Back in 2011, Google decided that it was going to encrypt all search results for people who were already signed into their Google Account. On the surface this was great,you search is more secure, anonymous and whole lot more bountiful privacy bonuses.

One of the drawbacks however, only if you’re in the internet marketing business, is that when this was introduced, a lot of results in a lot people’s Google Analytics account started to be displayed as “Not Provided”. Much to the irk of people who relied on that data to measure just how successful their SEO campaigns had been.

This wouldn’t be a problem in most cases, however one study has suggested that up to 40% of data that come through Analytics now descends into this inescapable pit of Not Provided. So that’s nearly half of all data an SEO receives will be nullified. And now Mozilla with it’s blocking of Cookies looks set to only increase this number.

It will do this if it decides that the Google search cookie isn’t beneficial to the user, and decides to block it. That’s 20% of all search traffic GONE if Mozilla Press forward with this. “Well that’s no good” I hear you cry, my sentiments exactly. But there is something you can do to help. There’s a petition going round that you can sign. Set up by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, you can sign this petition here, I already have.

So do you think Mozilla will pull the plug on the Google Cookie?

Blog Post by: Greg McVey