I keyed into Aaron Wall today - and noticed he had a writeup on BrowseRank that tests it and finds it's better for Social Networks, and probably not that good for Google, which favors links over search behavior.
..from SEObook, and decided to write about that … with the goal of not overusing these strategies - because, let's face it, if you do it too much - you'll bring down a penalty from the big G.
…. talks about Google Knol and how it's ranked over duplicate content that was created somewhere else (off of Google). I think this post is quite revealing.
I like the graphic associated with the post in Google Operating System - The Unlikely Integration Between Google News and Digg - it's hard to see where Digg would be used to re-rank Google News once Google acquiresDigg.
More likely, the real reason Google is buying Digg is ….to interface it with Google's organic search results - though you'd think, in true Google fashion, if they were going after Digg's success they'd just copy/clone Digg instead of buying it.
BTW, I wrote about …some other news the other day and I'd like everyone who reads this blog to also subscribe to www.theanalyticsguru.com RSS Feed, for the reasons I outlined in that post.
Looking at Paul Krugman's blog post about Oil Outlook reminds me about something I've been wanting to write about here for a while - most of the time I put these observations into The Analytics Guru - but my work is more widely read here than there (for now).
Part of me enjoys seeing the stock prices go down - at least, I understand what motivates that - the Sub Prime Mortgage Meltdownis in full swing and banks are writing off a lot of debt ( New York Times has two comprehensive articles on the current and future economic situation today Uncomfortable Answers to Questions on the Economy and Graphic on How Bad Could Things Get? that tell us most of the pain is ahead of us - and when I see the stock market go down - at least, the world seems to make sense - and I like reading Paul Krugman because he seems to understand the essence of the financial situation better than anyone - and I trust him and have been reading his OP-ED for several years –his estimation on Oil Prices is helpful in forecasting that the prices aren't going to meaningfully change - even if our demand for Oil goes down - which is must because the United States is running on Empty - we're running out of gas and we are running out of the ability to buy more - credit is tighter and tighter.
But then I see the Dow going up, as it did on Friday, and I wonder if anything in the Financial Sector really makes any sense, any longer - if it ever did - not that I'm a financial analyst (I'm not) - I'm a Web Analyst.
But why are stocks going up so much just because oil is 10 dollars cheaper today than yesterday (because we're broke and can't fly as much and or fill up our cars) - nothing much has fundamentally changed - we're still in an awful situation that's getting worse, and will continue to degrade.
So why does the market go up? What is really mean to see a couple of hundred points more? Nothing - it's meaningless - I've concluded.
You can't judge the health of this economy by most of the stats that are currently be collected and shown us - that is what I fundamentally believe - we're looking for answers in the wrong place.
The answer is not in the Dow / S&P or anything else we see in papers - I'm not even sure what the metrics should be ….. but these aren't it.
Because the situation keeps getting worse and if you just looked at this chart - you'd see some confidence coming back - but it's all being driven by OIL PRICES. Nothing has fundamentally changed ….. it's garbage info that leads to misleading conclusions useful if your into stocks, but not otherwise.
What the chart does tell - and knowing all of the change that happened this week was driven by lower consumption of OIL is that prices will drop for a short time, but not much and then any kind of conflagrations in the Mideast (I predicted an October Surprise (see Using Radian6 to predict the Presidential Election - Part 2) - I very much expect one to happen) and any kind of weather disruption or terrorist attack on a oil refinery will drive the prices right back up again, even worse than before.
The fact that OIL PRICES are driving the economy and not anything else, much - is the real story here - the world is addicted to OIL - we need it for everything - there's no way out - no stability that's possible, long term, because the price of OIL will change on any kind of news of a problem in the supply chain, and that can happen in several ways.
So I see no real confidence in the numbers … and no real story here - except we're on our way down, and we only think
it got better for a couple of days - till the next crisis drives prices even higher.
But here's how it ties into Web Analytics - I've noticed data I pull for my corporate work, at times, tell a very two dimensional story - one that often is not the story that should be told - but the metrics we are asked to pull (and I say .. all of us) are asked to pull - OFTEN DON'T TELL THE REAL STORY.
We need to come up with more stuff than Unique Visitors from Panel Data - or traffic volume data that is almost meaningless - just like this garbage stock data that is being fed us - it's meaningless - fundamentals haven't changed - the rise in the Dow just confirmed our addiction to OIL … it's actually worse - because now we realize just how dependent the world economy is on the price of OIL - and how easy it is disrupt it.
We should not be happy the Dow went up this week - we should be sad that the only thing driving anything up now is OIL PRICES declining - the rest of the economy is in the gutter - and going down fast.
What we need is New Metrics - that tell a better story - and lets face it - there's a bunch of good stuff our current metrics, both financial and web analytics don't catch at all.
We need to focus on that more - let the Dow go up or down - it means nothing if all that is driving it is OIL PRICES.
In fact, closing out this long post - when I worked at IBM.com, last year I was asked to provide metrics showing the success / or not, of the new website re-design.
It turned out, most of the effects were invisible - the metrics didn't even capture them - no hooks were put into the AJAX and FLASH in most cases and most of what we measured showed us that little had fundamentally changed.
is Metrics baked into the beginning of anything - we need to look for ways to hook up what is meaningful and measure that - not use some overblown statistic that is no longer that meaningful, like the Dow.
At least, that's my opinion - and I have to add, I'm not a Financial Analyst, I'm a Web Analyst.
To be perfectly honest, I've been pretty critical of Google in the majority of posts I've written here over the last two years - but this one post I'm going to write about today is 180 degrees different.
First of all, Google's new, "experimental" "Digg like" Search Interface is not only the future of Search, it's also a lot of fun and a 100 times more interesting, in my opinion, than anything else they've come up with in the last 4 years. The new search interface is also a "logical" evolution of Social Media, Social Networks and Search Technology and what I've seen in the movie below is almost exactly the vision I have for the Future of Search - and it can't come fast enough because the search of today, on Google, or any other Search Engine, sucks compared to what it could and someday, will be.
TechCrunch's post by Michael Arrington Is This The Future Of Search? has the most detail, yet, of this fairly new development in Search - that has just hit the blogosphere over the last day or so.
What excites me is not, so much, the "Digg" part, which is probably going to end up being "gamed" by "Google gangs" just like "Digg Gangs" did/do now - though it's still an improvement over what we have now, and this new "Digg like voting" is much more "democratic" than Google's current Search Engine which gives all the power of ranking and determining what gets into the search results to the computer engineers and scientists who program the search engine.
What excites me is the "FriendFeed/Twitter" part of this new Search Interface and ranking system, which allows the wisdom of Searchers to mix in, rate, and comment on the Search Results - this is truly the future of search - and it allows the users the control and transparency that Google and the other Search Engines have deliberately withheld.
But now, all the Search Results, in all the Search Engines, are so lousy, overall, that even Google, spending all it's time now patching up it's failed Pagerank system, it's failed back link, it's failed spam filtering, and everything else that has evolved, finally, is ready, to share control of the search results with the users of it's search engine.
We're not talking about some dials - the stuff they gave us a few years ago (both Google and Yahoo had versions of this feature), we're talking about Personalized and Social Search merged in one interface that will allow anyone to see comments on the Search Results (and I guess, Google will study those comments and re-rank the results - using their "semantic" technology - perhaps the right place for automation, at this point - since there's going to be so much commentary on the search results, no army of humans could possibly read it all in time to act on it - before a ton more comments are made.
I'll envision the future of Search Engine Optimization once the new Search Interface is fully rolled out, probably anytime between the 18 months from now, and five years (it'll depend on how "aggressive" Google wants to be here - setting this new interface as a Google Experiment is OK for now, but to get the full interaction, at some point, they will need to take the plunge and make this new innovation, the default interface for Google Search - the sooner the better, in my book).
Just saw that my head shot is being included in next month's Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose - the email has been sent out, and I was grinning when I saw it - and wrote about at The Analytics Guru - Search Engine Strategies - I’m grinning - and there's also an interview I taped when I spoke at the first Semphonic XChange Conference in Napa Valley last year.
If anyone is going to either conference, and reads my blogs, please say hello - I'll even buy you a drink.
"…A quick look at the conference at a glance will tell you why. There are a total of 77 conference sessions, strategic development workshops, Orion panels, and keynote presentations crammed into the four-day Search Engine Strategies conference. And on the fifth day, there are an additional six SEM training workshops.
Since there are five concurrent tracks during the SEM conference and three concurrent workshops during the SEM training, no one can attend everything – unless, of course, you bring a team of five or more people to SES San Jose.
And deciding which sessions to attend isn’t just daunting for the first-time attendee. It’s also a challenge to SES Alumni.
If you compare last year’s conference at a glance with this year’s conference at a glance, you see that only 12 of the sessions and two of the workshops are repeats. And four of the “repeat sessions” are Site Clinics or the Organic Listings Forum, which examine new web sites or issues every year. This means almost 88% of the content at Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2008 will be brand new!"
The new content (my sessions are "new content", btw) is making it much more worthwhile to attend now - and the stuff I'm talking about is targeted to be useful, to go beyond informational - hopefully it will take someone to the next level - that's what I'm aiming for.
2. Universal and Blended Search Session, Day 1 - Dana is anxious to hear what is new in universal and blended search since last years’ session.
3. Igniting Viral Campaigns session, Day 1 - This session promises to unveil the secrets of Web 2.0 techniques and technologies to help small and mid-size businesses stand out amongst the crowd.
4. Expo Hall Opening, Day 2 - Discover the latest products and technologies relevant to online marketing and see what the big names in search are up to by stopping at the many booths for your complimentary branded goods.
5. Landing Page Utopia, Day 2 - A good landing page is key to the success of any paid online advertising campaign. Ensure your pages convert clicks to conversions by attending this session led by a panel of top online marketing experts.
6. Ashley and Dana “getting their groove on” at Google Dance - Don’t miss the social event of the search marketing industry. Bring your dancing shoes and get ready to network!
7. Q & A with Google - See what happens behind the curtain at Google in this exclusive opportunity to ask the insiders how the search giant deals with a variety of issues, from spam to paid links and beyond.
8. Starbucks on the way to the Wednesday morning keynote - Trust us, you’ll need it. And you’ll definitely want to be awake for “Why does search get the credit for everything?”
9. Successful Tactics for Social Media Session, Day 3 - This session covers some popular social media services to leverage for marketing as well as best practices to penetrate them.
10. Black Hat, White Hat: Play Dirty with SEO - Where do you stand on the Black Hat vs. White Hat SEO ethics issue? Learn both sides of the argument by attending this session.
11. Ashley and Dana “getting their groove on” at Webmaster Radio Search Bash - Let loose after a long day of stimulating sessions at this fun bash put on by Webmaster Radio. There is usually plenty to see and do to keep you busy late into the night.
12. Thursday Keynote: Chip Heath, Author of “Made to Stick” - Learn how to produce marketing ideas that translate into results from idea guru Chip Heath.
13. The 3G iPhone Local Search Demos Session, Day 4 - See how companies are using mobile technology like the iPhone to revolutionize local search on the mobile device. What are the odds that Lee will have bought the team iPhones by this time?
14. Best Kept Secrets to Search Session, Day 4 - Top search engine marketers share their go-to tricks and shortcuts for online marketing success in this interactive session.
15. TopRank Blog’s Coverage of SES San Jose - Check out TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog throughout the conference for regularly-updated reports in the form of session summaries, photos and insights from the TopRank team in attendance. You’ll feel like you’re there!
But they left out two more things - my two sessions at SES:
Tuesday, August 19th, 11:00AM:
Track: Measuring Success Measuring Success in a 2.0 World How do you know if you've been successful with search engines and your website in general? You can check your "rank" at search engines for particular keywords, analyze log files to see the actual terms people used to reach your web site or make the ultimate jump and "close the loop" by measuring sales conversions and return-on-investment (ROI). This panel explores both classical and newer "cutting edge" techniques to measure success, what statistics you should really care about, ways to be more strategically focused, and how to drive increased revenue f
or your business.
