After nearly 2 weeks of seeing my referrals from Google plummet to pretty much nothing, I am finally seeing referrals climb back to normal. During the update I noticed major drops in rankings for phrases I used to rank quite strongly for, such as: Web Analytics Comparison, Web Analytics World, Embed Audio, WebTrends vs. Google, etc...

As you can see in the graph from Google Analytics below, that as of May 24th referrals have once again started to pick up.



Luckily enough I sustained much of my traffic through the promotions of the 'Future of Search Marketing' blog contest I was hosting during the month of May.

Labels: Google, Web Analytics

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If you believe Web Analytics is overrated and your business could succeed without Web Analytics, then you're absolutely correct. Below are 21 reasons why you don't Web Analytics integrated into your online campaign.

• You don’t want to know where your visitors are coming from.


• You don't care how much time visitors spend on your website.


• Most popular products? Who cares, you already know what your customers want.
  
• Tracking hits is perfectly sufficient.


• Dead Content? There can't be any dead content on your site.


• Site overlay is overrated because you can pretty much guess which links visitors find appealing.


• Bounce rate sounds like a make believe metric.


• Your time is better spent elsewhere rather than crunching data in order to measure the performance of our website.


• You love the plateau in your website's traffic because concentrating on branded keywords is good enough.


• Podcasts are the hippest thing, if you record they will come, so why measure the number of downloads.


• Your development team should be adding enhancements not implementing web analytics.


• Top Exit pages is a non-issue for your website, once visitors arrive they are going to purchase.


• Who cares what paths visitors take or the length of their paths, as I said earlier, once they arrive, they are going to purchase.


• Everyone understands English so it doesn't matter what country your visitors originate from.
  
• 3 words: Log File Analyzer.


• If you leave a form up long enough someones bound to fill it out eventually.


• Your site's probably not going to have repeat visitors anyways because they'll find everything they need the first time around.


• You know that a PPC campaign's success is completely based upon click-throughs and impressions.


• Internal Search? That's just there for show.


• If you take $50,000 that you would need for an analyst and spend it on PPC you're probably going to get better return.


• You don't need to track newsletter registrants because bulk email lists are very inexpensive.
  

If you haven't figured it out, I am kidding. Web Analytics absolutely has to be part of your online campaign, in fact you'll be marketing blindly without it. Let the 21 points above serve as a reminder of what kind of insight you're missing out on without Web Analytics in place.

Labels: Web Analytics

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Free Members: To increase your log size, log into StatCounter and click the wrench icon beside your project. Click ‘Adjust Log Size’, and enter 500 in the box. Click ‘Adjust Project Log’ and you’re done!

Upgraded Members: To increase your log-size, log into StatCounter and click the wrench icon beside your project. Click ‘Adjust Log Size’, and increase your log by an extra 400 (your current log already includes the first free 100!). Click ‘Adjust Project Log’ and you’re done!

Labels: Web Analytics

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Facebook and Orkut are two of the most popular social networking sites, with both offering very similar features and capabilities. Comparing FaceBook vs. Orkut from a market share perspective will show you that both are considerably behind MySpace with Facebook owning just over 11.5% of the market share and Orkut having less than 1%. Facebook has become very popular in North America over the last few months whereas Orkut is extremely popular in India.

I do have access to both an Orkut and Facebook account and find myself using Facebook the majority of the time. I actually prefer Facebook when comparing Facebook vs. Orkut from a usability perspective, here's why:

- From an overall cosmetic point of view, Facebook is a much more professional looking whereas Orkut looks somewhat unfinished

- Facebook's Mini Feed feature is useful in seeing a quick snapshot on the latest happenings within your network

- The ease at which you can customize layouts within FaceBook, especially the drag and drop option.

- The ability to supply how you know a person (through school, other friends, work, randomly, etc...). This is especially interesting when you and one your contacts know the same person, but through different ways.

Here's what I like about Orkut:

- Within Orkut you can view people's profiles regardless if they are a 'friend' or not.

- I like how you can see the number of times your profile has been viewed with Orkut.

- The integration of Google Chat (maybe there is an opportunity for Microsoft to go after Facebook for the same purpose).

Labels: Social Networking

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With the departure of exciting teams from the NBA Playoffs such as the Phoenix Suns, New Jersey Nets and Golden State Warriors my interest in playoffs has dwindled down to pretty much nothing.

Looking at stats from Technorati, it looks like I am not the only one who has tuned out the NBA Playoffs. I don't want to see a Detroit vs. Utah or San Antonio final where the winning scores of games will be 86-79...I don't think many other people do either.

Labels: Technorati

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Many interesting stories this week including Google's purchase of FeedBurner. Here are some of the stories definitely worth checking out this week:

SEM

• Reader Poll: Best SEO Podcasts at TopRankBlog, Web Analytics World currently sites in 3rd place
• SEO Space talks about their picks for the Top 7 Search Happenings May 2007
• How To Capitalize on Google Universal Search - by SEO Round Table, this will be very important to all online organizations
• ASK Enquiro: An Intimate View of the World through the Eyes of Google
• A Rebuttal to Neil Patel's Social Media Landing Page Article by Jennifer Laycock of SearchEngineGuide
• Ross Dunn writes: Have a Peek at Googles Future of Mobile Search
• Technorati Redesigned - Get Realigned Here at ProNetAdvertising

Web Analytics

• European online stats - Read further at WebAnalyticsBook.com
• LunaMetrics reveals 101 Things to do with Website Optimizer (and a new blog)
• A snip at $6B - Ian Thomas talks about Microsoft's purchase of aQuantive
• Emetrics San Francisco: WebSideStory passed away, long live Visual Sciences!
• Dennis Mortensen on how to Measure Dynamic Internal Search
  

That's all for now, happy reading!

Labels: Must Reads

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That's right, it has been exactly 1 year since my first post (actually 1 year and 5 days), boy has the time flown by. I began this blog in May 2006 to republish a few of my web analytics articles and at that time I didn't realize I was going to become so addicted to blogging.




I would like to share some of my blog's stats over the last year:

Posts: 286
Technorati Rank: 11,567
RSS Subscribers: 834

Top Posts

• Ultimate Web Analytics Comparison Resources


• VisiStat vs. Google Analytics


• Future of SEM: What WILL and WILL NOT Matter


• Microsoft Selects WebTrends


• NEW! Enquiro Eye Tracking Study: Yahoo/MSN


• Omniture ActionSource: Advanced Flash Tracking


• Google's Brett Crosby at Web Analytics World


• How to setup a Podcast and Embed Audio


• Web Page Load Time


• Analytics: You can't afford NOT to track

If you're interested in getting a copy of an eBook containing the top posts send me an email: mjasra@gmail.com

Top Referring Sites (excluding Search Engines)

• Kaushik.net


• WebAnalyticsAssociation.org


• WebTrends.com


• Digg.com


• Bloglines.com


• Technorati.com


• iEntry.com


• TopRankBlog.com


• WebAnalyticsDemystified.com


• Reddit.com

Top Referring Keywords

• Manoj Jasra


• Omniture ActionSource


• Web Analytics


• ActionSource


• WebTrends


• StatCounter


• Web Analytics Comparison


• VisiStat


• Omniture Flash Tracking


• Web Analytics World


• Blog Promotion


• iPhone June


• MySpace Virus


• ClickDensity


• Google Update

Search Engine Referral Share

• Google - 94.45%


• Search - 2.11%


• MSN - 1.94%


• Yahoo - 0.92%


• AOL - 0.35%

Browser Usage

• FireFox - 47.00%


• IE - 46.08%


• Safari - 3.95%


• Opera - 1.79%


• Mozilla - 0.41%

Country Referral Share

• United States - 54.67%


• Canada - 8.75%


• UK - 7.04%


• India - 3.42%


• Australia - 2.61%


• Germany - 2.28%


• Netherlands - 2.18%


• France - 1.63%


• Belgium - 1.57%

Labels: Blogging, Industry News, Web Analytics

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$100 Million Payday For Feedburner - This Deal Is Confirmed is the latest news from Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch. FeedBurner is an excellent pickup (in my opinion a relatively inexpensive one) by Google who can now tap into FeedBurner's 400,000+ Publishers. The latest comments to this deal all talk about Google growing it's ad revenues through the placement of ads in Feeds.

FeedBurner was founded in 2003 and has raised just $10 million in capital over two rounds. Portage Ventures funded their $1 million Series A round in 2004. The $9 million Series B round was closed in mid 2005 (second close in 2006), from Mobius Venture Capital and Union Square Ventures.

Also check out the Comments at TechCrunch to this news. Congrats FeedBurner, you have an excellent product!

Labels: Google, Industry News

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The advertising methods that I am about to talk about are a reflection of what I have tried on my blog from time to time. I would also like to point out that I don't like to drown my website with ads because I believe it completely takes away from the user experience.

• Google Adsense - Embedding AdSense is a simple way to attempt to make money but if you're not getting tens of thousands of page views, I am not sure if it's worth it. Google adsense does provide an interface which allows the customization of ads, however if implemented incorrectly it's an excellent way to lose visitors. Some bloggers have been successful with it, but not me.
• Affiliate Sites - I tried adding links to both Text Link Brokers and Review Me through their affiliate program and even after a few hundred referrals were sent to both sites, I didn't see a penny in return. If anyone has had success as an affiliate, I would love to hear about the programs they had success with.
• Feedvertising - FeedBurner offers an easy way to monetize your feed by embedding graphical ads within the RSS Feed. I ran a few ads for Verizon Mobile phones for approximately 3 months and in return made 22 cents.

A tactic I do recommend is getting sponsors for your site or blog that are part of the same vertical as your own. This makes for a win/win situation for both the advertiser (who receive qualified traffic) and the site owner (who can implement unobtrusive sponsor ads). But how do you get sponsors? I recommend writing content that is meaningful to your readers and leaving the advertising and money making for later. Good content will result in more traffic, which means more subscribers and most importantly more authority. Below are some content ideas that your readers may find meaningful:

• Develop relationships with fellow industry bloggers
• Interview authoritative people in your industry, better yet Podcast
• Review Products/Services related to your vertical
• Establish yourself as a thought leader in your niche
• Offer a solution to common business pains
• Attend industry conferences and report back useful information to your readers
• Provide Feedback for other interesting post/articles
• Compile lists, example: The Ultimate Web Analytics Comparison

Labels: Blogging, Make Money

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Up here in British Columbia, Canada we are wrapping up a well deserved long weekend. To start this short work week I'd like to give a shout out to all the excellent web analytics related articles/posts from last week.

• Jason Burby releases: Actionable Web Analytics: Using Data to Make Smart Business Decisions: Buy it at Amazon
• Dennis R. Mortensen of IndexTools discusses how to Use Web Analytics to determine the width of your Internal Search Query box
• Avinash of Google Analytics' provides his insightful advice: Excellent Analytics Tip #11: Measure Effectiveness Of Your Web Pages
• Judah at Web Analytics Demystified explains why Google Analytics is still not enterprise level ready.
• Juan Damia discusses the Comparison of churn rates (the rate of attrition, over a period of time, that subscriber-based customers unsubscribe)
• Read about Analytics as Data-Mining is going Mainstream - New York Times posted by Marshall Sponder
• Anil Batra: Web Analyst Interview: Daniel Shields

Labels: Web Analytics

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In the past 2 weeks Web Analytics World had its first ever contest in which participants were asked to submit entries regarding their thoughts on the Future of Search Marketing. The winner was picked by using Google Analytics to determine the post that received the most traffic.

1st Place goes to: Ilker Yoldas of http://www.thethinkingblog.com/ for his entry: Future of Search Marketing? Congrats, Ilker you have won yourself:

- A copy of Enquiro's Eye Tracking Study (comparing Google vs. Yahoo vs. MSN) $298 Value
- Autographed copies of Web Analytics Demystified and Web Site Measurement Hacks thanks to Eric Peterson.
- A copy of Jennifer Laycock’s book: “Small Business Guide to Search Engine Marketing.”
- A Pro MyBlogLog account donated by MyBlogLog
- $50 Cash (via PayPal) from yours truly at Web Analytics World
- A copy of WSOP (designed for website load time optimization) donated by SoftLogica


2nd Place goes to: Rob Sullivan of Get In Position for his entry: Search Engine Marketing - on its Last Legs. Rob will take home:

- A license to: WAPT 4.0 - load and stress testing tool that provides you with an easy-to-use, consistent and cost-effective way of testing web sites, web servers, and intranet applications with web interfaces - from SoftLogica

- 2 hours with an Aquent recruiter to discuss your career goals, review your resume, and conduct mock interviews - from Aquent


Thank you ALL for participating and thank you to all of our sponsors who donated a prize.

Labels: Web Analytics

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CMS Watch has reviewed Google's free Analytics offering and finds it underpowered for many enterprise analytics scenarios. These findings were published in the CMS Watch "Web Analytics Report," which provides detailed, comparative evaluations of 13 major Web Analytics vendors.

Phil Kemelor served as lead analyst for the report. "Google can rightly boast that its Google Analytics service can process enterprise-level web metrics loads," said Kemelor. "But there's more to analytics than processing: integration, support, and documentation can be decisive to e-marketing success," Kemelor added.

Specifically, CMS Watch found:

- Google Analytics has no API to support the export or import of data into or out of 3rd-party e-marketing packages and enterprise data warehouses. This limits integration of website data with other sources of financial and customer data.

- Unlike more sophisticated analytics tools, Google Analytics does not allow customers to query against raw data. This limits deeper analysis into site visitor and segmentation behavior.

- Support comes only from consulting partners, who have no ability to modify the Google system itself. With comparatively slim documentation, licensees tend to rely on bloggers for customization advice.

- On the plus side, many enterprises have found value in employing Google Analytics as a back-up or supplement to other analytics packages, especially when looking for AdWords performance metrics.

- Google's most recent Analytics upgrade brought significant usability improvements that will challenge competing vendors to focus on their interfaces, rather than additional features.

Tony Byrne, founder of CMS Watch, commented on the competitive landscape, "If anything, Google increases the demand for competing analytics products from the likes of Omniture, Webtrends, and Visual Sciences by exposing new customers to the basics of collecting and analyzing data."

Labels: Web Analytics

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• Web Pro News
• Web Analytics Association
• Search Engine Guide
• Search Engine Land
• Search Newz
• ASK Enquiro
• Marketing Pilgrim

• Salesforce Dreamforce
• Ad Tech
• Search Engine Strategies
• Google's Searchology
• Blog World Expo
• Omniture Summit

He has also spoken at industry events on the topics of SEO, Blogging and Web Analytics at events such as:

• WebTrends Engage
• Web Analytics Xchange
• Emetrics Optimization Summit

email: mjasra@gmail.com

Labels: Manoj Jasra

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While I was at Google's Searchology event I tried to perform as many "press type" activites as I could. This included taking some video captures of the presentations as well as pictures of the event and the Google Complex.

In this first video below, Marissa Mayer talks about the integration of book and video search into Google's search results.



In this second video Marissa Mayer talks about how the idea of Universal Search came about.




Here are a few of the photos I took at Searchology and If you're interested in more photos such as the ones below, check out my pictures on flickr

Labels: Google, Industry News

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I had the opportunity to attend Google's Searchology event and found it very exciting viewing it from the paradigm of a member of the press. All major news organizations were there: SearchEngineWatch, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, ZDNet, PC World, Boston Globe, Forbes and Search Engine Land. I may have been one of only a few people who were from a Search Marketing Firm.

I will start with the most important news items first. Udi Manber, VP of Engineering, said that 20-25% of queries that Google processes today will be ones its never seen before, that's an amazing fact - I didn't realize how fast the world was generating new content and news. He also announced that Google will be launching a new search feature which will allow users to translate search results into another language on the fly, talk about making the content on the internet even more accessible.

VP of Search Products, Marissa Mayer created even more buzz (which now is old news) by announcing the launch of 3 new additions to the Google Search Experience plus one new Google Service:

1) Universal Search - The integration of results from other Google Search Silos such as Video, News, Books and Images into the regular Google Search Results. Marissa launched the query "Steve Jobs" and the results (in addition to text listings) showed Images of Steve Jobs, a video of one of Steve Jobs' presentations as well as related news items.

2) Contextual search navigation options - After launching a search query users will now see other search options underneath the query text box. These search options are the most relative searches options based on the user's query. See image below.

3) Universal Navigation Bar - Google also added a new top navigation bar which contains links to other Google's services (which are now just a click away). This top nav will appear on services such as Gmail as well. See image below.

4) Google Experimental - http://www.google.com/experimental - Shows the latest "experiments" that Google is working on, users can sign up for experiments which integrates the experiment into the user's search experience. Users will be given the ability to provide feedback to Google as well.

Labels: Google, Industry News

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Enquiro has recently released their second B2B White paper in which they talk about their findings from a B2B survey they conducted. The objective of the survey, conducted with over 1000 B2B buyers, was to discover how people research B2B buying decisions online and how this varies by role within a company and by purchase phase.

Go to the Enquiro Research Page to get your copy of the 50 page PDF.

Here's an excerpt from the Executive Summary:

In this study, we were looking for the answer to one question, with several different parts: How important is online research in business to business (B2B) purchase decisions? We certainly believed it to be important, but even we were surprised by just how important respondents to our survey indicated it was to them. We found a heavy reliance on online research in all aspects of the purchase cycle. We also found that as prospects become aware of potential offerings through offline channels, they naturally turn to online sources to find out more about them. For example, a prospect may become aware of a potential offering at a trade show and the first thing they do is go online to find out more about that offering. One of the more interesting findings of the study was just how important those online influencers could be, in many cases matching the influence of traditional offline factors. A vendor website, together with the perennial offline winner, wordof-mouth from a colleague or peer, were both indicated as the most important influencers in a purchase decision. Close behind were search engines, distributor websites, word-of-mouth from friends or paid consultants and online and offline trade journals.

Another significant finding was where this research tends to happen online. General search engines are often the first place people turn to begin their online research session and among the general search engines, Google holds a dominant position, being the first choice of 77.7% of respondents. As researchers begin to research their purchase, they rely heavily on information from the vendor’s own website. Also, as they enter the later research phase and start compiling information to begin the actual negotiation, many purchasers rely on B2B vertical engines to help gather detailed information they require. Other sources of heavily relied upon information included industry websites, distributor websites and offline channels such as trade journals and other industry publications.

Graph showing results of where the users started their research, by phase:

Download the Whitepaper here

Labels: Industry News

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Web Analytics Demystified's Eric Peterson is giving away a free whitepaper he has developed on how businesses should conduct web analytics.

The Web Analytics Business Process is a series of business processes and sub-processes that, when considered collectively describe the ongoing activities that any organization needs to master to be successful with web analytics. These are management processes like "Define Business Objectivesfor the Web Site" and "Allocate Appropriate Resources" and operational processes like "Collect Data" and "Distribute Reports and Analysis."

The 18 page PDF looks at the following 10 areas in relation to a Web Analytics Strategy.

CRITICAL PROCESS #1: Assign Ownership
CRITICAL PROCESS #2: Define Business Objectives
CRITICAL PROCESS #3: Allocate Resources
CRITICAL PROCESS #4: Establish a Model for Reporting and Analysis
CRITICAL PROCESS #5: Track Return on Investment
CRITICAL PROCESS #6: Plan the Implementation
CRITICAL PROCESS #7: Validate the Data
CRITICAL PROCESS #8: Define and Design Reports
CRITICAL PROCESS #9: Conduct Analysis
CRITICAL PROCESS #10: Run Controlled Experiments

Click HERE to download the PDF.

Labels: Web Analytics

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Eric Ward over at SearchEngineLand posted an article today titled: When Google Goes Temporarily Insane. He mentions that Google is shuffling its index which has caused some site owners to freak out a little bit. This is not a new issue during Index updates, you'll often find your site missing for some of your most popular keywords for one week and then reappear the next week.

Labels: Google

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Web Analytics World Blogging Contest - entry by Ilker Yoldas of
http://www.thethinkingblog.com
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Have you ever noticed how your collection of photos, music and other documents keep growing everyday? With the rise of Web 2.0, there is an ever increasing number of Internet users who contribute to form the collective knowledge that emphasizes online collaboration and sharing among users. However, there will be a time when we can't find what we're looking for in a search engine and somehow all these billions of documents online need some sorting to make sense to us all.

Common Sense. The aim is to add an extra layer of meaning on top of the existing Web that would make it less of a catalog and more of a guide. We need to get machines doing the thinking rather than simply following commands that are updated by computer programmers. However, that level of artificial intelligence will require something more than what the Internet is capable of providing us today. Some call it a World Wide Database. Some say Semantic Web. Perhaps you are more familiar with its buzz word, Web 3.0.

Artificial Intelligence. Of course, the Web is going to evolve like everything else but it's not all about glossy tabs, drop shadows and simple personalized homepages. It's how the user interacts with the machine and vice versa. In the future, more powerful systems could act as personal advisers in areas such as financial planning, with an intelligent system mapping out a retirement plan for a couple, or educational consulting, with the Web helping a high school student identify the right college. The new Web is going to build a system that can give a reasonable and complete answer to a simple question like: "I'm looking for a sunny place for holidays and I have a budget of $2,000. Oh, and I have an 8 year old child."

Personalized Information. Yes, you can tag your photos on Flickr so that we can find images that a computer could never find. Yes, you can change the way Google looks to suit your taste, needs or interests. All these collaborative filtering services adds intelligence to the path towards Web 3.0 but for those who think the next phase will be about extending the functionality of the Web and not changing it - think again!

Pushing Further. The real task at hand is to find a new way to mine data and present it to the user in a human fashion. Moreover, this data should be "customized" for each and every user. Adverts will not just be relevant but also be displayed according to the user's tastes. That means you will see (the right) ads, when you want to see ads. For example, the computer will "know" that you like spicy food when you travel to your vacation spot and display ads for good restaurants in the area. That is, when you get there!

Keep Thinking. The very idea has given rise to skeptics who have called it an unobtainable vision. But what about web 4.0? Web 5.0? This doesn't mean engineers start versioning the Web for the sake of marketing. This means the emergence of new systems that change the way we interact with machines, computers, and the Internet in particular. Notice how advertisement are less "in your face" (read pop-ups) and more relevant with searches? Notice how easy it is to create a website like this (read blog), link to information and top that with comments? I remember the days when I spent most of my time coding than writing content, while dreaming of the day when a machine could do it for me. Well, that dream has partly come true.

Everybody needs to have a dream!

Labels: Blogging

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Web Analytics World Blogging Contest - entry by Ed of http://thepisstakers.com/
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What is search marketing? It is complex and confusing at first glance, that's what it is! But once you see that it is a blurring of edges, and a mishmash of ideas and philosophies, all leading inexorably towards an on-line search world, powered by the hydro electric turbines behind Google's servers - then it becomes simple.

Whether they realise it or not, buyers will go to the same place as sellers, just from a different account. And the header on all checks and accounts will bear that annoyingly simple and effective Google name. And if advertisers and publishers write out a check to someone else, Google will get a cut of that too. Google will be the common thread in search marketing at the front and the back end.

Don't even go there with blabbering, questioning ideas about Yahoo and Microsoft being a main player. Just open your eyes and see the roses. Go to Google now, input "Search marketing" and what happens? You will be shown, amongst other things, Yahoo, promoting the newly renamed Overture service. Overture, or whatever it is called, is where we find Yahoo's solutions for online advertisers and publishers. The yahoos didn't appear top of the list by magic, but the results for Google are magic.

Yahoo may start their Overture customers off within Yahoo, but once in the wild, Google powers it all thereafter, and gets a cut of the search marketing pie. They have it sewn up. They get revenue from Yahoo, their greatest competitor, from step one of any marketing campaign to attract clients to Overture. The remaining advertisers in the world will sell goods and services to the public, via Google search, as well as sell spots on their websites to advertisers seeking a public platform - powered by Google search, with prices based on Google PR. And lest we forget, publishers are also the advertisers who purchase spots from other publishers advertising other companies goods and services. And everyone bar a few percent, trust in Google, not Yahoo. Has your head exploded in realisation yet?

Google will power the search world, the heavy lifter for hundreds of permutations and mutational search engine fronts. The Yahoos, Blingos, Winzys and pay-to-search outfits are just tapping into Google search. No worries, just a fact that Google is the man.

The people who can leverage the power of Google will win. The ones who try to fight the Google trend will fall by the wayside, or if they succeed by other means, they will be deluded. The idiots who relate "My internet marketing success story without Google" will be like Emperors with no clothes, but in reverse. They will be covered in Google, they just won't see it, or admit to it. Affiliates need Google, pay to post need Google... People will kid themselves that they did it alone, outside of or with minimum need for Google's sphere of influence. If they did well online, however, then so did Google.

The Pisstakers will eventually adopt a few revenue streams but one thing we won't be doing is trying to go it alone, sticking 2 fingers to the Googloids. We need them to drive millions of searches to one of millions of potential URLs - ours! If that means writing checks to Google, bring it on, they do it fast now, so what's the issue? Not that we won't be trying to leverage their search engine power for best effect, but we won't be moaning at them, after all, they have created the search marketing industry from almost nothing. As you sit at your desk counting checks, remember that! Without Google, you would have to get a real job.

And won't it be funny to hear people saying, I wish Microsoft could do something to knock Google off course, for the sake of competition!

Ed is the editor at The Pisstakers http://thepisstakers.com, where he writes satirical and tongue-in-cheek posts about the funny stuff in tech and news.

Labels: Blogging

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Labels: Blogging

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Web Analytics World Blogging Contest - entry by Jody Nimetz of SEO Space
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ABC's on where I see the future of Search going.

A - ASK becomes the leader in personalization of online search and the first to provide unique results pages for each and every user. While fending off potential mergers with Microsoft, ASK develops a new set of algorithms and creates the largest social community on the Web.

B - Blog Posting becomes a key factor of ranking algorithms and more integrated with personalized search results that are seen by individual users. Blog posting becomes a necessity of big business as a means of reputation management acting as a feedback mechanism for their clients, prospects and competitors.

C - Consumer Driven Search where the consumer decides and dictates which results are relevant forcing irrelevant results into search purgatory. Consumers are able to create their own results page based on the sites, images, audio and video that they want to appear.

D - Desktop Search is built in to all computers regardless of preferred "search engine"

E - External Linking Inventories are no longer a major factor in the ranking of webpages as consumers of search strive for the most relevant result regardless of how many "backlinks" a site has. Search engine marketers switch focus from link building to creation of useful content that naturally attracts "industry links". Industry links become important as all webpages are given a numerical PageRank-like value as a result of a user's past search history.

F - Firefox Browser replaces Internet Explorer as the World's # 1 Browser and becomes an integral part of many users starting point for going online and conducting a search. The Firefox browser now has a personalized "trigger" feature that notifies users of queries that serve up results that may not be part of the semantic map that the searcher may have had based on previous browsing experience.

G - Google (GOOG) continues to grow as a leading media outlet and provider of the world's information breaking down global walls with a worldwide strategy that includes personalization of results via a variety of options including search history, geo-locale, and behavioral targeting. Google becomes second to ASK in terms of providing relevant results for the user experience. To avoid charges of being a monopoly, Google works closer with Yahoo, ASK and other search vehicles to provide the world's knowledge to those who seek it.

H - Hadron is a new social network collectively created by Google, Yahoo and ASK that is part of a group of related search vehicles that provides an environment for strong interaction between community members.

I - Indexing of content becomes more efficient as duplicate webpages and similar content are simply removed from the index of search vehicles. Search engines "archive" old index results that users can access at their leisure. For example a user of ASK can visit the ASK archive and select a year (ie 2004) where when they do a query for a phrase, a traditional universal SERP is returned with the actual results for that query during that specified time (2004).

J - Joost becomes the number one source of online TV and radio programming and forces satellite TV providers to provide free online programming. Google who owns Joost then become a major player in network TV and radio continuing to provide content and programming based on consumer demand.

K - Keyword Search remains important

L - Local Search explodes and advertisers place more focus on local search as users of search prefer local personalized results over the main search index when they are ready to make a purchase decision.

M - Microsoft (MSFT) struggle to keep up with Google with their futile attempts as opposed to being innovative and developing search technologies with the user in mind. After failing to partner with ASK and Yahoo, Microsoft is left as a standalone and force Bill Gates out of retirement in 2015 to revive the once mighty organization. Windows Live Search is re-branded a number of times with little success as Microsoft simply does not succeed in search.

N - Non-believers of search come to realize that traditional media is doomed to diminishing returns and play "catch up" to the early adopters of search marketing. Ad agencies scramble to acquire search engine marketing firms and the pioneers of search marketers with veteran experience become highly sought after earning salaries equivalent to those of professional athletes and Hollywood actors.

O - Organic Search switches from tactics to user experience with search engine marketers focusing on their client's consumer and with the end in mine to improve the online presence of their clients. Organic search marketing continues to develop into a specialized branch of marketing.

P - Personalization becomes the norm with search. Each and every user experience is somewhat unique and cannot be easily duplicated. Universal search results are a thing of the past except with Microsoft as they still haven't figured it out yet.

Q - Query History becomes even more important as iGoogle, iASK and iYahoo all become standard search vehicles used by the masses.

R - Ranking, Relevancy and Results now focus on the user as opposed to the complex algorithms of the past. The consumers of search drive which results are returned and ranked based on relevancy to their search query. While the algorithms are still required the engines that use them improve them to deliver relevant results. Irrelevant results are "voted" out by the users of search.

S - Search Engines become "Search Vehicles" where users enjoy a total experience and are presented with multiple avenues for acquiring the information they seek. They are presented with options based on their query where the user drives the search vehicle to find the information that they are looking for regardless of the number of links to a site, the age of a site and other traditional ranking factors.

Search becomes more important than ever as the Internet becomes the most widely used media resource with access to:

- Almost all TV programs from all over the world. Downloading TV programs becomes as mainstream as downloading music is now.
- Almost all movies as you are now able to download any movie you want (including new releases in real time) to your living room for viewing
- Thousands of newspapers from around the globe
- Millions of radio programs and podcasts
- All music released since 1950 (including songs, albums and lyrics). Due to copyright issues the source providing the music (ie. the search engines) set up a method for compensating the artist directly, record c