Say goodbye to search analytics • Hacker News Board

mootymoots wrote: post #7

barredo wrote: post #2

tl;dr: web analytics company starts claiming bullshit about privacy in search engines Also, in other news: some people start claiming bullshit about issues than are better for other people but bad for them. ps. I did upvote this post in HN just for the sake of discussion and comments, but I don't like the tone of the original poster with his 'HN hipsters' and 'BS' all around.

Let's not forget we, the webmasters, create the content for Google to serve as search results... The least they can do is help us out!

Because sending us 80% of our traffic is not enough help?

Re: Say goodbye to search analytics

#25

Post by vladimir » Sat, May 22, 2010, 7:26 PM UTC

To be honest, I don't understand how using HTTPS in Google search will help users to browse web more securely. I am not going to use this feature. The bad thing is that lots of non-technical users who care about security and privacy will use it, and they'll get an illusion that their web surfing has become more secure.

Re: Say goodbye to search analytics

#26

Post by sketerpot » Sat, May 22, 2010, 7:29 PM UTC

paraschopra wrote: post #10

barredo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But any webmaster's power ends at the limits of their site. I guess that's it. User's rights are above webmaster's right. If you don't like them you can start disallowing search engines in your robots.txt or blocking users by referrer.

But search engines shouldn't block referrer by default. Majority of users don't care about telling web masters what they were searching for. So search engines should only let users who do care about privacy to block referrer, block it by default is a poor choice (unless you are DDG and privacy is your differentiator)

I would actually really like for my search engine referrer headers to be blocked, even without the privacy concerns, for one simple reason: some web sites highlight the search terms they find in search engine referrer headers. That annoys the crap out of me, and I usually end up either closing the tab or going to the URL bar and adding and deleting a space in there, then reloading the page without referrer headers.

Web developers: please, please don't highlight search terms. What the hell is the point of that? Oh well; I guess it's soon to become moot.

Re: Say goodbye to search analytics

#27

Post by rodion_89 » Sat, May 22, 2010, 7:32 PM UTC

subbu wrote: post #4

barredo wrote: post #2

tl;dr: web analytics company starts claiming bullshit about privacy in search engines Also, in other news: some people start claiming bullshit about issues than are better for other people but bad for them. ps. I did upvote this post in HN just for the sake of discussion and comments, but I don't like the tone of the original poster with his 'HN hipsters' and 'BS' all around.

IMHO his argument seems valid. My site's Google Analytics tells me what were the search terms and which search engine sent me the traffic. Why not share that with the web masters if that can help them create better content or tweak their SEO?

im not fully convinced that the argument is valid. he's claiming that our privacy is unaffected but his business is. so that really makes me ask, what right does he have to our actions that do not take place on his site? it leads us to his site, but not on his site. it seems like he is simplifying the situation to make it seem like there is no benefit to the user. if it was optional to share that information with the webmaster, thats fine because its data about us and we can do what we want with it. funny thing is, it is optional.

Re: Say goodbye to search analytics

#28

Post by vladimir » Sat, May 22, 2010, 7:33 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #20

Proof that no matter what you do, some people will be unhappy about it.

True. But I think in this situation no one except Google will be happy (and I doubt they'll be happy too). Web analytics helps webmasters make their sites more attractive for end users. I use Google Analytics on most of my sites, but I don't like the way how Google tries to "encourage" others to do it.

Re: Say goodbye to search analytics

#29

Post by btmorex » Sat, May 22, 2010, 7:37 PM UTC

javery wrote: post #5

If Google Adsense still has access to this data to serve more relevant ads on the destination site and other ad providers don't then it is very anti-competitive.

Umm... Adsense doesn't need a referrer and it definitely doesn't need search terms. Adsense crawls every page that it serves ads for and that's going to be better context then any analytics packages would offer.

Re: Say goodbye to search analytics

#30

Post by btmorex » Sat, May 22, 2010, 7:40 PM UTC

dirkstoop wrote: post #24

mootymoots wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's not forget we, the webmasters, create the content for Google to serve as search results... The least they can do is help us out!

Because sending us 80% of our traffic is not enough help?

Are you arguing that the web would be 80% less popular if google disappeared? Point being, they're king of the search hill for now and the foreseeable future, but it's not like no one else could replace them.