Google SSL Search Will Block Search Referrers

Your website stats are getting a little less valuable thanks to new search feature Google is rolling out to its users. SSL encrypted search will now automatically be turned on for all logged in users, resulting in improved security and privacy for web searches.

This improved privacy will result in less available data for site owners in analytics tools, including Google Analytics. Specifically, for users with SSL search enabled it will no longer pass along the search keywords that brought them to your website. From Google’s blog post announcing the change:

What does this mean for sites that receive clicks from Google search results? When you search from https://www.google.com, websites you visit from our organic search listings will still know that you came from Google, but won’t receive information about each individual query. They can also receive an aggregated list of the top 1,000 search queries that drove traffic to their site for each of the past 30 days through Google Webmaster Tools.

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More Consumers Use Mobile Internet Daily than Fixed-Line Internet

The phenomenal growth of mobile Internet usage continues.

Based on the recently released MEF Global Consumer Survey of over 8,000 consumers in nine countries (including the US), more people now access the mobile Internet on a daily basis than do fixed-line Internet. This was true of each market in the survey.

Other numbers that immediately stand out from the report are that 72% of survey respondents use the mobile Internet daily and an amazing 18% no longer access the Internet using a land line at all. Product research for both online and offline shopping was a huge driver of mobile usage.

Is your company still neglecting mobile? Then you are also neglecting a good (and rapidly increasing) portion of your visitors. Talk to MarketNet about what your company’s mobile strategy should be and we’ll make sure you’re not just meeting but exceeding your customers’ mobile expectations.

RIP Steve Jobs. 1955 – 2011.

Steve Jobs Death 675x448

Shocked and saddened by the news of the passing of Apple CEO and founder Steve Jobs tonight. Despite his illness and his resignation as CEO just a few weeks ago, this still has affected me greatly. I had to excuse myself from dinner to compose myself and acknowledge my feelings when I learned of the news tonight, via a push message from CNN’s iPhone app of course. As US President Barack Obama put it, “There may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented.”

From Apple.com:

Apple has lost a visionary and creative genius, and the world has lost an amazing human being. Those of us who have been fortunate enough to know and work with Steve have lost a dear friend and an inspiring mentor. Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple.