Google recently stated that it is planning to use Ajax for displaying search results. Currently, the results come through normal HTML. Use of Ajax will make search smoother and faster. However, experts say that it will create major problems for analytics tracking. Especially in referral string tracking. Presently, when some one searches for budget hotels USA in Google, for example, he/she we will get the following URL: http://www.google.com/search?q=budgethotelsUSA But, when Google will use Ajax in displaying search results then the URL would look like this: http://www.google.com/#q=budgethotelsUSA Observe the difference between the first and second URL. In the second URL, there is # in the place of search? The browser didn’t send the code which is after #. So Analytics won’t be able to get the referrer string to track which is after #. It will show only the home page of google.com rather than showing the complete referrer string url. A website owner will never be able to find the keyword using which the visitor came to his site. This is the major problem with Ajax, according to experts. In order to resolve this problem, Google is planning to use gateway URLs. They think that it would offer better tracking and faster search results. In the analytics blog, Google posted that there is a change in Google search referrals however it won’t affect analytics tracking. However, till Google announces anything officially, nothing can be said. As of now, they too don’t know whether it’s breaking analytics or not. It’s still in the testing stage. Any comments on this ?