After two protracted debates on Twitter about keyword referrals and SERP tracking I want to make some more cohesive statements than is possible on Twitter.

Keyword Referrals

Today Google announced that the default login behavior for users will be secure and encrypted. They also announced that query data for logged in users will no longer be passed to Google Analytics unless the user clicks a paid link. I think that default to secure is fine and good, but not passing the query data unless you are paying is shady. Knowing what people are searching for is very helpful for businesses in choosing what they change about their site. Not just for optimizing for traffic, but also optimizing for online experience and usability of the site in general. The people that are most likely to be hurt by this are the small and medium sized business that are dependent on Google products, and industries that are heavily skewed toward users of Google products. As an example:

• People who use Gchat
• People who keep Gmail open
• People that use Google Analytics
• People that us Adwords
• People that use Google+
• People that connect to Google Labs Products
• People that comment on Blogger
• People that comment on YouTube

Many of the changes that Google has made over the last few years have been working toward making ”Google” a more embedded experience on the web and more individualized. The trend is toward more people being logged in, which means we will see a continuing degradation of data. This is particularly worrisome for countries where Google has over a 90% share and for business that have fewer than 100 search visits in a day. For small businesses making smart data-driven decisions was already hard, now it will be harder.

Search Engine Rank Page (SERP) Results

Search is becoming an amorphous term. Some people argue that Facebook and Twitter are search portals. Even if we restrict the conversation to just Google there are multiple separate, but interconnected, search channels: Web, Mobile, Local, News, Blogs, Image, etc. Many people are very focused on tracking rank. The problem with tracking rank is that it is not entirely connected to traffic. There are vast difference in traffic between phrases in the same conceptual space and a very different position in the buying cycle between search channels. For some people traffic is the only thing being monetized, so all visits are equal, but most people have a conversion to consider. In many competitive cases you are also triggering universal search that pulls in multiple search channels, which means #1 Organic result can be visually the 11th result.

(Click to see full size)

No Organic results show up above the fold for that search: Locksmith. Who is getting those clicks? Rank is NOT a performance indicator. Traffic is a performance indicator, money is a performance indicator, phone calls are a performance indicator. Rank is an interesting bauble that has interesting information at the beginning of a campaign to see your competition and a very steep curve once you are in the top ten. There is often much more to gain from focusing on getting traffic from phrases that aren’t getting traffic yet, particularly because of partial match links. Applying strategies that value diversity and monetization of traffic over SERP rank will win in the long term.

{EAV_BLOG_VER:d30533b60ed7d360}

We are having a book release party at Belltown Pub on 10/6 from 6-9 pm. If you can make it out we’d love to see you and will have new and old books on hand to autograph. We’ll also raffle of a book or two for free. There will be a free food spread and beverages available for purchase.  Please click one of the links below to RSVP:

If you have a Twitter account:

http://twtvite.com/2gy8te

If you have a Facebook account only:

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=180906625317307

Or if you have neither, just contact us and we’ll send you all the details!

Thanks,

Jeff and Carlos

After a long wait and a slight re-write A Strategic Framework for Emerging Media is finally out and available on Amazon!

Tweet:

This tweet entered me to win a copy of “A Strategic Framework for Emerging Media” http://bit.ly/nWbrfj via @userdriven #measure #socialmedia

Or

Share us on Facebook

On Tuesday September 6th we will randomly choose a 3 winners.

Regardless of your role in an e-commerce or non-commerce web company, you rely on data and technology in order for you business to survive. As such, there is always a chance of critical failure for any particular portion of your business.

http://lamblegs.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/criticalfailure_image_400x260px_banner.jpg

Critical failure could be any number of things: server/technology failure; data loss; corrupt test environment; broken coding deployment; hacking; third party issues; act of god; etc. While you’ll never be able to prepare for every possible scenario, it’s advisable that you develop action plans for some of the more common scenarios.

In this post we’ll review some possible technology and data loss issues that you might run into.

Your website probably consists of multiple pieces of technology – data storage server, sequel search engines, motherboard processors and miles of cables, just to name a few pieces of equipment. You should keep multiples of each type of equipment on hand in case the one in use decides to quit working. Further, you may want to keep a backup system with a duplication of all data active and ready to be deployed. You might consider keeping this backup in a separate location – in case this issue is some sort of emergency such as a fire or water damage.

Technology issues can often lead to “site down” time. This will frustrate your customers and could cause you to loose some retention. A good suggestion is to have adequate and clear messaging if possible. The last thing you want is an error500 page to pop up (though with certain technology issues this is unavoidable so do your best to get the issue fixed quickly).

A brief message such as “Our site is currently down” along with an anticipated time of being fixed can go a long way toward easing the pain of your customer. It could also create some positive anxiety if you have customers who need to constantly have access to your site.

Site down time also leads to inconsistencies in your data when comparing vs. another time frame.

If you rely on a 3rd party to collect your data, you should consider keeping a “hard copy” on hand as well. Typically a daily file transfer of the previous days’ activity will be sufficient. If the 3rd party data is unavailable or seems suspicious when viewing it you’ll need to verify several things: a) verify any processing issues with the 3rd party; b) verify tagging code on your site; c) verify any supplemental actions required by your 3rd party; d) verify data is being received by your 3rd party site.

Thorough testing is the best way to avoid data loss due to tagging errors. (Ok, technically using log files might be the best way to avoid, but log files can be cumbersome) Ensure that your test environment matches what will go into production and make sure that you utilize all tools to make sure that code functions properly and indeed gets passed to the 3rd party (if applicable). For most third party analysis tools, the javascript calls themselves are not enough to render data, most vendors also require a library file which helps define the javascript actions.

More often than not though, test environments seem to not have an exact replica of the production environment. Or even more oddly, sometimes your data my render in test, but not in production. So it may be worth your while to “go live” at a low point in the day where you can do a live test to ensure that production data is rendered properly, with the lowest chance of data loss.

Finally, another common reason for a technology/data loss issue is a spike in volume. You will need to prepare your hardware, and/or your 3rd party for any anticipated increases in data volume.

Data loss is a critical pain point for your business users who use the data to make decisions about your site. Having inconsistencies in the data can bring forth questions about legitimacy of the data, or questions about why the data falls outside of an accepted level. Good documentation of dates and times of data loss will help alleviate those questions. Unfortunately, there’s usually nothing you can do about data loss unless you have a back up storage.

Technology issues and data loss can lead to a lot of frustration for many roles within the company. Having an action plan in place, or just simply having the proper backup tools in place can help ease the pain of these types of critical failures.