Tag: SEO

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The Google Analytics Whiners Need to Stop Now

Even on this past Friday the spillover comments about Google blocking referrer data into Google Analytics for signed in users was ramped up from just being irritating to the full rant level. Here are some of the titles of articles that I have read to give you an idea of how rabid people in my industry are getting about this topic.

Dear Google, This is War

Google Whores Out Users With False Privacy Claims

SEO Under Attack – The Google Analytics Keyword Data Apocalypse

Now We Will Need To Pay To See Keyword Referrer Data?

Google Turning the Lights Out on Organic Data

These are just a few of the articles on this topic that I wrote about this past Monday’s from an announcement that Google made last week that talks about Google turning off the referrer for signed in Google users when they do a search. My comments to all of these writers and whiners is Google is not a non-profit. Everything they do is for money. We cannot forget this. Google.com and Google Analytics are their platform’s their intellectual property, their rules, searches their way!

I want to bring to everyone’s mind that Google Analytics used to be called Urchin and monthly subscription to the service was in excessive of $100 monthly for data and tracking. Google bought Urchin and every webmaster around the world signed up to get the code and get Google Analytics for free. Now that Google has decided to remove some of the data from THEIR free tool the world is falling over itself whining about the loss and trying to brow beat Google into giving it back.

It’s time to get real and realize that Google is a platform that pushes advertising. Google will do whatever it takes to keep other advertisers from scrapping its referral data so they [other advertisers] can use the information to make money. Google will work hard to protect itself from privacy lawsuits as they cost money and hurt their [Google’s] reputation. Google is not providing a search engine or organic results for free, it provides them so you will click their ads so they make money.

Stop whining and start checking to see if there is another statistical tool that will give you what YOU want. I think that you’ll be hard pressed to find one that is free and provides the data that Google Analytics has. Oh, wait, there is always Web Trends and Hub Spot available… but for a price.

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Google Search Goes to Secure Encryption Causing SEO Headaches

Google announced this past week that for all signed in users it will now show search results with an https:// address. This means that if you are signed in to Google+, Gmail or any other Google Properties when you go to Google.com the page will default to https://www.Google.com.

So what you say, “no big deal”, well here’s the rest of the story…

“Today, a web site accessed through organic search results on http://www.google.com (non-SSL) can see both that the user came from google.com and their search query. (Technically speaking, the user’s browser passes this
information via the HTTP referrer field.) However, for organic search results on SSL search, a web site will only know that the user came from google.com.”

This is very important news for website owners who are using Google Analytics to track traffic on their website and for the SEO firms that you may employ who may be tracking keyword information. You can read the full article on the Google Webmaster blog.

The bottom-line is that Google is not going to show the search terms people used to find your website when doing organic searches. This information has been incredibly valuable. One, it let’s you know what keyword search activity has helped people to find you so you can build on these successes; two, it allows you to evaluate your current SEO strategy to adjust if needed; and three, it allows your Google AdWords account manager to harvest additional keywords to help your AdWords program perform better.

Google does go on to say that they are making the change to protect a user’s privacy but annoyingly enough they are showing the full data in Google AdWords accounts. As a result webmasters all around the world have gone crazy over this news. Here is a link to a site that has archived a few of the most interesting articles on this topic if you would like to read more.

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Branding Yourself is the Way to High Organic Placement

What website owners used to do to get organic search placement simply does not work anymore pre or post Panda! I’ve found a great article that really says it all when it comes to explaining why. I think you will find it interesting reading.

These are things that have worked in the past for organic placement (some are really old) that do not work now:

  • keyword stuffing into html comment code
  • keyword dense domain names
  • home page with a high level of keyword density on one or two phrases
  • submitting your website URL to hundreds of directories
  • link to your website from forums or blog comments

Now what works is to consolidate your web efforts, no more spin off websites that are keyword dense on one service and are only five pages deep and no more websites that just have a listing about what you sell or service.

What works for placement today is:

  • an information rich website with content that is updated frequently
  • a website that blogs on domain that earns inbound links slowly over time
  • a larger website meaning more pages that inform customers and educate them
  • a more text oriented and less graphically complex website that has a super speedy load time
  • a website that uses smart architecture that allows for keyword named directories
  • smart activity in social media like Twitter and Facebook pointing back to the parent website

It’s time to consolidate your efforts and market your business and services as a brand. A brand that has a strategy to inform, entertain, and interact with prospects and readers while providing unique information written with an eye on selling your product/services features and benefits. Need someone who can do just that, check out our website for more information.

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Search Engines – What You See Is Not What I See

Just this past week I’ve had two prospect call saying they need to be number one on Google and what would it cost to get them there. Sigh, this is a “brave new world” people! What you see on a search engine is not what I see, nor what your neighbor sees, nor what someone in California sees. There is no longer owning top organic spots. We used to be able to do this, but not any more.

Welcome to the new world of personalized search history and pervasive cookies. In many ways, in regards to personally satisfying search results, personalized search is a huge step forward. It makes results focused on what you have searched for before and is targeted to your location. What it makes for website owners is a big headache.

To learn more about this topic, I recommend that you read this interesting and insightful article that explains in depth why what you see will be different than what I see.

Search engines collect users’ browsing history in 2 major ways:

(1) by tracking signed-in users’ activities and
(2) by planting cookies into signed-out users’ browsers.

So even if you’ve signed out of your Google.com accounts, Google still knows who you are and where you live and continues to deliver personalized results. Besides logging out of all Google accounts, logging out of all social media accounts, clearing your browser of all cookies and your cache what you see then on Google.com would be data that no one else may ever see as they are logged in to everything!

Top placement organically is now a target you can strive for, but one that is hard to document and reproduce across varying users platforms due to our new world of personalized search.