🔍 Data firm behind "zero-click" studies shuttered

Jan 31, 2020

Good morning search marketers, well, that was sudden.

Analytics firm Jumpshot is no more. Many in the search industry first became familiar with some of the data Jumpshot had access to through the "zero-click" studies of Google search results published by Rand Fishkin, the former Moz co-founder who now heads SparkToro. Earlier this week, several media reports claimed that Jumpshot and its parent company Avast, which offers free antivirus software, have been collecting and selling users' click and online purchasing data (including on Amazon) without their full knowledge. Yesterday, Avast announced it was shuttering Jumpshot immediately.

It's not clear yet, if shutting off this clickstream data firehose will have implications for SEO tools that may have been relying on the Jumpshot data. Several vendors said it won't. However, as Greg Sterling reported, with GDPR and now CCPA, Jumpshot's demise serves as a warning to firms currently collecting or relying on user data collected with ambiguous consent.

Keep reading for thoughts from Rank Ranger's Mordy Oberstein on Google's recent changes to featured snippets and more.

Ginny Marvin,
Editor-in-Chief

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