Over the past few weeks, we’ve been seeing tons of complaints regarding Google’s search consoles and how the tech giant was accused of anonymizing search queries.
Then came some more bombshell findings, thanks to a report released by Ahref that highlighted how more than 50% of those particular queries arriving in the Search Console end up being hidden, and hence it wouldn’t be wrong to classify them as being anonymized.
On that note, tech analyst Barry Schwartz thought it would be a good idea to bring the matter to Google’s attention and see what the tech giant had to say. And in the end, the company updated its help document regarding the subject and even altered its export capabilities.
As far as the update is concerned, Google changed its help document. Previously, the firm had referred to such incidents as very rare queries and now, the tech giant is calling them ‘some queries’ that aren’t being shown to users on the results page because they are protecting the privacy of the user making that particular query.
But it’s appalling to note Google is referring to the change as some queries because about 50% to 80% of queries get hidden for quite a few sites.
In addition to that, the leading search engine was seen adding a new section related to other restrictions on queries for its search console. And that’s when it was revealed that Google is forced to follow some restrictions for reasons linked to internal limitations.
Google shed light on how its search consoles are busy storing data on top rows and not the rest. Hence, not all of those queries would be shown. Instead, the real focus is on displaying the most crucial ones related to a user.
All of these changes were seen going live last week on Friday.
But what did Ahref’s Study speak about? Well, it studied around 146,000 different websites and then included analyzing billions of total clicks. The latter were compared through their URL clicks with clicks obtained through queries that had been previously reported by Google’s Search Console.
And according to that, nearly 50% of data had been disguised by Google or in simpler terms of the firm, it was anonymized.
A lot of tech experts have analyzed their findings and according to them, the result is simple. There is no difference in functionality but yes, anonymized queries are being better understood, thanks to the great number of complaints being put forward to the firm.
Still, filtering queries by almost 80% is a definite eye opener for many users. What about you?
Read next: Google Maps And Search Are Being Adversely Affected By Instagram And TikTok, Confirms Company’s Executive
Then came some more bombshell findings, thanks to a report released by Ahref that highlighted how more than 50% of those particular queries arriving in the Search Console end up being hidden, and hence it wouldn’t be wrong to classify them as being anonymized.
On that note, tech analyst Barry Schwartz thought it would be a good idea to bring the matter to Google’s attention and see what the tech giant had to say. And in the end, the company updated its help document regarding the subject and even altered its export capabilities.
As far as the update is concerned, Google changed its help document. Previously, the firm had referred to such incidents as very rare queries and now, the tech giant is calling them ‘some queries’ that aren’t being shown to users on the results page because they are protecting the privacy of the user making that particular query.
But it’s appalling to note Google is referring to the change as some queries because about 50% to 80% of queries get hidden for quite a few sites.
In addition to that, the leading search engine was seen adding a new section related to other restrictions on queries for its search console. And that’s when it was revealed that Google is forced to follow some restrictions for reasons linked to internal limitations.
Google shed light on how its search consoles are busy storing data on top rows and not the rest. Hence, not all of those queries would be shown. Instead, the real focus is on displaying the most crucial ones related to a user.
All of these changes were seen going live last week on Friday.
But what did Ahref’s Study speak about? Well, it studied around 146,000 different websites and then included analyzing billions of total clicks. The latter were compared through their URL clicks with clicks obtained through queries that had been previously reported by Google’s Search Console.
And according to that, nearly 50% of data had been disguised by Google or in simpler terms of the firm, it was anonymized.
A lot of tech experts have analyzed their findings and according to them, the result is simple. There is no difference in functionality but yes, anonymized queries are being better understood, thanks to the great number of complaints being put forward to the firm.
Still, filtering queries by almost 80% is a definite eye opener for many users. What about you?
Read next: Google Maps And Search Are Being Adversely Affected By Instagram And TikTok, Confirms Company’s Executive
