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Displaying Outgoing Link Popularity
Most analytics programs, including the free-if-you-can-get-an-account Google Analytics, will show you not only the most popular entry points and how your visitors got there (for example, x number of visitors got to your homepage from a link in the Yahoo Directory), but also your top exit points (what the last page they viewed on your site was before clicking away), but many analytics programs don't make it easy to figure out which of your blog's links sent your visitor off your site. Clearly this is important to know if you're trying to figure out what topics are interesting or valuable to your readers, and which elicit more yawns than clicks.
One of the blogs I read regularly has a feature I really like: when you mouse over any outgoing link (i.e., a link to another domain), it displays how popular that link is relative to others on that page. If you hover over the pop-up, it also gives you link to another page which tells you how many people clicked on the tracked link.
Here's a screenshot of what it would look like on your site:
If you follow the MyBlogLog links, you see the number of clicks a given link received:
I don't know anything about this company, and they don't have the slickest looking site, but I like them* based solely on item #5 in their FAQs:
What is the meaning of life?
What we've come up with can be reduced to two fundamental concepts. One, people are not wearing enough hats. Two, Matter is energy. In the universe, there are many energy fields, which we cannot normally perceive. Some energies have a spiritual source, which act upon a person's soul. However, this soul does not exist automatically, as orthodox Christianity teaches, but has to be brought into existence by a process of guided self-observation. However, this is rarely achieved due to mankind's unique ability to be distracted from spiritual matters by everyday trivia.
* Like them in a I'm-giving-them-props-on-my-site-for-being-funny kinda "like them." Not necessarily a I'm-going-to-become-a major-investor like them.
Posted by Melanie Phung
How Many Clicks to the Center ...
... of this blog's universe? (We already know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop... or not.)
Continuing in my quest to make this blog entirely about itself, I'd like to point out another fun poll over at Google Blogoscoped, where Philipp Lenssen asks "how many clicks away from the Google homepage is your website?" (The rule is that you can't type anything or use any personalized features; you can only click on hyperlinks.)
Based on work done by previous posters, I found that All About Content is only 5 clicks away from Google.com! Wow. My first guess might have been closer to 20 if I thought it was possible at all. It's a small World Wide Web after all.
Clicks from the Google homepage:
- About
- Google Blog
- Search Engine Journal
- SEO by the Sea
- All About Content, which is all about itself in this post (again)
Although, if my posts continue in this navel-gazing vein, Bill might just take me off his blogroll, and then where would I be. {grin}
Labels: navel-gazing
Posted by Melanie Phung
Google Trends: Yahoo Trending Up
Google released some pretty cool stuff earlier this month, including Co-Op (already everyone is talking about how, or if, it's possible to effectively spam it). But what I've been having endless fun with is the much-appreciated Google Trends. You can track the popularity of certain search phrases over time and even compare terms.
The news indicator on the right is still not very good -- often highlighting fairly irrelevant news and ignoring significant changes that just beg for an explanation. In the graph below, for example, why didn't Google Trends try to find some news that corresponded with the big spike in searches on the term "Google" in mid-2005? And the one Yahoo news item it does highlight is about the Google rival missing its financial target. Compare that with the news highlighted about Google. Hmmm.
Related link: BlogPulse from Nielsen BuzzMetrics
Labels: Google
Posted by Melanie Phung
Sponsored Search Results Often Malicious
McAfee Inc released a report titled "The Safety of Internet Search Engines Report," showing that sponsored search results (i.e., PPC ads) are up to four times more likely to lead to phishing sites, or sites that attempt to install spyware.
The security company studied the results of over a thousand popular keywords on major search engines Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Ask. It estimates that in the United States 285 million clicks lead to "hostile sites" every month. The report makes a point to highlight that sponsored search, rather than being safer because there is a vetting and approval process, is actually much worse than the natural results. Fully 8.5% of sponsored links were determined to be dangerous, versus 3.1% of organic search results.
"We are troubled by the untrustworthiness of search engines' ads. Search engines sells ads to sites that send users literally hundreds of e-mails per week...and sites that infect users' computers with adware programs," according to a statement in the report.
Updated: Read McAfee's report The Safety of Internet Search Engines
Posted by Melanie Phung
Never Mind the Yahoo-MSN Rumor
iMedia Connection explains what those Microsoft-acquiring-part-of-Yahoo rumors were about:
Yahoo CEO Terry Semel told the Financial Times that his company declined Microsoft's attempt to buy a stake in Yahoo.
The discussions between Yahoo and Microsoft took place during Microsoft's use of Yahoo's search technology, reported the Financial Times. Microsoft switched to Google Inc. as its search technology partner from Yahoo.
...
Semel told the paper that although Yahoo talked with Microsoft co-owning some of their search, the final decision was not to sell.
"I will not sell a piece of search-- it is like selling your right arm while keeping your left; it does not make any sense," Semel said at an event at Syracuse University.
Darn, that would have made things really interesting. On the other hand, Microsoft would have crushed the life and soul out of innovation (Resistance. Is. Futile.) and Yahoo is doing some pretty interesting things with social media (and doing them better) than Google.
Labels: Yahoo
Posted by Melanie Phung
Google Eyes Consumer-Generated Media
CEO Eric Schmidt said during a press event that Google intends to start focus on consumer-generated media (CGM). The company not only wants to help users create content, but also organize and search for work created by fellow users. A new feature, called Google Co-op, allows users to search specifically for user-generated content and "annotations."
MediaPost Publications reports:
Greg Sterling, principal analyst for Sterling Marketing Intelligence, said Google's emphasis Wednesday on consumer-generated content marks a turning point for the company, which traditionally has been relatively weak in the medium. "They didn't anticipate the rise of MySpace, and I thought that that was an area where Yahoo was investing very heavily," he said. "Every new company that comes into view has some sort of social layer, and they really hadn't done much. This seems to be a much broader and bigger push and a recognition of that."
Labels: Google, social media
Posted by Melanie Phung
Rumors of Microsoft-Yahoo Collaboration
Microsoft and Yahoo have been holding clandestine talks about teaming up to challenge Google, according to a leaked memo. Despite launching and then relaunching and then half-launching/renaming their search engine, and many months worth of saber rattling, is Microsoft conceding defeat, admitting that it has no hope of beating Google in the search game by itself?
The WSJ reports, that there are two factions within Microsoft -- those who think Microsoft should build their search empire themselves, and those who think it makes more sense to buy something. And who better than Yahoo (certainly the AOL thing wouldn't have done the trick) -- Yahoo is the #2 search company, with lots of traffic and a search engine that actually presents decent results.
Search Engine Watch's Danny Sullivan says:
The Wall Street Journal cites the hiring of Steve Berkowitz by Microsoft as perhaps being a tipping point. I'd certainly agree. Steve is the first serious outside person Microsoft has brought in for its battle in the search wars. Bringing him on was a big sign that what Microsoft has been trying to do internally hasn't been working -- and so something radical such as an Ask or Yahoo acquisition might be in order.
According to WebProNews, "Yahoo has its improved search advertising relevance algorithms in testing with 'Project Panama.' Sometime soon, Yahoo may bring Panama in from the cold of Scandinavia, and test it in the United Kingdom this summer." And Microsoft has been putting its energies into paid search to rival Yahoo/Overture and Google.
"Ballmer told Microsoft's employees that the company would make 'heavy investments' in Internet search. "[O]ur goal is to create the Web's largest advertising network, giving us an engine that will enable us to monetize our services and compete against Google,' Ballmer wrote."
So all that bravado from Gates about taking down Google, then, appears to have been borne not out of confidence in its technology innovations, but rather possible aquisitions. Or so it looks to me.
Labels: Yahoo
Posted by Melanie Phung
Google's Name Change
Google, for reasons having nothing to do with the flak it's catching about Sino search censorship, changed the name of the Chinese-language version of Google. The new name is Gu Ge (pronounced "goo guh") and means "Harvest Song" -- the translation is supposed to invoke "rural Chinese traditions to describe a fruitful and rewarding experience."
Not exactly breaking news at this point, but I wanted the opportunity to bust a myth.
Before everyone goes snickering about previous international marketing faux pas, realize that like all truly great anecdotes, neither the Coca Cola tadpole nor the Chevy "no go" Nova tales are entirely true. Gotta love Snopes.com.
Labels: Google
Posted by Melanie Phung
ODP is Sorta-Kinda Down With Me
When I posted on Blogoscoped on May 25, I didn't see my site in the Google Directory (which is actually just the DMOZ Directory republished) so I assumed no progress had been made. It turns out that All About Content got listed on DMOZ last week (the DMOZ clones usually take a while to get up to date). Huzzah.
I submitted this site to be listed in the DMOZ Open Directory Project (ODP) on December 31. It took just shy of 5 months to get listed. And in the mean time it had been moved, and then even deleted from the queue for being a "duplicate entry." (Which I'm assuming referred to my bookmarks -- which make no sense, since that implies that one can't bookmark sites that already exist in the Directory, and that bookmarking a site precludes it from ever getting added in the right category.) But apparently it got pulled back out of the trash heap, 'cuz here I am, baby. Thank you kind category editor!
And I did it without submitting more than once or pestering the editor to change his/her mind.
The truth is that I never thought I had some God-given right to be listed, like so many people seem to. But from an inbound link perspective, it is pretty sweet. Not only is it a link from a high PR page, but it also gets you a bunch of lesser quality links from all the DMOZ clones for no effort at all. Is that worth a lot? No, but it might be worth a little, so why not. Just don't start obsessing over it -- keep in mind that a DMOZ listing isn't going to drive traffic or help you convert visitors into buyers.
While I hate to say it, getting listed is much harder than staying listed. If you are into the black-hat thing, I'll look away while you peruse this thread about purchasing expired DMOZ-listed domains for SEO purposes.
Labels: DMOZ, navel-gazing
Posted by Melanie Phung