How Google’s New Search Feature on SSL May Affect Your Online Business
Google has released a version of the search engine that operates through SSL (Secure Socket Layers). The goals was to provide a more private user experience by encrypting the data that goes to and from the user’s computer. This may help search engine user’s feel at ease when searching for items at their jobs, where their bosses may be able to intercept search data, or in their everyday lives where internet snooping is becoming more of a problem. So how can this unique new development affect your online business?
The Pros
It should be known that this is not a new search engine, it is simply Google’s search engine over an encrypted connection. This means site rankings will not change at all, so if your site has a high search engine ranking you have nothing to worry about. In fact, it is possible that your search engine ranking could rise as you receive more visitors from this interesting new search engine. As more people find out about this search engine they may switch from other popular search engines such as Bing and Yahoo.
In the process you could reap the rewards by gaining a plehtora of new traffic. If you operate an adult website, you may also get more traffic based on the fact that the search queries are now encrypted, so many more people will not be afraid to search for adult keywords. The same goes for identity search websites in which people look up the history of people they know.
If your site is optimized for any keywords that people may be afraid or ashamed to search for, you could see a significant rise in traffic. Some examples include pharmaceutical sites, male enhancement sites, gambling/online casino sites, and weight loss sites. Any industry that contains keywords that people would like to keep private may begin to see more search engine traffic due to Google’s SSL search.
The Cons
As a flip side to the traffic coin, most web browsers will automatically “blank the referrer” when the users enters a non-encrypted site from a site with SSL enabled. What this means is that when your visitors are being referred from the new Google SSL search you may not be able to tell where the visitor originated from. While this is into a confirmed fact, it is a common practice seen in SSL sites, so it is a possibility that this referrer issue could have a negative impact on your site’s referrer tracking analysis.
Another negative aspect of the Google SSL search engine is that it currently does not support Google Image or Map search. So if you are receiving residual traffic from Google Images you may see a slight drop in traffic as more people begin to use the SSL version of Google.
It is important to note that the SSL search engine will develop over time, and many, if not all of these pros and cons could disappear as the search engine is used more frequently and improvements are made.
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