Those who practice search engine optimisation will know that it’s suffering from a dwindling number of sources for valuable browsing and search behaviour data. The main problem is that companies such as Google have to strike a balance between what types of data those trading on the internet should have right to and the privacy rights of those people using Google.
While Google owes 98% of their revenue to advertisers on their networks, they are- at the core- a public centred corporation. Now they have decided to limit the scope of another one of their e-marketing information tools, DoubleClick AdPlanner, leaving SEOs wondering: what will be next?
Former Functionality
The old system allowed you to do research on any website on the internet. You could view a broad range of consumer data, including demographics, traffic numbers and browsing behaviour.
The accuracy of the data wasn’t that strong but the general information it provided on consumers as it applied to search behaviour was an incredibly valuable marketing tool.
Now, on the 5th of September, it will be replaced by the Google Display Network AdPlanner. And, as the name might suggest, it will only be supplying data on websites in the Google Display Network.
Google Display Network Ad Planner
Although there over 2 million websites in the network, it’s still quite a stifling development for e-marketers. What’s more is that the depth of data on these network site will also be significantly reduced. These will include, but will not be limited to:
• Page Views will no longer be available.
• Unique Users and Reach metrics are going to be adjusted.
• The depth of demographic information will be limited. For example, education level and household income figures won’t be available any longer.
• No more information on keyword use by site visitors
• Video view history will be withheld
Reasons for The Change
The main reason for the change, according to Google, is because it’ll no longer be contracting through a third party for its data, as before. Instead, it will now just be using the data naturally collected by its Display Network. Hence, the limitations in data depth.
So it doesn’t seem like they’re targeting their commercial customers, but rather just trying less hard to bring them data. There are other sources for this type of data, at the end of the day. But with Google’s often free internet marketing data delivery systems going in this direction, organic SEO could become a more expensive activity than ever.
