Google loves tampering with things, however with the recent Google analytics change has Google gone a step too far?.

To protect Google.com logged in users, Analytics results will no longer show keywords that these users search for in its reporting data. This means that if a user checking your site is logged into their Google account and does a search the keyword they used will no longer be reported. The visit and data will still show.

Bearing in mind the amount of users logged in to their Google accounts and searching via the search engine, this could see quite a loss of keyword reporting data. Webmaster’s and SEO’s are upset by this, as part of the refining process of SEO’s is using analytics data to see which keywords users use to find a site and how long users spend on the site via a keyword compared to another.

Google on the other hand, see this is as a way of protecting the personalised search function and not reporting the keyword’s as a way to improve the security of logged in accounts. This arguement is flawed however, as analytics does not report the name of the user and the keyword searched, only the keyword data is reported, so the users details are kept completely anonymous.

Is this data only going to be allowed as part of the new Google analytics premium accounts?, or is Google really protecting the security of logged in users?