless someone registers for your website, your not going to be able to do much more than tag a search term with an IP so you can know that someone arrived with search term x and did y on the website, but nothing about who that person is.
It depends which side of the fence your on really, if you use this kind of data to improve your business your for it. If you operate in areas that don't rely on it at all your more likely to be against it.
So if Google blurs referrers by default, instead of just people who opt for HTTPS search, but then more webmasters become more tightly bound to Google Webmaster Tools for necessary analytics, is that a net win for consumers and search engine diversity?
I doubt most webmasters will endeavor to learn N different webmaster control panels, so this recommendation further advantages the leader.
Google might very well respond to the pressure of this campaign by saying, "OK, you got us, we'll change", then laugh all the way to the even-stronger-monopoly bank.
Makes sense from what perspective, optimizing for whom?
My concern is that compared to referrer-leaking of terms – a standard way to inform webmasters, the same for all search engines – using the Google Webmaster Tools encourages webmasters to develop non-portable Google-specific skills. This cements the leader's position even further.
If your top concern is privacy, Google blurring referrers will help. If your top concern is competition in search and analytics, it hurts.
> My concern is that compared to referrer-leaking of terms -- a standard way to inform webmasters, the same for all search engines -- using the Google Webmaster Tools encourages webmasters to develop non-portable Google-specific skills. This cements the leader's position even further.
What's the point of looking at search engine terms except to optimize for them in some way? The optimization is going to be based on a search engine algorithm, and with Google being the most common search engine that's the one most people are going to optimize for.
That was my point: if you're trying to compete in search and analytics, it's not in a vacuum; it's in the context of a specific company's search algorithm. It only makes sense to tweak your performance by referring to that company's website, e.g. Google Webmaster Tools.
Because you can't do second level aggregation, for example you wouldn't be able to see which keywords are resulting in high bounces (i.e. what are our users looking for but not finding) or high revenue ("what should we focus our advertising on@), etc.
I have a feeling Google might be keen to hold onto their duck.com domain a little longer :)