Dive Brief:
- Yahoo, like Google before it, will now run all searches through a secure server.
- The purpose is to avoid outside eavesdroppers from seeing users' search data.
- While it will help protect users, the change means Yahoo is no longer sending along referrer data, so marketers will now see zero traffic coming from Yahoo in their analytics.
Dive Insight:
If Yahoo wants to maintain the confidence of marketers and advertisers, it will have to find some way to continue providing referrer data. Google, for example, still shows if a visitor came from Google, but no longer shares the search term. If Yahoo wants to pull through this change, it will have to take some notes from that playbook.