According to WebMastersWorld Forum there is a Google PageRank update happening right now.

If you're interested in your own site's rank a good link to check your PageRank on all the Google Servers is: http://livepr.raketforskning.com/?u=www.digitalpoint.com

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While MSN is using their video service for showing live concerts, Google has taken a different road for alternative uses for Google Video. Steve Brandt of Google Watch recently posted that the University of California (Berkeley) will be offering over 250 hours of college material free over Google Video.

This could have a snowball affect if other institutions start following the path of Berkeley. Personally, I think this in an excellent idea because it will allow anyone to take the initiative to receive education from top level colleges/universities.

"Visitors will find a half-dozen Berkeley courses in their entirety, including "Physics for Future Presidents," "Integrative Biology," and "Search Engines: Technology, Society and Business," featuring a lecture by Google co-founder Sergey Brin."

Source:
http://news.com.com/Google+Video+plays+school/2100-1032_3-6120021.html

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Ever want to watch live concerts such as Beyonce or Madonna but were simply too slow to get tickets? Well here's something that may interest you: With its new partnership with Control Room, MSN will be launching a new service which allows users to watch live concerts on MSN Video.

John Legend will be kick starting the MSN Video service with a concert on October 2nd.

"The production deal is for 36 live-music events, according to a report on The Wall Street Journal's Web site. As part of the agreement, Microsoft will also be able to stream Control Room shows to other platforms, such as Xbox Live, MSN Messenger and Microsoft Windows Media Player."

I've heard that the contract is 3 years long and I think we'll find out very quickly how successful it will be.

Source: Market Watch

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Look out Seattle, Google Transit has now added King County Metro Transit routes to it's free trip planning service. On Monday night, King County was one of five new areas added, the other 4 included to Pittsburgh, Tampa Florida, Eugene Oregon and Honolulu.

"The addition of King County Metro Transit may give the Internet search giant a bigger role in the daily lives of people in the Seattle area, home to Google rival Microsoft Corp. But that wasn't a factor in the decision..."

I am not completely convinced that this wasn't a factor and I bet Microsoft is playing close attention to Google's plans. Maybe we'll see a "Microsoft Metro" expansion pack in the upcoming Office 2007 release :)

Google Transit Trip Planner enables you to enter the specifics of your trip—where you're starting, where you're ending up, what time of day you'd like to leave and/or arrive—then uses all available public transportation schedules and information to plot out the most efficient possible step-by-step itinerary.

Source: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/286471_google26.html

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Last week Alex Iskold wrote an interesting post comparing various bookmarking sites. This is something I have been looking for a while because it would allow me to make a better decision as to what bookmarks to include below each post. Alex's study compared 9 sites: Blinklist, Blogmarks, Del.icio.us, Diigo, Furl, Ma.gnolia, Shadows, Simpy and Stumble upon.

"The social bookmarking market is dominated by del.icio.us and StumbleUpon. These leaders split the market, as they bring orthogonal approaches to bookmarking - del.icio.us builds a hierarchy for people to browse (it does related relationships, etc.), while StumbleUpon is more of a random discovery system."

A few things I would like to see added to this test include things like: A ranking system based on the results, DIGG, the use of API data where ever possible (i.e.: Del.icio.us) and maybe some type of rating system for the features lists.

I would also love to see a similar test done for Feed Readers: Google, My Yahoo, MSN, News Gator, etc...

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I purchased the domain: http://www.manojknows.com about 3 years ago. It was strictly for comedic purposes based upon a Q&A type setup. However, this past weekend I recently did an update which included a redesign and a new function for the website. ManojKnows.com will be a place where I host some of my favorites sites to read and in the near future some useful tools for SEO/Blog Stats.

I am currently looking for suggestions on tools (preferably using APIs and ASP.Net - C#).

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On Thursday, September 21st I had the pleasure of interviewing Google Analytics' Senior Manager Brett Crosby. So here's how the conversation went:

[Manoj]: Can you start by talking a little bit about your professional background.

[Brett]: When we were acquired by Google I was VP of marketing at Urchin, I was also one of the co-founders of Urchin Software. We had been developing the software for about 10 years prior to that, both software and web based version. Once we were acquired I became the senior manager of Google Analytics.

[Manoj]: Are you guys continuing the support for Urchin or are you pushing for everyone to change over to Google Analytics?

[Brett]: We are still supporting Urchin Software and are planning to release another software version (the version that runs on your own server vs. on demand). Currently there has been a lag on the software version of Urchin but we are trying hard to push out a new release. However, I am a huge believer in the ASP/On Demand model because of the vast amounts of features and updates we're able to build into it. With Software versions there are problems with legacy and relying on customers to manually update.

[Manoj]: I like the ASP model too because of the simplicity of the implementation.

[Brett]: Exactly, this is a big reason why the market took off as it did and now people are starting to switch over to this version. There are often times where the Marketing and IT departments have different objectives and with the ASP model Marketers are easily able to install the code and implement goals/conversion funnels.

[Manoj]: Will you guys be coming out with a guide/book for helping with custom implementations? This is something I have been asked before by other people.

[Brett]: Hopefully we don't need a book on how to implement (chuckles...) because we're trying to make it as easy as possible. We could potentially write a book and their have been conversations about that, however, the book would be more based on what you can do with data rather than how to set it up. We do have the conversion university resource where people can go and learn more about the analytics data. There is a whole world with what you can do with the data which we are constantly updating but I am not sure if we'll come out with a book at this time. That being said other people have written books on Google Analytics.

[Manoj]: How many users do you currently have on Google Analytics, do you know an approximate number?

[Brett]: I do know the number, however I don't think it's a number we're disclosing at this time even though it may have been leaked at a couple places.

[Manoj]: Alright...you must have noticed a huge increase when you made the sign up instantaneous?

[Brett]: Good Questions, to both of those questions...when we first launched we noticed a lot of people interested in the product, specifically because it provided more than just the number of page views, rather it also showed marketing numbers and goals. As you know, the demand was so much greater than we realized because we increased the size of the market several times over in a matter of a couple days. Therefore we had to turn off the system for new accounts and put an invitation model in place. Since then we have completely re-opened and yes we have seen a big surge in the accounts and we have added further scalability to handle them.

[Manoj]: What is your goal with Google Analytics, perhaps a target you want to reach?

[Brett]: Funny, I was just thinking about this myself, how I would be satisfied with my career. I haven't really come up with anything concrete yet, but one of my general goals is to get more and more people to use this data in order to make actionable decisions. More specifically one of my goals (and my entire team's) is the opportunity to bring the market up to speed by using analytics to make decisions for their website. This was not the case a little while back where only a small percentage of users had access to this type of data. It's an industry wide challenge to get the right information to the right people at the right time so this is something we're taking serious considerations into.

[Manoj]: I think what you've essentially done is made it so that there is no reason for someone with a website not to have analytics in place because it's so easy.

[Brett]: This is what some of our intentions were when we released the product. One of the goals even at the executive level at Google is to improve the web one website at a time through the creation of better user experiences.

[Manoj]: Can you talk a little bit about the Future of the Web Analytics Industry or any Trends you foresee.

[Brett]:Sure, some of the trends we are seeing are pretty interesting. One of the things we noticed is companies such as Career Builder using Web Analytics to help experiment with various promotions in order to determine how well their offline marketing is working. This is not a brand new concept but we're seeing a lot more of this.

The second big thing I noticed is companies using the Internet to promote what would have been TV advertisements and then using web analytics to understand the level of visitor interactions on their websites. (Brett gives an example of Carls Junior Restaurant Ads being run only once on TV. Carls Junior later allows users the ability to see the same ad on their website). The brand interaction users were getting online were much greater than what they would ever see from TV.

One other Trend worth mentioning is online agencies who are responsible for driving traffic being paid based on the success of their conversions and driving traffic and through to the websites.

[Manoj]: Do you have any new features or reports that you expect to release in the future?

[Brett]: We are always try to come out with new updates, things we recently added include paid placement position and adgroups in the adword reports. This allows users to see their most profitable paid position and with this knowledge they can bid for a given position.

[Manoj]: How do you guys intend on handling the implementation of AJAX on websites?

[Brett]: Great Question, although my thoughts are proprietary to Google, we did purchase a company called MeasureMap a little while back and one of the founders of Measure Map: Jeff Veen has written a book on AJAX/Web design. Jeff and his team are highly versed in AJAX so therefore we definitely have some thoughts on how to handle it.

[Manoj]: Going to end it with something fun: Please tell us the top 5 things you enjoy most working at Google.

[Brett]:
- The Food (easiest one), it's outstanding and chefs are magicians
- The people are tremendous at Google. So many smart and bright people make it very humbling. This makes you more inclined to get things done rather than dictating.
- How seriously people take the user experience/user trust issue and how hard they work not to jeopordize any of those things.
- Lack of rigorous hierarchy, the freedom to work on project you want to work on. Access to Larry, Sergey and Eric whenever we want (and we do meet with them monthly/quarterly)
- 20% time is another great thing which really helps promote imagination and creativity.


Well that was it, Thank you to Brett for doing this, he was a very down to earth guy and this made for a very smooth experience.

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Throughout these upcoming weeks I will be featuring interviews with key individuals from Web Analytics companies. Today I had a great chat with Google Analytic's Senior Manager - Brett Crosby (post to follow soon) and next week I hope to talk with ClickTrack's John Marshall.

Stay tuned for more.

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A marketing rep from AnalyticsTool.com sent me an email this past week wanting me to check out their free analytics product. After a fairly quick registration process I was able to copy their JavaScript code onto my blog and was up and running in a few minutes. The JavaScript is a bit lengthier than StatCounter's or Google's but if it's placed just before the end body tag it really doesn't make a difference.

After collecting data for a couple of days I was actually pleasantly surprised with the diversity of the reports. As you log-in you are presented with the previous day's summary which includes various stats such as: Page Views, Unique Visitors, Returning Visitors, Top Search Engine, Busiest Hour, etc...



Other useful reports include: Top Referrers, Top Search Engines/Phrases, Top Click Paths, Entry/Exit Pages, Visitors by Geography as well as a few more.

The look of the interface could use a little work but the data is relatively accurate and easy to read. So if you're looking for an alternate to StatCounter or need something to provide you with a second set of results, this maybe the tool (did I mention there is no log file size limit).

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Over the years people have come to rely heavily on Google's Page Rank as an indicator for a site's authoritativeness. It's still a very prominent metric but people (esp. SEM Experts) are now beginning to understand that there's a whole lot more to it. For example a site with low Page Rank can still have thousands of visitors and do well from a search engine perspective.

I think people still like to have that 1, all encompassing value and I am trying to wrap my head around how that number would be determined for Blogs. BlogInfluence.net uses the formula: [(blog+posts+web links) + (bloglines subs * 2)] * 1+(PageRank/10) (using Yahoo Back Links, Technorati Back Links, Blog Lines Subscribers and Google Page Rank).

I believe there should be a few more metrics added to this formula which would help strengthen its value:

- Yahoo and Google News links (for authority)
- FeedBurner Subscribers (for readership)
- Technorati Rank (for authority)
- Back-links from Major Search Engines with some type of weighting applied (i.e.: Google = 10, Yahoo = 6, MSN = 4)
- Unique Visitors
- Alexa Reach/Rank
- Digg, Delicious Votes

There are probably many more metrics we could add and I would love to hear suggestions from others. A formula combining all of these metrics would really help measure how well a blog is doing, especially after implmenting a blog promotion strategy. With the various APIs available to us, I don't see why this measurment couldn't be developed into some type of software tool or webpage.

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Maizal Munif posted a great article recently about the basics of pinging. With the web revolving around blog and news aggregators I think it's important to get an understanding on how a person notify websites such as Technorati and Feedster about their site's latest content.

In this article Maizal goes into XML-RPC Pinging, XML Requests and CMS Systems.

Here's a blurb from his article:

The problem with content on the web is not one of creative but of visibility. In other words, how do you notify the world that you have new and fresh content online before any of your competitors do, and then get the world to actually visit your website and read that new content? How do you publicize your latest articles quickly?

http://www.searchengineposition.com/info/articles/Pinging101.asp

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If you're in the Web Analytics/SEO industry you will often find yourself trying to copy data into excel from other sources (Keywords, Search Engine Stats, etc...). An article posted at Text Link Brokers makes importing data into excel VERY simple.

By navigating to the following option in excel:
DATA > IMPORT EXTERNAL DATA > NEW WEB QUERY
Then selecting the desired data, a person can import any part of given webpage quickly to excel.

Go ahead and try if for your self!

Here's the link again: http://www.textlinkbrokers.com/blog/weblog/P400/

Also see: http://r1c1.blogspot.com/2006/09/using-web-queries-to-import-data-to.html

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Yahoo, MSN and Google all provide powerful web search APIs so that developers can build custom applications. Google and MSN use web services to return their data while Yahoo returns its data via XML. I use the APIs often to retrieve back links and pages indexed data and have found that MSN and Google have always been relatively accurate (1-8% variance from actual). Yahoo's data for pages indexed has always been pretty accurate too, but I have found the back link count to be way off at times in the past. However, since the switch for "search commands" to Yahoo Site Explorer I am noticing better accuracy in the back link data. I can't say it's absolutely perfect (and probably never will be), but it's a big change compared to the numbers I was getting from Yahoo a few months ago. The variances I am noticing right now are in smaller, less authoritative sites.

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Posts from both WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Round Table report that Google has been doing some usability testing as of late by experimenting with the location of the top sponsored results.

Basically the test consists of moving the top sponsored results to the side location on a user by user basis. "The rationale is that the user does not want to see the ads anyway and it lessens the chance of a poor prospect clicking on an ad." (from WebmasterWorld)

I think this will have a big effect on the top 5 results because if the top sponsored result is gone there technically should be a better click through rate on the proceeding organic listings. This would also move the 5th Organic listing above the fold making that spot hold greater value.

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Check out Jonathan Nelson's blog today becuase I will be guest blogging for him over at Search N Sniff. I selected the topic of Blog Stats Addiction because I really enjoy checking out my blog's traffic and buzz stats on a regular basis.

Go here for the Full Story.

Search N Sniff is powered by industry professionals. After a news story is submitted, other users read submissions and vote what they like best. If a story receives enough votes, it is promoted to the front page.

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On September 18 and 19, 2006--next Monday and Tuesday, ClickTracks Founder and CEO John Marshall will present a class entitled "Web Analytics Sins Exposed."

In the class (note: the same topic will be presented on Monday and Tuesday) John will get down to the nitty-gritty of common web analytics myths, pinpointing best practices as well as traps to avoid. The class is appropriate for web analytics newbies as well as veterans. Clicktracks promises that attendees will come away with a new perspective on how to interpret web analytics data and make sound online marketing decisions. Register for the class at http://www.clicktracks.com/seminars/

For more information:http://www.clicktracks.com/news.php?id=92

I like what ClickTracks is doing with it's free Classes, it gives a chance for Site Owners and marketers to experience the ClickTracks experience with no obligation. It also helps current ClickTracks users by pinpointing "nuggets" of useful information.

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Before employing a blog strategy such as employing guest writers, it is important to establish yourself and your blog before inviting guest writers to appear. Establishing yourself can be accomplished through various means such as commenting on related industry blogs, writing interesting content on your own blog, and writing for other well known Industry sites. I write frequently for Enquiro Search Solutions and many of the articles get circulated to WebProNews, SearchNewz, SearchEngineGuide and the Web Analytics Association.

I found as a result of my guest blogger strategy that last week was my blog’s most successful week ever in terms of generating page views, unique visitors, % of Repeat visitors, visitors’ pages per visit, feed subscribers, comments, Technorati links (in a week), Diggs, and mentions/plugs by other bloggers. I am a big Web Analytics fanatic and love to check stats regularly and today I’d like to share some of the data from last week.

Read the rest here...

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Rand Fishkin Finishes Guest Blogger week with "Push Marketing & Search Marketing - Two Great Tastes that Don't Taste Great Together"

There are quite a few online marketing firms providing SEO/SEM services that have built their business on the backs of cold calls, mass emailings, advertising & other forms of "push" marketing. The most common of these tactics is the salesperson contacting prospects with the promise of an increase in rankings & traffic. A common script might start something like:

Salesman: Are you aware that your site is currently ranking in position 34 of Google's results for the term "menlo park dentist?" That term gets 50 searches each day and if we helped you to move up to the first page of results, those searchers would visit your site, instead of your competitors.

Sucker: Wow... How do you do that?

Salesman: We have patented technology that's guaranteed to get you into the top 5 results for 5, 10, 25 or 50 keywords at a time. Our search engine research team has deep connections with the software that powers search engines like Google... blah, blah, lies, exaggeration, blithering technospeak designed to intimidate.

Sucker: I'll take it!

The scripts aren't always this ruthless, but, invariably, pushy tactics and a lack of openness come into play. Personally, I find the very idea of a union between any form of push marketing and the practice of search marketing both disconcerting and unnatural. Here's why:

• Not Walking the Talk - you're selling services that rely on consumers seeking services, yet you don't use that same methodology to attract customers. Obviously, not everyone can rank well for online marketing or search engine optimization, but there's an inherent hypocrisy that sticks out like a sore thumb.



• Obscuring the Truth - Openness and a free exchange of how the search engines really work, what the tactics are that you use to achieve rankings and realistic evaluations of your services almost never figure into a cold sales pitch. Obviously, this is in direct conflict with my personal philosophy, but it also works to your disadvantage when savvier clients start trying to learn more about the search engines.



• You Hurt Yourself - Once a company has heard about SEO or search marketing, they're likely to start searching for those terms to learn more. When your website doesn't come up in the top results, many of those companies are going to assume that you must not be good at your work, and that one of your competitors who does rank well is the right choice to pursue.



• Poison in the Well - For every snake oil SEO salesman that calls 100 companies a day, there's 98 fewer companies who trust the field of SEO, the practice of search marketing and will have a positive impression of the people who operate in our industry. Even the best cold callers are going to leave bad impressions with 50%+ of their marks, simply because so many folks associate a negative stereotype to anyone who pushes their services in this manner.

If you're a great marketing firm, or even a decent one, you can think of dozens, and hopefully hundreds of ways to get the word out about your company in positive, flattering and creative venues. I'd urge anyone who's considering a paid sales force to be very careful about how they utilize those resources - our field is young enough that we still have the chance to earn a reputation every day we practice. Put your best foot forward and karma will reward you (at least in my experience).

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Omniture is set to launch version 13 of their popular Web Analytic Software. This latest release will include features geared towards Web 2.0 as well a self configurable console. The official launch will be next week.

Web 2.0 Technologies:

- Social Networking
- Blog Value
- Rich Internet Applications (RIA)
- Dynamic Search
- Visitor Interaction Profiling

Key features of the console include:

- Management of user access and permissions for individuals, groups and functions by roles and entitlements
- Fast and accurate creation, configuration and management of thousands of report suites which includes pre-configured suite templates tailored for specific industries and site types
- Support for the deployment and management of multiple currencies and languages
- Automatic generation of collection code by application type, including Web pages, wireless devices and rich Internet applications
- Open access to external systems through a Web Services API and software developer kit to automate all administrative functionality

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Gord Hotchkiss keeps guest blogger week rolling with "SEM Has No Future"

When Manoj asked me to do a guest post, he provided me (reluctantly) with a list of suggested topics. One of them was the Future of SEM. I decided to take that one, because I could start off with a wildly controversial headline. It’s Thursday, I’m grumpy and I just wanted to stir things up a little.

“What?” I can hear search marketers ranting across the blogosphere, “the Chairman of SEMPO says there’s no future for search engine marketing?” Yes, and what’s more, that’s good news for all of us. Okay, make that for some of us.

Search engines, and the form of marketing we’re currently familiar with, will disappear in the next 5 to 10 years. But here’s the good part. The act of a user requesting information through a query, either implicit or explicit, will pervade everything online.

For any of you who have read my ramblings in various places on the web will know I’m a huge proponent of consumer control. I love the web because it puts control squarely where it needs to be, in our hands, not in the hands of faceless multinational conglomerates. The internet is the ultimate democratization catalyst. And the act of searching for information, the initiative of a consumer asking to connect with content online, is the very embodiment of that control. It short circuits every existing power structure, and rewires them with consumers at the wheel. That’s monumental. That’s earthshaking, and we haven’t felt the full effects of that paradigm shift yet.

Because that simple act of requesting information is fundamental to how the web works, it will became the bedrock of the online world. The problem with search currently is that it’s rather clunky. The connection between the incredibly complexity of our thoughts and the vast amount of content online is as thin as a few words. It’s an impossibly tiny bottleneck to jam all that potential bandwidth through. Yet, as clunky as the current flavor of search is, it’s a quantum leap ahead of anything we’ve had previously. It’s a hell of a lot better than sifting through the card catalog of the local library.

So, you have an incredible useful connector that everyone wants to use, restricted by an interface problem. What’s more, you have huge buckets of revenue waiting to be dumped on you for every successful connection. It creates the perfect storm of initiative for research, improvement and control of that vital touch point. You’ve got the two most talked about companies in the world, Google and Microsoft, preparing to do battle for this very high ground. You’ve got the act of search spilling out of the PC into multiple platforms, including the one that will change the world, mobile. It’s inevitable that the current interface will be ripped apart and rebuilt.

When that happens, the search interface will go underground. It will be embedded behind other interfaces, toiling silently away on your behalf. The distinct act of searching, where we go to a search engine, launch a query and look at the results on a search page, will disappear. It will become integral to everything we do, online, on phones, and soon, on our entertainment units. It will power a huge part of our lives. And when that happens, search engine marketing as we know it will be dead.

Search engine marketing is dead! Long live consumer initiated marketing!

Here’s more good news/bad news. When the act of searching becomes embedded across our spectrum of activities, all the rules of marketing change. The old models of push, through a gazillion channels, are no longer valid. Everything becomes about pull, with the consumer doing the pulling. (By the way, I use the term consumer reluctantly. A friend of mine, Ray Podder, says the term consumer should be stricken from our vocabulary, because it doesn’t reflect the power they wield. If you care to know more about the reasoning behind this, check out a past column I wrote. But, for right or wrong, consumer is the commonly understood term, so I’ll stick with it for now). And when it comes to making sure the right message gets to the consumer when they start pulling, search marketers are ahead of most of the pack. We’ve been doing this for awhile, and the smartest of us are really trying to understand what’s in the consumer’s mind when they ask for information. This gives us a leg up when the world of marketing changes, but it’s a slight advantage, and will disappear quickly.

So, don’t believe that search marketing as we know it will last long, because search engines as we know them won’t last long. The clouds of change are gathering on the horizon. Search will become transparent, ubiquitous and essential. It will be the prevalent way to connect with a consumer. There is a thin chance for search marketers to exploit their current expertise, and if they do it well, they’ll control the high ground on the new marketing battlefield.

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Day 2 of Guest Writer Week continues with SearchEngineGuide's Jennifer Laycock:

I mention it any time I give a talk about the benefits of viral marketing...the absolute need to understand that viral marketing campaigns can quickly get out of control. No company should ever launch a viral campaign without some plan of action for how to scale if the response is larger than you'd imagined. Apparently the team at Starbucks missed that segment of Viral Marketing 101.

What happened? Well, according to DM News, Starbucks sent out an email to Atlanta area employees featuring a printable coupon for a free Grande beverage. The email asked the recipients to forward it to friends and family members.

As you can imagine, they did....in droves. According to DM News:

However, the e-mail spread faster than Starbucks predicted, landing in e-mail boxes coast to coast, as well as being sold on auction sites like eBay.

Rather than honoring the coupon and counting the email as a success, Starbucks has claimed that the email went beyond the scope of their original intent and is therefore no longer valid. The move is not only an example of extreme failure to plan, but also marks the early makings of an online reputation management nightmare. Chances are high that allowing for the redemption of the coupons would have cost far less than the long-term negative publicity that could come from Starbucks refusal to honor the coupons.

That said, not all coffee companies are missing the boat when it comes to viral marketing. Starbucks competitor Caribou Coffee announced via the Denver Post that they would happily honor the now void Starbucks coupons at their own stores this Friday, September 8th.

From the Denver Post:

Customers who bring in the now void Starbucks coupon will receive a free medium Cold Press iced coffee, Iced Americano or Iced Tea.

"We want to introduce gourmet coffee lovers to a great new product, Cold Press iced coffee," said Michael Coles, chief executive of Minneapolis-based Caribou.

Sounds like a company that's smart enough to manage not only their own online reputations, but to keep an eye on that of their competitors as well. Small business owners would be wise to take note of how both Starbucks and Caribou Coffee are handling this situation. Key take away points?

1.) Never ever EVER launch a viral marketing campaign if you aren't willing and able to scale to the level required by a successful campaign.

2.) Just slightly behind the importance of tracking your own reputation online is the idea of tracking your competitors.

3.) A great viral campaign doesn't have to be one that you come up with on your own. Sometimes it simply means stepping in and taking over when someone else does it poorly.

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Day 1 of Guest Writer Week begins with Intuit's Avinash Kaushik:

I am surprised that recently I have been asked this question so many times: “Why is Web Analytics suddenly so hot?”. Different people from different places and different spheres of life. So for my first contribution to Manoj’s blog here is an attempt at a thoughtful answer.

There are some very delightful trends that are coalescing together in the marketplace that I would assign causality to. Here are some of them…..

• The web usually is one part of a multi channel strategy for most companies (atleast those that are not exclusive web) and it has tended to be a small part. The great thing is that for a large percent of businesses that is no longer true. The web is making a lot of money and with that comes “fame and fortune”.
  






• The web is growing up, it is no longer just a cool kid on the block. For the longest time it was ok to show charts of increasing hits or page views and get advertisers or bonuses. That is, sadly, no longer the case. The cool kid has grown up and is being held accountable for its actions (or investments being put in).
  






• An increasing amount of people have figured out that the web has the power to truly be the lowest cost acquisition channel for customers. We know exactly where we spend how much money and we can pin down, pretty well, the exact rate of return. There is no other channel that can do this as well as the web (think TV or billboards or direct marketing etc).
  






• Two words: Experimentation & Testing. Traditionally businesses have struggled to learn about their customers in any meaningful way. The web is making it easy for us to create optimal customer experiences by letting the customers tell us what they want. Not just online but also offline. We can test navigation and pages but also price sensitivity and magazine layouts and learn about new products that might work and how best to communicate complicated user manuals etc etc.







• It’s the scale baby! Any company of any size probably now touches more of its current and prospective customers via the web than any other channel. And numbers are going up, up and up. Given this trend there is increasing desire to understand how the website is performing in answering the customer’s questions and serving them (beyond the web server sending pages out).

It is not that we did not think web analytics was important in the past, it is more that the above five trends have created a perfect storm.

All of these trends mean that there is a increasingly urgent need to tap into the web’s vast potential to provide data and help businesses make optimal decisions. All these trends mean that web analytics is really hot, people who sell tools will benefit and people how practice web analytics will benefit. Web Analytics professionals / skills are greatly in demand because web analytics is hard and the golden 10/90 rule.

What makes me personally hyper passionate about this space is that we can measure everything we want, we can learn, update, try again and do it at a pace that was simply not available to all of us in the past. It is great to have the opportunity to play in this space and truly move at the speed of light. And the cool thing is that we are on mile one of our thousand mile journey.

Do you agree? Please share your feedback via comments.

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Starting Tuesday this week, at Web Analytics World, I am very proud to feature Celebrity (guest) writer week. The guest authors are very well known individuals in the Search Engine Marketing and Web Analytics Industry. Each of them will be contributing with a post on Web Analytics World regarding a topic of their choice.

I’d like to introduce you to our celebrity writers:

Tuesday: Avinash Kaushik – Avinash is the Director of Web Research & Analytics at Intuit Inc. He is responsible for the business, technical and strategic elements of the research & analytics platform that supports decision making for Intuit’s 60+ ecommerce and non-ecommerce websites. Avinash’s offers people a wealth of knowledge through his very popular blog: Occam’s Razor.

Wednesday: Jennifer Laycock – Jennifer is the chief editor of SearchEngineGuide. She has been involved with Internet marketing since 1995 and is regularly featured at the Search Engine Strategies Conference. Her writing has been featured on well known sites such as Search Engine Watch and About.com.

Thursday: Gord Hotchkiss – Gord is currently the chair of SEMPO and is the President/CEO of the SEM firm: Enquiro Search Solutions. You can find Gord speaking at major shows such as: Search Engine Strategies and Webmaster World. Over the last 10 years Gord has established himself as one of the industry leaders in terms organic research and search strategies.

Friday: Rand Fishkin – Rand is the Owner and operator of SEOmoz, the tools, blog, articles and resources therein. He is also the CEO of a Seattle-based SEO company and a frequent speaker at the Search Engine Strategies conferences.

Avinash will kick start things on Tuesday with his thoughts on why Web Analytics is suddenly so hot.

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