What is Google Topics API: Everything You Need To Know

“Is Google giving us the topics to search or write about, or Google has created some of its own topics which we will study in our school and college.” If this is your assumption, then  you are wrong. So, what is Google Topics API?

So, Google Topics API is going to take the place of FLoC. Now, the question is what is FLoC?
Let me start from the beginning. 

As there is noise that Google’s Third party cookies are going to stop working from 2023. These third party cookies were helping marketers targeting people who might be interested in their services and products. Have a look how these third party cookies work

How Third Party Cookies Work?

So, assume, A wants to take web development services and he searches in Google “Cost of Web Development Services” and he visits the first link he sees on the top of google and checks the price of website development. And after checking all the prices, he leaves the website. Here, two types of cookies were working, one is First Party Cookies. 

These cookies are implemented by the website itself, which the users visited to to understand the action of the user, by this this website can show his some advertisements related to web development as they know that this user is interested in taking website development services. 

Now the other cookies that work are Third Party Cookies, other than the website the user is visiting, place these third party cookies. These are stored in your website and then any other website, let’s say another company that provides web development services or training can show you the ads.

Now, the third party is useful to show relevant advertisements, but it is also an issue of privacy. So, after Apple and Safari blocked third party cookies, Google has also planned to stop the use of third party cookies. But, these third party cookies were a good source of information and user data to the advertisers. 

So, to fulfill the demand for data, Google is coming up with an alternative that can help marketers reach the right audience and users to have a good search experience. 

What is FLoC?

In the third-party cookieless world, Google was testing FLoc. FLoC is an acronym of Federated Learning of Cohorts where browsers of users as per the searched of users will use an algorithm and put that particular user in that cohort (interest) so, instead of sharing the private information of users, browsers will add them in interest and advertisers can use those cohorts or interests to show their ads. But, it also has some loops.

So, as an alternative to FLoC, now Google is testing TOPICS. Topics don’t have any full form that also allows browsers to show user interest based advertisements. So, what’s the difference between FLoC and Topics? 

Let’s understand, what is Google Topics: 

Google’s Topics API is the second trial of Google to the Privacy Sandbox. ” Earlier, FLoC(Federated Learnings of Cohorts) had been stalled due to privacy concerns. A great irony, given that the Privacy Sandbox’s stated goal is to develop privacy-protective alternatives to third-party cookies.

Google is planning to roll out Topics to fulfill the demand of data in a cookieless world with privacy of the users. So, how does Topics work?

Here is the process of how Google TOPICS work

(We will understand with an example)

Joe does many searches in a day. One day Joe visits a website that has Google Adsense enabled in it. Now, as per Joe’s searches, his browser will provide 3 topics as per last 3 weeks searches (1 from each week) to that particular AdSense account to show ads to Joe and Google AdSense account will be one of the topics and start showing ads. This browser will show the topics from the searches of the last 3 weeks. In T
Google has created some TOPICS and as per your searches you will be assigned some topics like Fitness and Travels as per your searches. 

Now, how is this an alternative to third-party cookies? 

In third party cookies, third websites used to track the data and show relevant ads to users. In Google Topics, it’s your own browser, who shares only the Topics you might be interested in, and not your searches.\

Benefits of Third-Party Cookies

• No Search History: In Topics, no third party website tracks your data, your own browser will keep these topics and only for 3 weeks and after 3 weeks these topics will be deleted automatically from your browser. 

• Delete and Disable: Users will be allowed to delete a topic or disable the feature entirely from their browser history. 

• Control Over Data: With no other website tracking and collecting your data, you will have full control over your data and privacy. 

Will Topics be beneficial for advertisers:

As Topics is also allowing users to disable the feature and delete the topics they do not want to look at ads for, it is going to limit the targeted ads opportunities for the advertisers. And here will be the situation 22, why? Because all these topics will be broad. For instance, you search for the book, and this will come under the Topics BOOK. But what kind of book? Thrill, Action, Fiction, Non-Fiction. This will broaden the term and users can see the ads which are not relevant for them. At present, in Topics API, only 350 topics are available which are defined under Health, Travel, Sports, Book etc. That can be up to 1500 or more than that. 

“On the surface, Topics seems to most closely reflect contextual advertising, which has been around for some time,” Bachstein said. “While that approach has value, the marketing and advertising industry is looking for more innovation.”

On the other hand, most people say that it is better than FLoC, as in FLoC they are actually putting people in many different interests and it was hard to understand which interest to target to show the relevant ads. 

According to Trider, FLoCs were “opaque, arbitrary groups of people with no specific human-identifiable meaning,” necessitating the use of machine learning or other approaches to determine which FLoCs were relevant to use for targeting. “Topics are a human-friendly taxonomy of simple categories such as movies’ or ‘insurance.”

Well, we can’t say that TOPICS will be beneficial for both users and advertisers. Google will start taking trials, will create mechanisms, and will take the feedback from industry experts. And who knows, as after FLoC we saw TOPICS, any third option comes in the way. We wait and see what is there for marketers.