Sensational – How the demise of Jumpshot unintentionally revealed the #1 Keyword Research tool in the world. And we show how you can try that tool for free!
Jumpshot is dead and with it, probably click data and other SEO metrics! On January 30 2020, SEOs and digital marketing professionals around the world woke to this bombshell: Jumpshot was being wound up by parent company, Avast.
In a press release, Ondrej Vlcek, CEO of Avast explained the decision to shutdown Jumpshot as follows:
The bottom line is that any practices that jeopardize user trust are unacceptable to Avast. We are vigilant about our users’ privacy, and we took quick action to begin winding down Jumpshot’s operations after it became evident that some users questioned the alignment of data provision to Jumpshot with our mission and principles that define us as a Company.
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Jumpshot? Who are they?
Who is (or who was) Jumpshot and why should you care?
Jumpshot, was a company that provided “digital intelligence”. Some of the companies that utilized Jumpshot’s data were SEO tool providers. They in turn sold the data to SEOs through SEO keyword tools to help with keyword research.
However, the press release from Avast shows some influencers were not entirely happy with how Jumpshot mined its data. And clearly, there were also questions about how Jumpshot shared and sold its data.
More on the reasons for the shutdown in just a moment.
But first, some more information on this enigma.
Jumpshot had its cheerleaders and supporters, chief among whom was Rand Fishkin, co-founder of Moz.
Following the shutdown, Fishkin described Jumphot as “one of the best and only sources for collecting high quality, aggregated, fully anonymized data about how people use the web.”
According to Bill Hartzer, Jumpshot provided a lot of click data to various tool providers that used that data in different ways. One of the ways the click data was used is in keyword research tools. SEOs have used keyword research tools for years, and we’ve relied on that keyword data. And, if Jumpshot data was relied on heavily by any keyword research tools, then their data would be affected.
In a blog post in August 2019, Rand Fishkin confirmed what many SEOs had long suspected. Moz, SparkToro (his new company) and himself relied on Jumpshot data.
This is what he said:
Throughout this post, I’ll be using numbers from the clickstream data company, Jumpshot. They are, in my opinion, the best, most reliable source of information on what happens inside web browsers because of how they gather, process, and scale their estimates. That’s why SparkToro, and Moz (my previous company) are both customers of Jumpshot. Given all the nice things I say about them, it might sound like they’re paying me, but the opposite is true; we’re paying them. You can find more on their methodology in the endnote on this post.
One of the chief worries from SEOs and digital marketers is that because Jumpshot has been wound down and will no longer provide data, some SEO tools will either cease to function or provide inaccurate data.
Why was Jumpshot Shutdown?
It is still kind of unclear as to why Jumpshot was killed off.
However, this is what we do know.
The decision to shut down Jumpshot came shortly after a joint investigation by Motherboard and PCMag into its harvesting and selling of user data was published by Vice on January 27, 2020.
Captioned “Leaked Documents Expose the Secretive Market for Your Web Browsing Data”, Vice reported that Jumpshop, “sells ‘Every search. Every click. Every buy. On every site.’ Its clients have included Home Depot, Google, Microsoft, Pepsi, and McKinsey.”
According to Search Engine Journal, the data in question is highly sensitive and was supposed to remain confidential. Documents obtained by Vice reveal how the Avast antivirus program collects data from people who have the software installed on their computers. Data harvested by Avast is then repackaged by Jumpshot and sold to many of the world’s largest companies.
How SEOs Reacted to the Demise of Jumpshop
As you can imagine, the announcement led to a frenzy among SEOs on Social Media, particularly Twitter.
Not surprisingly, Fishkin was one of the first to wade in.
Here is a screenshot the tweet.
Here are some more reactions from digital marketing experts on Twitter.
Marie Haynes, host of the ‘Search News You Can Use’ podcast started a huge conversation which she concluded by asking, “I’m wondering what kind of impact this will have on our industry”?
There were questions.
“Do we have a list of tools that use data from Jumpshot?” asked Taylor Berg, a Chicago based SEO.
And this poignant question from Alfred, a Tokyo based SEO.
There was a lot of speculation as to which SEO tools use Jumpshot data.
Gael Breton, founder & chief editor at Authority Hacker added his thoughts to the conversation. He felt the Jumpshot shut down would “mess up most SEO tools”!
Shelly Fagin, an SEO expert featured by Search Engine Journal in the 140 Top SEO Experts You Should Be Following, said SEMrush won’t be affected. “Thankfully”, she added!