Central Perk

vineri, 3 ianuarie 2014

Best of the West (Wing Week)

Featured

As we move into 2014, take a quick look back at some of our favorite moments, large and small, from the 2013 White House video library. There was lots to choose from, but we narrowed it down to ten.

Take a look in this year's edition of "Best of the West (Wing Week)."

What Should I Put on the Homepage? - Whiteboard Friday

Posted: 02 Jan 2014 03:08 PM PST

Posted by randfish

Homepages were once the ultra-authoritative one-stop shops of online brands. As people and search engines have become better at understanding what users are looking for, though, the purpose of homepages has become more targeted. In today's Whiteboard Friday, Rand details several of the changes we've seen, and offers his advice for what to include on a truly effective homepage on the web today.

For reference, here's a still of this week's whiteboard!

Video transcription

Howdy Moz fans, and welcome to a new edition of Whiteboard Friday, the very first one of 2014. Hope you all had a wonderful happy New Year and a great holiday season, whatever you might celebrate.

This week, I think since January's the time when a lot of us revisit our core web marketing and a lot of the times what we're doing on our websites, we should talk about the starting pointâ€"the homepage. The homepage is a critically important page for a lot of reasons. Oftentimes it's one of, if not the most, trafficked web page that we have on our websites. It's also the starting point for where people try and understand our brand and our company and what we do.

Substantively, its role has changed over the last few years with big shifts like search engines being a little less focused around who gets links and how that influences the keywords that you rank for, a little less about the homepage being the only page that people land on, and whether they're coming just to the homepage, or whether they go into separate sections of the site. What people want and expect from homepages has changed over the years, what they expect to find there, and, thus, what we as marketers need to do to deliver on those expectations.

So I thought I'd start by talking about some of the old ways of doing things with homepages and the new ways of doing them.

In the old way, we'd promote all of the major sections of the site on the homepage. So you might have a homepage that's like, "Oh, check out our blog, and here's our product, and here's this other thing that we're doing. Oh and this new launch point." Each of these get featured, or they kind of scroll through them. It's really the homepage very much competing for attention. You can think of that Yahoo! homepage model being the discovery point for everything on the site. If you don't get homepage real estate, well, you're not important.

This is totally wrong in 2014, because really we can make all of those major sections easy to navigate to and find. We can focus very uniquely on just one section, on just the most important things that the most important customers and visitors are trying to get answers to and what they expect when they get to that homepage.

We don't need to say like, "Hey, I have this great feature and this other thing. Oh, we just launched this content. Let me promote everything, and I'll just try and capture a small bit of everyone's attention." This focus is not nearly as good as trying to be a little bit more of a, "Here's how to navigate to these sections. Let me just promote the most important thing and make that homepage more of a focused experience."

We've seen tons and tons of examples of folks A/B testing and testing different versions of their homepage, and that focus, really, really critical to driving people through.

Old way: focus on lots of keywords. A lot of homepages would focus on a lot different keywords. The reason beingâ€"it's not that hard to understandâ€"the homepage, in the classic old, old Google, it would be your highest PageRank page and, therefore, could rank the most things. Then, as Google got more sophisticated and less about just PageRank, it was also the page that earned the most links. Often, the anchor text was fairly diversified that would link to that homepage, and so were all these other signals. So the homepage could rank for a lot of stuff that other pages couldn't. So, "You know what? Let's just smack all the keywords that we possibly can onto the homepage."

In the current model, we actually don't need to do that, because Google and Bing have both become much more sophisticated about understanding, "Hey, this site is about all of these things, not necessarily just this page. We're much more considerate as engines of the site's authority in different areas and around keyword terms and phrases. So, if that site has a page that specifically focuses on these topics, you know what? We're going push that up there, even if the page itself doesn't have all the signals that it needs to rank, because the site does."

You inherit your site's strength and authority into your internal pages. Because of that, I can now focus on a small subset of keywords on my homepage, possibly only one or two, possibly not even any keywords. I can just think about branded-centric keywords, not even unbranded keywords, and I can really have landing pages specific to those unbranded keywords deeper down in the sections.

This also means that you don't have to make the focus of the homepage so all over the place. You can get it much more refined and defined to focus on that specific set of people who are coming directly there.

Because of this, too, the old style was to put lots of text to help the homepage rank for all those pages. Now, we don't need that, but we really do need to communicate quickly, because web users have become more and more impatient. They're not going to read through paragraph and paragraph and paragraph of text. Therefore, many, many websites have found it valuable to use visual-centric homepages to help communicate and to quickly convey the primary value proposition to those visitors. Sometimes that's a video. Sometimes it's just an image or graphic that explains things really clearly. That can work out great.

We also used to have to serve many types of visitors. This was both for SEO reasons, but also because people would come for lots of different reasons and then expect the homepage to guide them to whatever is interesting. Now, people use search engines to find those different things around your brand and then navigate directly to them. Social media is really about referring to specific pieces of content, not just the homepage. Not like, "Hey, the Economist wrote a great article. Go to TheEconomist.com" No, they're going to send you a link right to the correct page. So you have a little bit more of that focus. You can just work on the most critical visitors and their needs and the messaging that you need to convey to them.

There also used to be this real concept of, "Keep it above the fold."
Thanks to things like tablets and phones, as well as wider screens and that sort of stuff, now we do a lot more scrolling. We're used to a lot more scrolling. So really people will scroll. I still urge folks to just make sure you keep some page content at the scroll line or near the traditional scroll lines, depending on your visitors' resolution. Keep that experience compelling to draw the eye down. The thing you don't want to do -- I'll show you in my sample homepage hereâ€"the thing I don't want to do is have the scroll line or the fold line, one of the big traditional fold lines for my primary visitors, be right here, so that it looks like I can get all the content I need above the fold, but in fact there's all this above the fold. If the scroll line instead is right here, and it bisects this secondary text section, perfect. Now I've drawn the eye down. Now people certainly will scroll, and that stuff will have visibility. You'll have that expectation.

So, speaking of this sample homepage, I'm going to talk about some things that I, personally, would nudge folks and generally nudge folks to do on their homepages. This is not to say that every single company should go with exactly this type of homepage, but I think that these nudges can help to order your thinking and to possibly give you some ideas about things you might be doing right or wrong on your site, might want to test, might want to talk about as you're kicking off 2014 with your homepage.

So first up, (A), right up top here, the logo and the nav. This is just standard 101 stuff. My general bias is to keep this the same logo and nav as other pages. However, the homepage is unique in that it's sometimes okay to be a little different from other pages on the site. I would urge you to have consistency across the rest of the site. If your homepage has to be a little bit varied because of some things you want to do, that's okay. But I like that nav staying consistent throughout the whole site. That's my general bias.

(B) Check out this image. I'm going to imagine that I'm Pocket, Pocket app, which I have on my phone and I use on my desktop and laptop computers. It's a great little app. The idea is that I've got an article that I want to read, maybe on a plane, and I want to read it on my phone. But, of course, I don't have a wi-fi signal on especially international flights, but even most of my US flights. Or I want to read it just anytime. I'm sitting in the car on a long drive down to Portland. Great. So I can click and save any article, any web page I see on the Internet, I can save that to Pocket and go fetch it for later, and it automatically caches. So I don't even need a web connection to be able to do that. I love Pocket app. It's great.

But explaining it with a bunch of heavy text and having like "read things later" and lots of different keywords stuff, that probably doesn't make sense. What does make sense is, "Let me quickly and easily explain it to you." So here's a guy, he's on his phone, and here's his thought bubble saying, "This is cool, but I wish I could read it later." Oh. "Go to Pocket, and now you can. Read anytime on any device without a web connection." Ah-ha! The value proposition of Pocket app is instantly conveyed in a visual format, which, as we all know, human beings are much better at taking visual cues and interpreting information from visuals rather than text alone.

So that's (B). Visually explain, make it visual, to easily explain what the product, company, service does. I want that visual. I would urge you to test a visual to easily explain what that does. Show it to a bunch of people who have no idea what you do. If they grasp it, great.

If you offer lots of products, make sure to convey the value proposition of what you do. If you're a clothing brand and you offer lots of different things, "Well, which picture should we use?" Well, quickly convey what your unique value proposition is. What it is about your clothing line that's so great, that's so much better? Is it where it's made and that it's hand crafted? Is it the quality of the material? Is it price? Is it something else? Make sure that you're delivering that unique value proposition. So I've got this (C) section. Does it work for XYZ? Like, "Well, can I use this on my Android? Can I use it on my iPhone? Will it also work on desktop?" Ah-ha! Excellent. I'm going to be empathetic and intuitive. Oftentimes this comes from experience. You know the things that, as soon as someone hears about your product, they instantly have these questions. So just answer them right there. I really like that section existing on the homepage. Then you can go into more detail in product pages as well.

(D) I like giving social proof. So lots of websites do this on their homepageâ€"showing the logo of news outlets that have covered them or big brands that use them that are very trustworthy or testimonials. I personally have found a lot of value in testimonials. I like them quite a bit, especially when they're people who your audience knows who that person is. So you see an Avinash Kaushik or a Wil Reynolds or a Will Critchlow recommending Moz, you kind of go, "Well, I know who those guys are. They're very impressive, well-known web marketers from across the industry. Let me check that out. That must be good." So that's social proof credibility signals.

And the last thing that I really like having on your homepage is a call to action. Last, but certainly not least, a call to action. "How do I install this?" "Well, you do this, you do this, or you do this." So, for Pocket app, it might be, "If you have an Android, go to the Google Play Store. If you have Apple, go to the iPhone store. Want to use it on your desktop? Install the widget right here." Great. Cool, right? There's my call to action just sitting there, ready for me to go and do something. I think guiding someone to that next step is a key part of how successful a homepage operates. Then you can really test the success of your homepage as well, based on whether people engage and go there.

So I hope you've got some great ideas for your homepages in 2014. I look forward to hearing from you all. Thanks so much.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

Seth's Blog : Accuracy, resilience and denial

Accuracy, resilience and denial

... three ways to deal with the future.

Accuracy is the most rewarding way to deal with what will happen tomorrow--if you predict correctly. Accuracy rewards those that put all their bets on one possible outcome. The thing is, accuracy requires either a significant investment of time and money, or inside information (or luck, but that's a different game entirely). Without a reason to believe that you've got better information than everyone else, it's hard to see how you can be confident that this is a smart bet.

Resilience is the best strategy for those realistic enough to admit that they can't predict the future with more accuracy than others. Resilience isn't a bet on one outcome, instead, it's an investment across a range of possible outcomes, a way to ensure that regardless of what actually occurs (within the range), you'll do fine.

And denial, of course, is the strategy of assuming that the future will be just like today.

If you enter a winner-take-all competition against many other players, accuracy is generally the only rational play. Consider a cross-country ski race. If 500 people enter and all that matters is first place, then you and your support team have to make a very specific bet on what the weather will be like as you wax your skis. Picking a general purpose wax is the resilient strategy, but you'll lose out to the team that's lucky enough or smart enough to pick precisely the right wax for the eventual temperature.

Of course, and this is the huge of course, most competitions aren't winner take all. Most endeavors we participate in offer long-term, generous entrants plenty of rewards. Playing the game is a form of winning the game. In those competitions, we win by being resilient.

Unfortunately, partly due to our fear of losing as well as our mythologizing of the winner-take-all, we often make two mistakes. The first is to overdo our focus on accuracy, on guessing right, on betting it all on the 'right' answer. We underappreciate just how powerful long-term resilience can be.

And the second mistake is to be so overwhelmed by all the choices and all the apparent risk that instead of choosing the powerful path of resilience, we choose not to play at all. Denial rarely pays.

• Email to a friend •

joi, 2 ianuarie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

70% of Spanish Citizens Don't Believe Prime Minister Rajoy on the Recovery
Eurozone Manufacturing Expands Except in France and Greece; Hollande Concedes Taxes 'Too Heavy' Offending Everyone
US Manufacturing PMI Shows Solid Expansion, Led by Large Companies; Expect "Measured Pace" Tapering

70% of Spanish Citizens Don't Believe Prime Minister Rajoy on the Recovery

Posted: 02 Jan 2014 05:56 PM PST

In what may be the least shocking economic statistic reported so far this year (albeit it's very early), 70% of Spanish Citizens Don't Believe Prime Minister Rajoy on the Recovery.

Via translation from El Economista...

In 2013, Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, promised the "economic recovery" would begin in 2014.

A survey released Wednesday by the newspaper El Mundo shows 71% of the citizens of our country believes that recovery will begin in 2015. A mere 17% trust the recovery will start this year and 8% estimated that the recovery actually started in the latter part of 2013.

The stats have gotten worse. A year ago 30% of Spaniards saw 2014 as the year of recovery, now that number is down to 17%.

With regard to the personal situation of respondents, only 20% believe their life from an economic point of view will be better in 2014. 75% believe it will be the same or worse.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Eurozone Manufacturing Expands Except in France and Greece; Hollande Concedes Taxes 'Too Heavy' Offending Everyone

Posted: 02 Jan 2014 12:47 PM PST

Eurozone manufacturing is at a 31-month high according to Markit. Every country but France and Greece are expanding. French manufacturing is at a seven-month low in an intensified downturn.

The seasonally adjusted Markit Eurozone Manufacturing PMI® rose for the third month running to post 52.7 in December, up from 51.6 in November (and unchanged from the earlier flash estimate).

The latest improvement in overall operating conditions was underpinned by solid and accelerated growth in the Netherlands, Germany, Ireland and Italy, while Austria continued to expand at a robust clip despite the rate of increase easing slightly since November. Meanwhile the Spanish PMI moved back into expansion territory. There was even relatively positive news from Greece, where higher levels of output and new orders elevated its PMI to a 52-month high and close to the 50.0 stabilisation point. France moved in the opposite direction, however, with its PMI falling to a seven - month low and signalling contraction for the twenty-second successive month.

Chief Economist Comment

Markit Chief Economist Chris Williamson

"While Germany, Italy and Spain are seeing the strongest output growth since early - 2011, buoyed to varying degrees by improved export sales, France is seeing a steepening downturn, in part the result of widening export losses. This suggest s that competitiveness is a key issue which the French manufacturing sector needs to address to catch up with its peers."

Hollande Concedes Taxes 'Too Heavy' Offending Everyone

French president François Hollande rang the bell on the new year the same way he rang the bell throughout 2013, with an economic as well as public relations gaffe.

His vague promise of lower taxes coupled with an admission on national TV that taxes are too high, infuriated French households facing tax rises now, at the start of the year.

The Telegraph explains François Hollande concedes taxes 'too heavy' in admission that annoys all sides in France.

A New Year's message from François Hollande backfired as his vague promise that taxes would be lowered some time in the future jarred with French voters facing tax increases that took effect as he was speaking.

Instead of winning plaudits for his unexpected admission that taxes had become "too heavy, much too heavy", the unpopular socialist president - weakened by tax increases, rising unemployment and a shrinking economy - provoked incredulity and scepticism among critics on both Left and Right.

Hard-pressed French households faced VAT increases on most goods and services from Jan 1 and only days earlier France's supreme court had upheld a new 75 per cent supertax on high-paying companies.

Mr Hollande made his televised address in front of a virtual background, an image of the Elysée Palace, which provoked a flood of comments on Twitter comparing his appearance with that of a Soviet leader of the 1970s.

He offered companies a "responsibility pact", which he defined as the possibility of "lower labour charges and fewer restrictions on their activity in return for hiring more workers and more dialogue with trade unions".

But he gave no details about which restrictions might be lifted or how he would reduce the high social security charges and payroll taxes that leave French companies with some of the lowest profit margins in Europe.

His proposal came days after France's highest court approved his controversial 75 per cent "supertax" to be paid by companies on annual salaries exceeding €1 million.

Mr Hollande's proposal immediately came under attack from the left wing of his Socialist Party. Marie-Noëlle Lienemann, a Socialist senator, said: "This is not the time to offer companies incentives when ordinary people are struggling. It has to be balanced with measures to help them."

She complained that households would be hard hit by an increase in the standard rate of VAT from 19.6 per cent to 20 per cent yesterday, with an intermediate rate increased from seven to 10 per cent.

Bernard Accoyer, a centre-right MP, said his message was "a litany of his failures in 19 months as president" and added: "He admitted that he underestimated the crisis, raised taxes and charges on companies too high and failed to make the necessary cuts in public spending."

Vague Promises, Nonsensical Proposal

Hollande offers a "possibility" of lower taxes and labor charges IF businesses expand hiring and negotiate more with unions.

What business would accept that nonsensical proposal? Given the proposal was accompanied by an admission "taxes are too heavy, much too heavy", it's no wonder everyone was offended.

It's also no wonder France is going the opposite of the rest of the eurozone. But the rest of the eurozone is not out of the woods yet. No structural problems have been fixed anywhere.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

US Manufacturing PMI Shows Solid Expansion, Led by Large Companies; Expect "Measured Pace" Tapering

Posted: 02 Jan 2014 10:09 AM PST

Both the ISM Report and the Markit PMI report show strengthening US manufacturing.

ISM: The December 2013 Manufacturing ISM Report On Business® shows Economic activity in the manufacturing sector expanded in December for the seventh consecutive month.

"The PMI™ registered 57 percent, the second highest reading for the year, just 0.3 percentage point below November's reading of 57.3 percent. The New Orders Index increased in December by 0.6 percentage point to 64.2 percent, which is its highest reading since April 2010 when it registered 65.1 percent. The Employment Index registered 56.9 percent, an increase of 0.4 percentage point compared to November's reading of 56.5 percent. December's employment reading is the highest since June 2011 when the Employment Index registered 59 percent. Comments from the panel generally reflect a solid final month of the year, capping off the second half of 2013, which was characterized by continuous growth and momentum in manufacturing."

Markit: Here is a look at the Markit US Manufacturing PMI.

Key Points

PMI rises to 11 - month high, indicating solid improvement in business conditions
Output supported by strong increase in new orders
Employment growth quickens to nine - month high
Input price pressures intensifies

Summary

Business conditions in the U.S. manufacturing sector improved at the fastest rate since January, according to the final December Markit U.S. Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index™ (PMI™). At 55.0, up from 54.7 in November and above the earlier flash estimate of 54.4, the PMI indicated a solid rate of expansion.

Production in the series average and the fastest since March 2012. All three market groups (consumer, intermediate and investment) posted higher levels of output in December, with manufacturers of investment goods posting the fastest rate of increase.

Manufacturing Output

Company size analysis

Large manufacturers (more than 500 employees) reported a marked rise in output during December. This generally reflected a sharp increase in new business , with the rate of new order growth the joint - fastest since late - 2009. In contrast, new order growth was only modest at small manufacturers (less than 100 employees), with new export work having fallen since November.

"Measured Pace" Tapering

The consensus will start looking for additional Fed tapering, perhaps at an accelerated pace.

I expect tapering at a "measured" pace (small) accompanied by dovish statements from the Fed. When the economy slides, tapering will halt.

Recall that Alan Greenspan used the term "measured pace" when he started hiking rates after the 2001 recession.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

New Year, New Coverage

Featured

New Year, New Coverage

Millions of Americans finally have the security and peace of mind that comes from having quality, affordable health insurance coverage.

One of them is Trinace Edwards, who was diagnosed with a brain tumor shortly after being laid off and losing her insurance. Unable to work or afford private insurance, she couldn't get treatment. But when she began shopping for coverage after the Health Insurance Marketplace opened, she learned she would be eligible for coverage through Medicaid. In October, President Obama met with a group of Americans - including Trinace and her daughter - who are benefitting from the Affordable Care Act.

Hear what they had to say about what the law means for their family.

How to Use the Information Inside Google's Ved Parameter

Posted: 01 Jan 2014 03:29 PM PST

Posted by deedpolloffice

This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of Moz, Inc.

It's been two years now since Google announced that they'd be gradually withholding the search terms from referer headers, as secure (SSL) search was rolled out. This has meant that the keyword report in Analytics shows (not provided) for most visitors.

In our own Analytics reports, (not provided) keywords now make up 82% of all organic visitors.

For paid traffic (coming through AdWords) the keywords are still "provided," which is very helpful, but also very expensive.

And of course there's also the Search Queries report in Webmaster Tools. This is also useful, but it's still a disappointing loss of information compared to what we used to have (even if I personally think Google was probably right to go ahead with it).

The ved parameter to the rescue

Back in May, Tim Resnik wrote about patterns he'd spotted in Google's ved parameter. It turns out that ved codes contain rather useful information about the link that was clicked on in the search engine results page. And as Tim pointed out, this goes some way in replacing what was lost (or rather, killed off) by Google taking away the keyword data.

Three months later, Benjamin Schulz worked out that ved codes are actually encoded in Protocol Buffers (or "Protobuf"). So, as they're not actually encrypted, it's not too hard to unencode them (plus we don't have to feel too guilty about it!).

Google has even released open-source compilers (in several different languages), which you can use to decode ved codes yourself. However these compilers are probably a bit over-the-top for what online marketers need (and probably a bit hard to put into practice).

We've written up a guide to decoding and interpreting ved codesâ€"as well as filling in some of the unanswered questions (such as what parameter 1 means). And we've also written a JavaScript function for decoding veds, whichâ€"as I want to explainâ€"is essential if you want to incorporate this information into your own Analytics reports.

This article is an actionable guide to getting information out of these ved codes, and incorporating it into Analytics.

What is a ved code anyway?

I don't want to repeat too much what has already been written about in other posts, but it's a good idea to summarise what veds are, what's inside them, and how you can access them.

When you click on any of the links in Google's search results, the URL (address) of the link contains a "ved" parameter.

This "ved" code contains information about the link that you clicked on, and when a user comes to your website through Google's search results, the ved code is (usually) passed to you in the referer HTTP header.

What's inside a ved code?

A ved code contains up to five separate parameters, which each tell you something about the link that was clicked on:

Link index (parameter 1)

All the links on the SERP have a numerical index, which gets passed in the ved code.

It only gives you a very rough idea of where the link was in the page (without knowing more about what was on the page), so it's the least useful of the five parameters inside the ved.

However, it is rather useful when it's for a ved code coming from an adword, simply because there's no other information about the position.

Although the link index only gives a rough idea of the position of the adword, there are two concrete things you can take from it:

If it's about 45â€"65 or less (shopping results could go up to 85), then it means the adword was in the main column above the organic results
If it's about 170 or over, then it means the adword was in the right-hand column or at the bottom of the page

Link type (parameter 2)

This parameter is a number which corresponds to the type of link that was clicked on.

The most common value is 22, which corresponds to a normal (universal) search result.
Other common values (and their meanings) are:

Type of link	Value
normal (universal) search result	22
sitelink	2060
one-line sitelink	338
image result (thumbnail) in universal search	245
news result	297
adword (i.e. sponsored search result)	1617

See the complete list, for other (less common) values.

We've actually found well over a hundred distinct values, so this is a small fraction of them! Most of them, though, are very unlikely to appear in referer URLs (bear in mind that these are Google's parameters; they weren't really meant for us).

You'll no doubt have noticed that there are lots of gaps in the values. I don't really know if this is because a lot have been retired, or if Google has left space for future link types (probably a bit of both, but more of the latter). For example, our reports show the link type 703, but we haven't worked out what it means yet. It seems like it's some sort of universal search result just for mobile devices. If you see 703 or other codes in your reports, and you have an idea what they meanâ€"write a comment below, or submit a pull request.

Start result position (parameter 7)

This parameter is the cumulative result position of the first result on the page. On page 2 it will be 10, on page 3 it will be 20, and so on.

It's better to think of this as the page number of results (after subtracting 1, and multiplying by 10)â€"because it's quite a long time ago now that there were always 10 results on every page. Anyhow, you'll need to interpret it in conjunction with parameter 6.

Result position (parameter 6)

This is very similar to the cd parameter, but there are a few important differences:

cd is counted from 1 (and upwards), whereas the ved result position is counted from 0.
On page 2 of the results, cd keeps on counting (i.e. 11, 12, 13â€¦), but the ved result position is reset to 0.
Sometimes the cd parameter is not passed (e.g. for image thumbnails). In these cases, though, the ved result position does seem to get passed.

The ved result position is the more reliable of the two. If, for example, the cd parameter is 11â€"you wouldn't know if this is the 11^th result on page 1, or the first result on page 2. With the ved result position, you can distinguish the two.

Sub-result position (parameter 5)

This parameter is like the result position (parameter 6), except it tells you the position in a list of sub-results, such as breadcrumbs, or one-page sitelinks.

How to decode ved codes and pull the information into Analytics

To import the ved into Analytics, you'll need to include some Javascript to decode it (and send it to the Analytics servers).

To do this, you can modify your Analytics JavaScript "snippet" as follows:

1. Include the ved-decode and base64 libraries

You need to include these libraries in your HTML, somewhere before your Analytics snippet.

The ved-decode library is needed to decode the ved and extract the information we want.
The base64 library is needed for Internet Explorer users, because they won't have a native Base64 decoder available in their browser.

Each of the two libraries is licensed under a permissive open-source licence (MIT / Apache v2.0)â€"which lets you use it in any kind of project.

  <!-- Include both these scripts or copy them into your main JavaScript file -->  <!--[if lt IE 10]>      <script type="text/javascript"          src="http://veddecode.opensource.dpo.org.uk/js/base64-1.0.min.js"></script>  <![endif]-->  <script type="text/javascript"      src="http://veddecode.opensource.dpo.org.uk/js/ved_analytics-1.0.min.js"></script>

2. Send the ved data to Analytics

How you do this depends on whether you're using the old Analytics (ga.js) code, or the new Universal Analytics (analytics.js) code:

If you're using Analytics (ga.js)

Add this JavaScript code just before the call to _gaq.push(['_trackPageview'])â€"

      // The custom variable code needs to go *before* you record the pageview      // (i.e. the call to _trackPageview)      (function(w) {          var customVars = [              { slot: 1, name: 'Google link index',          v: 'linkIndex'         },              { slot: 2, name: 'Google link type',           v: 'linkType'          },              { slot: 3, name: 'Google result position',     v: 'resultPosition'    },              { slot: 4, name: 'Google sub-result position', v: 'subResultPosition' },              { slot: 5, name: 'Google page',                v: 'page'              }              ];          if (w._gaq && w.VedDecode && w.VedDecode.ved) {              for (var i = 0, val; i < customVars.length; ++i) {                  val = w.VedDecode[customVars[i].v];                  w._gaq.push([                      '_setCustomVar',                      customVars[i].slot,                      customVars[i].name,                      val ? val + '' : '(not set)',                      2 // session scope                      ]);              }          }      })(window);

If you're using Universal Analytics (analytics.js)

For Universal Analytics you need to set up custom dimensions corresponding to the five parameters:

Custom dimension name	Scope
Google link index	Session
Google link type	Session
Google result position	Session
Google sub-result position	Session
Google page	Session

(These are suggested names, of courseâ€"you can call them whatever you like.)

Then add this JavaScript code just before the call to ga('send', 'pageview'):

      // The custom variable code needs to go *before* recording the pageview      (function(w) {          if (w.ga && w.VedDecode && w.VedDecode.ved) {              // Send pageview with custom dimension data              ga('set', {                  dimension1: getVedValue('linkIndex'),                  dimension2: getVedValue('linkType'),                  dimension3: getVedValue('resultPosition'),                  dimension4: getVedValue('subResultPosition'),                  dimension5: getVedValue('page')                  });          }          function getVedValue(key) {              var ret = w.VedDecode[key];              return ret ? ret + '' : '(not set)';          }      })(window);

Make sure that the index generated for each dimension in your control panel corresponds to the dimension number in the JavaScript code.

For example, if the generated index for the Google link index dimension is 7, then you need to refer to it as dimension7 in the code.

Using the data

After a short while, the ved data should show up in your reports!

How you then use the data is up to you.

Clearly, though, it's going to be useful for optimizing different routes to your site, and looking at how different routes affect your conversion rates.

Personally, I think it's very interestingâ€"for AdWords customersâ€"to see how adword position (i.e. link index) affects conversion rates. It's very frustrating only having daily averages to work with, because you can't see (in the standard reports) how much your adword position varies during the day.

Please let us know what you do with the data in the comments below.

But what if no referer header gets passed?

This is important, because if there's no referer header, then there's no ved parameter.

The referer won't get passed in some cases:

If your site isn't secured by HTTPS

If your site uses HTTP, or it uses HTTP for some pages (in particular, any landing pages), then the referer header may not get passed. Sometimesâ€"even if a user is using secure (HTTPS) searchâ€"Google redirects them through a (non-secure) intermediate HTTP click-tracking page. When this happens, you'll get the referer (and the ved parameter).

However, if Google passes them through a secure (HTTPS) click-tracking page, then you won't get the referer (or the ved parameter) unless your site is also using HTTPS.

In conclusionâ€"if you want to be sure of getting the ved parameter for as many users as possibleâ€"use HTTPS for your site. (Of course this isn't the only reason to use HTTPS!)

If the user is on a mobile device

For mobile devices, Google has started to use hyperlink auditingâ€"which should have been called "click tracking", and is better known as the "ping" attributeâ€"instead of redirects through a click-tracking page. Hyperlink auditing isn't as reliable as a redirect, though, which is why:

Google only use it for mobile devices
all paid results (e.g. adwords) still go through traditional redirects

According to Google, the main motivation for using the ping attribute (only) on mobile devices, is to improve speedâ€"and I'm inclined to believe them. But it probably also helps that:

mobile users are probably less likely to turn hyperlink auditing off (or know how, or know what it is)
mobile devices run modern browsers, which support hyperlink auditing

Howeverâ€"you might askâ€"if mobile devices don't go through a redirect, and my site is using HTTPS, shouldn't I get the referer anyway?

Yes, that's right, you should get the referer!
But sadly, Google has specifically disabled it.

What Google do, if they use hyperlink auditing, is to set the meta referrer element to origin:

      <meta name="referrer" content="origin">

This instructs the user's browser to include the document's origin in the referer header rather than the full URL of the document. So the referer will just state (something like) <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/">https://www.google.co.uk/</a>.

Before you think, "How evil!"â€"there's a good reason for this. If they didn't do this, then the search terms would also appear in the referer, and Google has committed to turning this off for privacy reasons.

So, mobile devices are another kettle of fish, and ved code analysis won't work most of the time. But for most sites, mobile devices will still be in the minority, and things change quickly anyway. (For example, if there was a new anti-privacy law requiring hyperlink auditing to be off by default, that would certainly be the death of it.)

vineri, 3 ianuarie 2014

Best of the West (Wing Week)

What Should I Put on the Homepage? - Whiteboard Friday

What Should I Put on the Homepage? - Whiteboard Friday

Video transcription

Seth's Blog : Accuracy, resilience and denial

Accuracy, resilience and denial

More Recent Articles

joi, 2 ianuarie 2014

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

New Year, New Coverage

How to Use the Information Inside Google's Ved Parameter

How to Use the Information Inside Google's Ved Parameter

The ved parameter to the rescue

What is a ved code anyway?

What's inside a ved code?

Link index (parameter 1)

Link type (parameter 2)

Start result position (parameter 7)

Result position (parameter 6)

Sub-result position (parameter 5)

How to decode ved codes and pull the information into Analytics

1. Include the ved-decode and base64 libraries

2. Send the ved data to Analytics

Using the data

But what if no referer header gets passed?

If your site isn't secured by HTTPS

If the user is on a mobile device

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

vineri, 3 ianuarie 2014

Video transcription

joi, 2 ianuarie 2014

The ved parameter to the rescue

What is a ved code anyway?

What's inside a ved code?

Link index (parameter 1)

Link type (parameter 2)

Start result position (parameter 7)

Result position (parameter 6)

Sub-result position (parameter 5)

How to decode ved codes and pull the information into Analytics

1. Include the ved-decode and base64 libraries

2. Send the ved data to Analytics

Using the data

But what if no referer header gets passed?

If your site isn't secured by HTTPS

If the user is on a mobile device

Pagini

Persoane interesate

Arhivă blog

Subscribe to