Hi John

Correct.

Making SSL the default for searches means that your site won't be sent the 'referrer' ID, so your analytics won't be able to extract the keywords that were used to search for your site.

The information about clicked links and keywords is still *within* Google of course, so they'll be able to tell you which AdWords (PPC) keywords are being clicked (of course, it's their business after all) - and Google Webmaster Tools will still give you an anonymised 'top 1000' list of popular searches.

Good for Google as it can only mean more AdWords sales.

This does however mean much greater privacy for end users, where even someone on the same network wouldn't be able to tell (by eavesdropping traffic) what you were searching for.

So, good for users' privacy, good for Google, not so good for webmasters.

-Will.