Bing To Encrypt Searches By Default & Referrer Data To Go Not Provided This Summer

Bing announced they will begin encrypting their searches over TLS. So instead of seeing referrals from http://www.bing.com, they will begin coming from https://www.bing.com.

This happens this summer and with the change, Bing will no longer pass query data to webmasters. The [not provided] saga will be expanded from Google to Bing, where marketers won’t be able to know in detail how searchers are finding their sites through the top two leading search engines.

Google began doing this over three years ago and now Bing has made the decision to make the switch.

Duane Forrester from Bing said, “while this change may impact marketers and webmasters, we believe that providing a more secure search experience for our users is important.” He added, “with this change, you will still be able to see Bing as the origin (referrer) of the encrypted traffic, though analytics tools you are using to analyze your traffic generally have their own, proprietary way of including this information in their search reports.”

Bing said you can get “limited query term data” from these sources:

• Search Query Terms Report in the Bing Ads UI or API
• Adopt Universal Event Tracking
• In Bing Webmaster Tools search reports

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.