Just when we are still recovering from Panda changes, Google announces a change in search. Per its latest webmaster blog:
 “As part of our commitment to provide a more secure online experience, today we announced that SSL Search on https://www.google.com will become the default experience for signed in users on google.com. This change will be rolling out over the next few weeks.”

“What is the impact of this change for webmasters? Today, a web site accessed through organic search results on http://www.google.com (non-SSL) can see both that the user came from google.com and their search query. (Technically speaking, the user’s browser passes this information via the HTTP referrer field.) However, for organic search results on SSL search, a web site will only know that the user came from google.com.”
The blog went on to state. “Webmasters can still access a wealth of search query data for their sites via Webmaster Tools.”
What this means for the webmaster is that the search term info on their analytics report is going be missing some data. I am not sure how many searches are conducted with the searcher logged into the Google account, (some estimates are around 7%) but if anyone has been tracking search traffic by keywords, then they need to be aware of a downward shift. The site visits will be the same but instead of tracking by keyword, I imagine that there will be large category of “not set” in the organic traffic.
Google webmaster tools do provide some good summary information, but I believe that the ability for a webmaster to improve the user experience by understanding levels of engagement relating to search terms will be greatly diminished.
Perhaps the biggest losers will be third party analytic programs,tracking services and remarketing based on search data. Since Google has just recently started offering remarketing in its own PPC offering, it adds all the more suspicion.
Google’s claim to be motivated by purely a desire to provide a more secure online experience is suspect as apparently data gathered from Google PPC will not be compromised.
The overall reaction to this from SEO specialists to analytics companies is understandable irate. But not only is Google the 800 pound gorilla on the school playground, it also owns the school,