Web analytics, web metrics, and how to use them to track and improve conversions

When I write a post that I hope will be read a lot, about the last thing I want is to have it appear on the bottom of the first page of Google, for that search term, as a blog result.  I've noticed that sometimes this happens and sometimes, it doesn't - but more likely, if the query I'm writing a post about is about a popular current event, then I'll end you having my post appear briefly at the bottom of the first page as a blog.

Yet at other times, my post will appear as a static page, often near the top of the search results - which is much, much better, as far as I'm concerned.   I realize what Google is trying to do by including blogs in current events, but the problem is a page that's treated by Google as a blog post doesn't stay around in Google's Search Results very long, (it drops quickly) while a static page, doesen't (there must be a different criteria being applied against content).

Today, Matthew Hurst is also saying that what Google is doing by treating the same content as blog in one moment/context, and a static page, at another moment/context is bad interface design - and Matthew Hurst calls Google's Universal Search - Confused? in today's post.

"...One of the maxims of interface design is predictability. An interface shouldn't change from under you. A search now for 'Santiago Fire' doesn't produce blog results. A search for 'Gordon Brown' produces, at the top of the list, first images of the man himself, then news articles then organic results. Actually - it does if I do the search on IE6, but not if I do the search on Firefox (Japanese). "

"..In addition to the lack of predictability in the results page, one can't page through the mixed results. The first page offers the interlaced results, but going to the next page only offers organic results.

I think it is great that Google is addressing the interface problem - the web is so much more than a bland list of pages. However, the current approach seems more confusing than, say, Ask's 3D layout (though I notice that that is shifting over time too...)".

Sometimes, people "overreach" and so do companies, even Google.  In trying to solve one problem, the created others.   Now you have a lot more content you can optimize, not just textual, but other other hand, the way the results stream out on the first page are often "unpredictable".   Is that a good thing?

Apparently not - at least, not according to Matthew Hurst; and not according to me, either, since I'd rather not have my content be classified as a static web page, not a blog post - but that's just me.