August 2006

 

Web Analytics and Tabbed Browsing

Posted by Aaron on 30 Aug 2006


I think I mentioned something about this last month. Sure enough, here it is.

Analytics have never been easy to nail down. Even though most internet marketers have a love affair with them, they’re not always reliable or easy to comprehend for that matter. The data you really want many times seems just out of reach for even the best web stats packages. And as technology changes, so does the ability of today’s webstat packages to accurately track visitors on your site.

According to this piece from ClickZ, tabbed browsing, which is part of Firefox and will soon be a part of Microsoft’s IE7, has changed the way that users interact with websites and may, at some point, have an impact on the accuracy of your web analytics. Tabbed browsing may affect cookie tracking, path tracking, time on site (heck, sometimes I have pages open in tabs for days at a time), and others, all mentioned in the article.

Last month I linked to a clickstream study that believes that web services are largely responsible for changes in how users interact with the web, including the fact that 15% of all web navigation actions are now form submissions.

I would also be curious to learn how AJAX is affecting web analytics. In an AJAX application, the interaction with the user all takes place within one page view…

Web Analytics: The Results of Tabbed Browsing


Tagged as: Travel Marketing, Marketing, Online Marketing, Analytics, , , , , ,

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Search Volume Update -Does it Really Matter?

Posted by Aaron on 16 Aug 2006


Hitwise has released search engine volume data that shows Google with just over 60% of total online searches in the U.S. Here is the breakdown, according to Hitwise:

U.S. Volume of Searched Top Search Engines Four Week Period Ending July 29, 2006:

  • Google: 60.2%
  • Yahoo: 22.5%
  • MSN: 11.8%
  • Other: 5.5%

They indicate that it is a slight increase for Google and Yahoo and a slight decrease for MSN.

I wonder how Ask.com fares in all of this. I still think they have a great search engine and I find myself more disappointed with Google and Yahoo results all the time. With Yahoo’s recent update, results seem to be even closer to Google. Is search becoming just another commodity? In “organic” search results, what does, can or will differentiate the brands? Does it even matter any more?

Here’s a fun tool to see the overlap of Yahoo and Google results:
yahoo! vs. google

Here is the Hitwise piece:

Bill Tancer - Hitwise US: Google Breaks 60% - U.S. July Search Volume Numbers


Tagged as: Google, Search Engines, Yahoo, SEM, SEO, MSN, Ask, , , ,

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Google Sitemaps XML Generator Tool

Posted by Aaron on 09 Aug 2006


If you mange a small site that doesn’t update daily, or several of them, and want an easy way to generate a quick Sitemaps.xml file to upload to Google, try this online tool. I ran across it when trying to generate a sitemaps file for a small website from my laptop. Plug in your info and the tool will crawl your site and create the file, which you can then save and upload to Google.

Not using Google Sitemaps? Here are some reasons why you should be.

Here is the link to the tool:

Unlimited XML, Text, HTML Sitemap Generator - XML Sitemaps
*note: I’m in no way associated with this company or their products.


Tagged as: Google, Search Engines, SEO, Optimization Tips, SEO Tools, , , , , ,

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