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.

According to SearchEngineLand:

"…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.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

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.