Google IS evil.
Filed Under (the PPC Book) by Jeff Hudson on 28-01-2008
Yes, we know this all along, and I hate to see the ApolloSEM guys get discouraged, because they were posting great content.
Long story short -
I implemented this on 2 of my sites and it was working well until about 10 days ago. I was wondering what happened. Apparently google doesn’t want you to know what people are REALLY searching.
Now, not to be a hypocrite, I’ve roasted people to chards on this blog for whining about Google and the ‘big machine’. Like ApolloSEM, I will not whine about this issue, I will just bear down harder until they tap out.
I’m glad you agree - sometimes, we can’t do much about what Google does but we can bear down harder until they “tap out”.
After all, don’t we have an inherent right to know exactly what we pay for? Makes sense to me…
Well, the way I look at it is we are the ‘consumer’, and we vote with our dollars. They would have to change their ways if we were concerted with our efforts. Basically, we can make a lot of noise and hope they listen. What percentage are ‘we’ of all the people that use Adwords? Not a lot. Right now they have the upper hand and can plug that hole all they want, and will it affect their bottom line? Nope.
Just another example of why Yahoo and MSN need to get their act together so we have more competition.
First of all, Apollo SEM is not the source of this hack. It was, in fact, published in November 2006, over a year and a half ago, on the Omega Digital Media Google Analytics blog. Omega is a Google Analytics Authorized Consultant.
Secondly, Google isn’t responding to the article on James’ blog. They’ve known about this “hack” for over a year. In fact, the guy responsible for creating it, Dr. Brian Clifton, works for Google.
Thirdly, the source of the problem appears to be an across-the-board filter bug that originated on January 15 (http://groups.google.com/group/analytics-help-troubleshoot/browse_thread/thread/31feabe327549854). The autotagging methodology for AdWords hasn’t changed at all. In fact, autotagging has no bearing whatsoever on how that filter works.
If you’re interested in an alternative method for tracking exact search queries that doesn’t involve filters, check out the method that we developed on our GA blog: http://www.roirevolution.com/blog/2007/04/exact_keyword_tracking_with_google_analytics_revis.html
Hi Michael,
I’ll certainly check out the blog for other alternatives. It’s good that you guys at ROIrevolution are being so thorough in correcting what was mistaken speculation.
Here’s some clarification in case you were somehow offended at this thread between apollosem and the many blogs that linked to their article:
1. Apollosem clearly cited at the bottom of their original post where THEY FIRST saw the information. They weren’t taking any sort of ‘credit’…merely laying out some information they had found.
http://www.semvironment.com/nude-adwords-keyword-data-exposed-with-google-analytics/
You certainly cannot expect them to research who created, or should be properly credited, with creating this method. They are not an encyclopedia nor a history book. Frankly I was put off by the tone of the comments left at their blog.
Apollosem (semvironment) has been a very useful blog since it’s inception and they produce good value for the community. Clearly this was an honest mistake and required nothing more on your part than a simple ‘hey, here’s a link to who created this originally and here’s a link to our blog where we have more alternatives’.
2. Very ironic that it was created by someone who works for Google. Especially considering Google Adwords doesn’t want advertisers to see every single query that drove traffic. Oh well, another fun conspiracy theory debugged.
3. Thanks for posting the link to your search tracking alternative. I think the reason people are so interested in this subject is the value of this sort of data. I look forward to trying your method.
Thanks for stopping by.
-jeff