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20 Apr This post is from from my other blog here Last week Alexa announced they’ve rolled out a new ranking system. Largely viewed as a blunt tool, Alexa was still widely used in the late 90’s and early 00’s as it was one of the few ways to gauge the relative popularity of web sites for which there was no insight into their usage data. Alexa currently faces new challenges as companies like Compete and Quantcast are offering far more information. Of course, the problem with Alexa, Compete and Quantcast is the quality of the data being used. Alexa states they’ve upped the number of data sources being used to shape their rankings, changed the methodology to provide more accurate reporting for all countries, and updated their algorithms to provide an “even better indication of website popularity.” Read the entire announcement over at Alexa.
18 Apr This post is from from my other blog here On the heels of Yahoo’s announcement of their acquisition of web analytics purveyor IndexTools, Yahoo announced that the tool will be made available free of charge. There are some caveats.?? Current IndexTools customers will be required to sign a standard Yahoo! agreement, and at this time the freebie won’t be for everyone.?? The masses will have to wait until a later release to take advantage of the tool.?? During that time Yahoo will likely be tightly integrating IndexTools with their complimentary offerings. So here’s the analytics landscape by search provider:
Although I’ve never used Index Tools but I’m more than excited to see another compelling offering at no charge. More on Yahoo and IndexTools:
07 Apr This post is from from my other blog here “Second Search” is a technique being tested by Google which allows searching a specific web site for content without leaving Google. It all sounds innocent, but businesses aren’t seeing it that way. Here’s a few examples which illustrate their worries: Note: A few of the results I’ve described below are not consistently showing up - I’ll add screen shots to this post today or tomorrow. Craigslist - JobsOne of the very few things that Craigslist charges for is the placement of help wanted ads. They don’t do so across the board, just in select cities. Regardless, the performance that Craigslist gets from its help wanted ads is important them as a business. Here’s where Second Search gets in the way: Google Second Search: “Jobs” - Competitors Google Presented:
Home and Garden Television covers a variety of topics from working on a home you already own as well as the process of buying or selling a home. When a user searches on the word “mortgage” on their site, the page that is returned displays Google Ads for which HGTV generates some revenue (as does Google). Second search cuts to the chase, and cuts HGTV out. Google Second Search: “mortgage refinance” - Competitor Ads Include:
Best Buy sells just about anything electronic you can think of. One of the largest areas in their physical store is their computer section. Inside that section, laptops likely take the cake for showroom square footage. It’s safe to say Best Buy wants to sell laptops. Google’s Second Search provides consumers with some options Best Buy likely wouldn’t be a fan of: Google Second Search: “laptop” - Some Competing Retailers Displayed:
Microsoft’s Exchange mail server is popular. It also generates lots of money for Microsoft. It might surprise them that the ads displayed by Google’s Second Search on the term isn’t giving a nod to Exchange Server: Google Second Search: “Email Server” - Non-Microsoft Exchange Alternatives in the Google Ads:
If you’ve shopped for camera or video camera equipment online, and missed B&H’s site you probably had to try. They sell just about anything you can think of. Example: Nikon’s D200 digital camera. The body runs about $1,300 dollars. Kits range from $1,600 up to over $2,000. B&H wants you to buy a Nikon D200 from them. Especially if you looked for their site first, and then searched on that item. Unfortunately, Google peppers the Second Search results page with an overwhelming amount of competition: Google Second Search: “Nikon D200″ - A Sampling of Buying Alternatives in the Google Ads:
Elsewhere on the web:
05 Apr This post is from from my other blog here Limited by how many times a video has been viewed, publishers of YouTube videos have been left largely in the dark about how their video is consumed by the public. Last week YouTube made a step in the right direction for content publishers with the announcement of YouTube Insight. From the YouTube blog: …uploaders can see how often their videos are viewed in different geographic regions, as well as how popular they are relative to all videos in that market over a given period of time. You can also delve deeper into the lifecycle of your videos, like how long it takes for a video to become popular, and what happens to video views as popularity peaks.
The blog posting on YouTube’s site indicated that new features will be added to the reporting capabilities quickly. That’s good news???the initial roll out features are welcomed, but aren’t all that robust or useful???especially after the drought of information previously available. YouTube, here’s a few useful metrics to add to your list:
YouTube: if you need more ideas on what your users really want, contact me, or better, look at your user feedback over the past few years. Oh, and one more thing. I’ve got enough places to track data. Why can’t we just get this data inside Google Analytics? Also see:
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