Published: Mar 28, 2008 - 01:33 pm
Story Found By: Gab 1415 Days ago
Category: Vertical Search
Theres more research to be done though to figure out whats up. Some of the sites in question had Google Site Search, so there may be a link there, but then again, others dont use it.
My apologies for jumping to conclusions about GA.
Thought your data was safe? Guess again. I discovered that people using Google analytics to track site searches were having their data leaked into the index!
14 Comments


Comments
I debunked this on the original post: http://seoroi.com/case-studies/google-analytics-is-leaking-our-data-into-googles-index-2/#comment-293
Just approved your comment Matt. Mind sharing the details at SEO ROI so we can get to the bottom of this? If I did indeed make a mistake, Ill be happy to apologize for it [and any feelings I may have hurt], and change the post title here and at SEO ROI.That said, I still dont see why theres site search results in the index?
Oh, and note: I dont see any of these results on Mike Vs site, and he hasnt got anything blocked in Robots.txt. [FYI for people reading this: Matt confirmed Mikes comment about contacting him with this issue, and about Mike not having GA tracking on his site. But as per my note above, in this same comment, I dont see any site-search results when i query google for site:smackdown. So there may be a debunking, but it hasnt quite happened yet. If/when it happens, like I said, Ill gladly acknowledge my mistake and publish a correction.]
Hey Gab, Ive emailed a few people here and gotten a definitive answer that Google Analytics has nothing to do with those urls. Im waiting to hear back from a few other people with more info, but it might take a day or so (some people are asleep and at least one person Id like to hear from is out on vacation until Monday). But I will try to get an answer for you either here or on email..
I saw the same type of URLs indexed before, I didnt go the conspiracy route, dont have analytics installed so that wasnt it.Disallow: /?s=Seemed to fix everything in no time.
I see a different Sphinn number for this article on your site and here. Yours is consistently 1 more. (Sorry, now I see it has to do with desphinn.)
Perhaps you should try changing the Title of the Sphinn Gabs until the proper reason is unearthed.
Is it not just Wordpress pinging google?
Why would wordpress ping google on a search?
Not sure but you never know.....
Ive updated the title to more accurately reflect whats going on, and apologize for the error. Also, kudos to Mike VanDeMar for clarifying stuff, and to Matt Cutts for checking out whats going on at the plex. On that note keep an eye on Mikes blog - my understanding is that he may release some code to hide your site searches without blocking them in robots.txt. Im no coder, but it seems pretty innovative and superior to a straight-out robots block.Stay tuned!
Gab, your original point is worthy - while the site in question isnt running GA, certainly Im seeing it elsewhere.
A commenter (Michael V) has seen similar urls appear and doesnt use Google Analytics on his site at all.
There seems to be a mistake as Matt Cutts has debunked it