Fishkin’s Rand'om Methodologies On ‘Not Provided”- Stop Such Randism!

Image Courtesy: SEO Consult

The SEO industry is in a sulk after Google has officially announced that they would encrypt ‘keywords’ from organic search in Google Analytics. While it takes some time to see 100% ‘Not Provided’ in GA, I can really understand why SEO agencies are ranting, and going gaga over this Google’s move. I have heard someone saying about a mass petition to file against Google, and Rand Fishkin hopes that EU may initiate the process since it is not possible in the US.  

I laugh out loudly when Rand telecasts Whiteboard Tuesday instead of Whiteboard Friday, and he has been so quick at giving a thesis of explanation guiding or misguiding (don't know) his followers to listen to some of his hypothetical methodologies, and rand'om advice in a hope to salvage the plight of the so-called SEO fans/agencies and his customers from the recent catastrophe. More than addressing his followers, he appears to be calming himself in his so-called ‘emergency video’. It looks like the temperature has really gone up beyond 1000 degree at Moz.

It is unfortunate that even after changing the brand name from SEOmoz to Moz, Rand does not seem to have become an inbound marketer. Rarely do I think he can ever become an inbound marketer because of his professional background. He is known for changing his approach whenever Google changes their algorithm in an attempt to cheat on the system, and puts himself in a new avatar. He has done this in the past, and seems to be doing presently. He keeps rolling his sleeve, up and down, from link baiting to content baiting. Any major update Google announces, this guy is quick at finding solution. But this time Google has given a tough nut to crack with ‘keywords encryption’ policy. The hard core SEO like Rand may not be so quick to find a viable alternative as I have heard him saying.  

“So, you can guess that over the next 6-12 months that's going to be a big part of our roadmap: trying to help you folks—and all marketers—get to this data.”

More than sharing his random methodologies to his large fans and followers, he shares his randism to sooth his own injury. He looks to be more frustrated, and angry with the recent Google’s ‘Not Provided’ war than he was looking ever before. After all, everyone gets angry if Google kills their business. Right!! One can really understand Rand’s high degree of frustration when he goes on ranting:

“Google is abusing their monopolistic position in the United States. Unfortunately, I don't really see a way out of it. I don't think marketers can make a strong enough case politically or to consumer groups to get this removed. Maybe the EU can eventually."  

SEO's nervousness

Being all time critics of Google, as I’m, very a few times I do favor the search engine for their stand to change their algorithm. Yes, hats off to Google for putting an end to ‘keywords’ game, always played by SEOs across the world. 

+Rand Fishkin, you should understand that how Google is pushing us toward the semantic search for some time now, and semantic search is about user intent rather than keywords. 

Many people believe that SEO is evolving, as Google is changing their algorithm and incorporating more than 200 ranking signals. I believe, this is a self-soothing exercise to calm their nervousness. The fact is that SEO is essentially about ‘keywords ranking’ ‘link building’, and ‘content development”. The so-called SEO experts who say SEO is evolving and so are the ‘SEO metrics’, the recent move by Google for “keywords data encryption” policy exposes their dualism and they are biting their nails in jitteriness.

With this move, the biggest impact, that I see, would be on SEO software sellers who give ‘visual graphics’ of dashboard, and generates automated report based on organic keywords mining technique. The recent ‘Not Provided’ move by Google and thereafter Rand’s "emergency video” talking all nonsense, and promoting Moz Analytics strategically is a well craft marketing gimmick, nervously deployed to sell, and provide a shield to their propriety software/tool.    

           

“For localization, you can add the geo in the string to be able to see where you rank in different geographies if you want to track those. That's something you'll be able to do in Moz Analytics and probably many of the other keyword tracking tools out there, too”

@Rand, you are NOT a God’s gift to SEO. So, stop talking about such Rand’om retrieval methodologies. Your scattered analysis can’t be perfectly co-related to be +1d by true ‘marketers’. To me, Google’s ‘Not Provided’ is better than your no-sense ‘provided methodologies.’ 

Poor Fish!  

Image Courtesy: Craig