I guess Google would be the one's you'd expect to say there is no click fraud, or that there's so little fraud (try 0.02%) that it's not worth suing us ….or don't get your hopes up when you sue Google for Click Fraud - this comes from SearchEngineLand. Here's 5 definitions:
"…
Invalid Clicks: This is a Google term. It means that of ALL the clicks Google ads generate, a percentage of these are deemed "invalid." These are clicks that Google makes no money from. It either never bills for invalid clicks or eventually issues a refund. Not all invalid clicks are necessarily fraudulent (such as in cases of quick double-clicks that aren't billed).
Fraudulent Clicks: These are the percentage of clicks that an advertiser is charged for when the person (or bot) clicking is doing so to purposely cost the advertiser money or make money for themselves through an ad program.
Overall Click Fraud Rate: This is the number of fraudulent clicks as a percentage of ALL clicks that happen, regardless of whether Google issues a refund or doesn't bill.
Detected Click Fraud Rate: This is the number of fraudulent clicks as a percentage of ALL clicks that happen where Google generates a refund after performing a requested or "reactive" investigation asked for by an advertiser. Google would call this the "re actively identified invalid click" rate.
Undetected Click Fraud Rate: This is the number of fraudulent clicks as a percentage of ALL clicks that happen where no refund has happened because neither Google or the advertiser spotted the fraud.
But it's all in how Click Fraud is defined. If 30% of the clicks are fraudulent but Google detects it and prevent the fraud from applying to your account - then they say there are little or now Click Fraud.
Honestly, I don't know ….. but 0.02% seems awfully low.
I went ahead and submitted my application to the Web Analytics Association tonight to be a member of the Board - I asked Bryan Eisenberg and Gary Angel to sponsor me… so we'll see what happens in a month or so when voting starts:
In fact, WAA members have from 12 noon (Eastern Time) Friday April 1st till close at 10 pm (Eastern Time) on Thursday April 15th, 2007 to vote (hopefully for me).
Let's put it this way …I'll remind everyone right around April 1st about voting; but before that, you need to join the Web Analytics Association.
if your a web analyst you probably should be a member anyway - but if your not yet a member it's easy enough to sign up.
And this is what your get when you sign up and become a member:
"..WAA member benefits include:
Discounts to Industry Events Our partners and sponsors offer discounts to their events to all WAA members. Current offers are listed on this Members Only page.
Networking Opportunities A variety of ways to interact with the world's best and brightest web analytics professionals.
Ground-floor Involvement Opportunities to help develop and shape industry standards and best practices.
Continuing Education Various focused and expert-level programs to ultimately result in certification for web analytics professionals.
Publication Discounts A wide variety of industry-related journals, books and white papers.
Conference Discounts Reduced entry fees for Emetrics Summit and other industry events.
Discussion List Explore topics with other influential members of the web analytics industry.
Member Directory Get to know who else in the industry is as passionate as you about web analytics."
Anyone that's on the fence ought to join - because this is our association - there's no other one that's really all about just Web Analytics.
Plus, if you join, vote for me - I'll do my best to bring the same passion to the Web Analytics association as I do to Webmetricsguru.com
"…By allowing Google Gadgets to work within its WebSphere Portal, IBM is making it easier for companies to give employees access to popular Web applications while keeping control over how they are used. Companies can decide which Google Gadgets they can see."
Ok, this is how I envision this partnership: I log into my W3 page while at IBM and I get a whole bunch of Widgets that are merged into the Intranet applications running internally ….and so do a lot of other companies running Websphere Portal Server.
So.. the question is ….. why can't anyone, today, go out and get any Widget themselves and place it on most pages they have some control over? It's not about the Widget's so much, it's the hybrid applications that will come into being down the line:
"…Beyond the novelty of running Google Gadgets on corporate networks, the IBM-Google deal lays a foundation for IBM to deliver hybrid applications that infuse consumer ease of use into existing business applications, Bowden said."
For the last two years, every SEO conference I've attended had sessions that stressed there was a boost that happens when you have a top Organic Listing for a key-phrase and a Top Paid Listing for the same phrase (1+1 = 3).
OK…but now…a new Patent from Microsoft, when applied, will get rid of duplicate link (or a set of links, one from Organic and the other from Paid) and leave you only the Paid Link! Of course, that's only a suspension in the Search Results - not the index, which remains unchanged - but it does shake things up a little.
"…The patent, Systems and methods for removing duplicate search engine results, explores filtering organic results when there's more than one URL pointing to the same page (i.e., http://www.example.com, http://www.example.com/home.html) on a search results page. It adds the possibility of removing a Web search listing from a search results page when there's also a paid listing pointing to the same page."
Hmm..that's interesting …. so the Organic link gets to go …and the Paid link stays - why not the other way around?
It just shows me that as time goes on, even unpaid or "free" results get monetized. It's also showing me that things change - what was true in the past and now might not be true tomorrow.
Seth Godin discussed (in Marketing your job) what it takes to find and hire the right person when he mentioned there's a difference between being noticed and succeeding; but he could just as easily been talking about website conversions. My readers know how I feel about Web Analytics work becoming a commodity - here's what Seth Godin wrote:
"…Here's what's missing from the hiring equation: organizations try to treat jobs like commodities and as a result, often end up treating themselves as commodities. All jobs are the same, our job is a little closer and we pay a little better, call us. Sure, companies all brag about the work environment and benefits and such, but when they come right down to it, they're not so different."
"….But what if you were different?
Just as a great product becomes remarkable–not because of the marketing claims, but because it really is worth talking about–a great job can be the same sort of thing."
Or anything that's great - you want to be remarkable, to be worth talking about - and that's a lot harder than forking over a ton of cash to Google and Yahoo to get noticed (but not be remarkable) when it's site promotion.
I don't think there's any shortcut to being remarkable, but there are plenty of shortcuts that help make you unremarkable.
I covered the first two Google Analytics videos from Conversation Marketing in Google Analytics Introductory Video and Google Analytics Basic Stats video which Ian Lurie did a really good job on - they're easy to follow and give practical guidance in how you'd use Web Analytics data from Google Analytics to improve your site conversions and overall experience on the site.
Today Ian Lurie released the third Google Analytics Video about how to use Google Analytics to dig deeper into your visitor data, and I've embedded the online video below.
I'm honored that Ian Lurie mentions this blog, Webmetricsguru.com, several times in the video above. In fact, traffic from my blog tended to spend more time reading Ian's articles (as many as 4 pages, when the average visit resulted in little more than one page typically); that's similar to what happened when I send (sent) traffic to Eric Peterson's blog - traffic from Webmetricsguru.com is more engaged with your content, in many cases, than the average visitor. Good!
Ian, get well soon - and Great Video …(and not because I'm in it - it's just a great video).
And remember that this information about Google Analytics, although it seems simple, is actually subtle and incredibly powerful when you know how to use it.
I found this reference to Strongest Directories from Directory Aviva. The Directory tires to answer the question of "what directories should I submit my site link to"?
"…Fortunately, the folks over at Seomoz have recently developed a page strength tool. While it also looks at .edu and .gov links, it takes a much more holistic view of the website than ILQ does, and probably is more representative of how Google views websites (and directories).
According to Seomoz, the page strength tool is “a better metric to quickly assess a site / page’s relative importance and visibility.”
AFAIK, no one has comprehensively applied this tool to the directory space, so I’ve gone ahead and done this. I’ve checked the page strength of all the paid directories listed in Bob Mutch’s comprehensive listing and then ranked them in order of page strength. (If you would like your directory added to this list, please contact me - there’s no charge for this).
The list was last updated about a month ago - I'll highlight the one's I think might be interesting to submit to that I've not been aware of till now:
"…Without further ado, below are the strongest directories (last full updated January 31, 2007:
My hunch - Google Analytics being used as the central place to collect information on all Google's products and services seems to be more and more true as time passes.
…The most popular widget (which Google calls gadgets) is for Google Maps. It generated 4.8M weekly page views.
In addition, Google now gives developers the ability to track both page views and interactions using Google Analytics. Hopefully Google will start to release more of this information publicly the way it does for videos that are on Google Video."
It's only a matter of time till the DMarc Radio Advertising stats AND AdScape In Game Advertising stats also show up in Google Analytics.
I wrote a long post on Gawker Artists on Artnewyorkcity last night it needed to be taken down. I did get a chance to look at the Sitemeter stats of Gawker Artists which is getting a lot of traffic - much of it from other Gawker sites running banner ads which link across the blog properties and I think it's very well done.
It's much different, and more sophisticated than what I've seen on the other blog networks, including the one's I belong to. I would say that what Gawker is doing by cross linking their blogs in the way they do - is really smart. As an artist, my mind trained to see pattens - pattens in the motifs I paint - patterns in Web Analytics and Advertising campaign data.
Sorta reminds me of a painting over the weekend I tried something new, for me:
In, what I call a "painting within a painting" (not a mirror, BTW) I sketched a repeated set of patterns that would go on and on, but I gave up after a certain point. I did not think much of this work - but when I printed a copy and hung it on my wall at work - I found my eye looking at it.
I've thought about painting "pageviews", "visits", "uniques", etc, but haven't decided on how to do that yet.
I credit my artistic vision as that ability to see what is going on in the Gawker properties.
I set up goal setting for a client in Google Analytics the other day and I'm surprised it was so easy. In fact, I'm getting ideas of how Google Analytics Goal Setting can be used for an Engagement Score.
Too bad GA allows only 4 goals - I wish the number of Goals was unlimited (or if I wanted more, they could charge me for it - in some cases, it might be worth having). I just set this up over the last day.
The client is a hotel resort in Central America -
I used Source Referrals and set up the 4 Goals
The way this travel site is setup the contact form refreshes with a "Thank You" but doesn't change to another page - so you can't yet really tell if the form was just looked at, partly filled out and abandoned or totally filled out. Let's set that score for a contact to be "5".
Someone who looks at the prices for the resort is somewhat interested - let's give each time the prices are looked at a score of "3".
Someone who views online video clips of the resort is also interested, but perhaps less committed - so lets set a score of "2" for each time the movies are viewed.
Finally, someone who listens to music of the resort is also interested, but not very committed yet, so lets set that score to equal "1".
Pretty soon, you can take the chart above and create an "engagement score" for each source of traffic and decide which sources, by nature of engagement, might be more valuable.
Google Analytics - pretty neat for what it does.
Wish list - Double the number of Goals can set - make it 8 instead of 4.
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