In addition to the launch of Google real time search, a new feature was presented. The new service actually takes the Google Universal Search Results ( available today in the list of the results of a query ) and insert it to the search box at the end of the Google Suggest values.

An example for it could be found when one queries the weather in Belgium – it would be enough writing the first words of the query and the answer will be available in the search box itself, without the need to wait for writing the whole query and clicking for the results. As can be seen in the image below.

This new service supports queries in field such as: weather, flight schedules, local time, postal code, package tracking, answers, definitions, calculator, currency and units conversion.

Currently the service is available only in Google.com, but in the future intends to cover other areas of interest and regions.

Have you ever found yourself in a fancy dinner asked by your host about his new expensive bottle of wine standing in front of you on the table, but you didn’t have the knowledge on which harvest it was?

Well, Google is proud to solve all of these problems with its new service – Google Goggles.

Google posted in its official Mobile Blog of its new search service called Google Goggles. The new service allows you to take a picture of an item ( could be a bulding, site, product, restaurant,  etc ) and get immediate information about that item back to you cell phone. The service also suggests to take a picture of other person’s business card, for example, and get his personal details sent to the contact list in your cell phone.

This service is added to a list of other similar services brought by Google ( such as – Search by Voice,  ”What’s Nearby” , etc ) which intend to spread the search into other areas than the classic web search we are all used to.

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the future, so it says, we will be able to walk in the fields and characterize plants and flowers, and even plan our next Chess steps.

One might concern about the future ability of such service, for example, if we could take pictures of people we don’t know and yet get a lot of information about them ( an ability which today is almost possible with all the social networks around us ) without getting their permission to do so.

All in all it seems like a very innovative service, and would be very interesting to see where it will take us.

Every SEO expert knows that one of the biggest problems we face is duplicate content. When there are two different URLs for one page, the search engine is never clear on how to treat them. It has to decide which page to show for a specific keyword, which page to give the PageRank to and which page to consider as the main authority. It may also divide the authority and page rank, an action that will only take away from the page you’re trying to promote.

There are many ways to create duplicate content. Here are only few::
-    Different URL format for the same page (sort parameters are very popular here)
-    Print versions of pages
-    refid parameters (affiliates etc)
-    Different search query results and navigation issues

The canonical URL tag is a joint initiative of Google, MSN and Yahoo. All three united in order to create a common tag called “canonical URL tag”. This tag lets all the three big search engines know which of the duplicate pages is the main one and it can then pass all the authority, link juice and main focus of the robot to that right page. If there are two similar pages with slight different URLs, a canonical tag placed on the duplicate content URL will tell the robots which page it should promote. As for the importance of this tag, according to Google, “it’s a hint that we honor strongly”.

The canonical tag must be located in the header of the page should will look like this:
<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.compucall-usa.com/blog”>.

Why is it different from a 301 redirect?

1. As opposed to a 301 redirect that redirects the page both for the user and the search engine, the Canonical URL tag is just for search engines. Users will still be able to reach and view all your duplicate versions. Hence if you’re only trying to sort the results on a page, you can.
2. The engine will verify that the content is similar and that the use of this tag is justified. In a 301 redirect, you can decide whether the redirect is justified. Regarding how much similar the duplicate pages have to be, Google say that they “allow slight differences”.
3. The 301 URL redirect operates exclusively on a single root domain, so you can’t use this tag to redirect between two different domains.

Unclear issues

The “link juice” question is still unclear – we will have to test it and see the results.
Also, the transitivity of the links is unclear (only Yahoo mentioned that they support transitivity of this tag).

For more information, you can read Matt Cutt’s blog post and SEOMOZ’s blog post (by randfish).

The organic results came up, very standard vanilla results, no surprises, I quickly jumped to Google Images and that’s when bam, I’m hit with 13 image results of a Glam model (I’m not complaining) and another 7 results that were Japanese animation related for some series called Aria. I checked my Google Image settings (they were set to moderate), I switched them to strict and she got cut down to 7 results with the rest being the Japanese animation. So I went back to the Web Search results and she’s not there. Not on the top 10, not in the top 60.

What’s weird here is how Google can choose to filter results from its organic web results when in Google Trends and Google Insight she ranks miles ahead of the other SERP’s and yet in Google Images they give her her due.  She’s also got references in Google Groups at positions 7 and 8, and position 3 in Google blog search.

I think Google needs to be much more consistent in the way it gives its results throughout its indexes. At the moment it seems like either the Google family of products is either working in silos and aren’t communicating or they’re just milking certain interests in certain parts of its websites. Any which way, it sends a confusing message. It’s a wonder no one can’t figure out the Google Algorithm, I don’t think they have it straight either

So here we go again. A full new release of our favorite Google PPC editing software, Google Adwords Editor, was released covertly in the middle of the night. So let’s see what’s new and we’ll also go over what we think is still missing!

New features available:

First page bid estimates: First page bid estimates for all the keywords in the campaign. There is no longer “Minimum cost-per-click” (CPC) bids. Yay!

Keyword Quality Score: A new tab for the quality score of every keyword in the account. About time this feature graced us. We don’t have to go back and forth with the web version to find out what where we went wrong.

New feature for Keyword Opportunities: Tailor your keywords according to location and language. With all the international clients we have, we’d been begging our local Google representative for this for a long time. This is a big deal for us.

The ‘Volume’ column on the Keyword expansion tab of the Keyword Opportunities tool is now showing absolute numbers (traffic for the last month) instead of scaled values.

Campaign targeting in the data view: You can see the location and language settings on the data view. These columns are hidden by default, but you can select them with the column chooser on the campaigns tab.

What I think is still missing?

• Changing the delivery method: when setting up a campaign I still miss the ability to determine if the delivery method will be standard or accelerated.
• Device platform: show the campaign on desktop or laptop computers or on mobile phones (or both).
• Ad serving: optimize or rotate ad texts.

This is a great step forward from Google. I’m not sure if it’s a full version upgrade, but I’ll take it. The location and language options are a huge plus. This is a better morning for the PPC team here.  Way to go Google.

You can read the official Google Release for Adword Editor 7.0 here.

Google AdWords is now enabling advertisers to decide on which devices their ads will appear. Advertisers can now opt out of showing ads on desktop and laptop computers and target only mobile users with full browsers.

Full browsers can show standard HTML pages and support an online purchase process from start to finish (like the Iphone). There are not many mobile phones that have this feature. Most mobile phones today have WAP browsers that require a special mobile AdWords campaign.

Google states: “Until recently, this was the default setting on all campaigns. However, we’re now able to allow more granular control of what devices you’d like your ads to appear on. We offer the option to opt out of showing ads on desktop and laptop computers for those advertisers who want to target only mobile users, or for those who want to break out their campaigns for each targeting option.”

This new feature in AdWords is giving the advertiser the option to decide if they want to create two different campaigns: one for mobile users and one for desktop and laptop users.

Now here we have a local business that’s got the 4 of the top listings in Google Local. That’s great right? They seem to be an authority, that Google trusts them to be important enough that they’ve given them 40% of the listings in the local results. There’s just one problem though, this company has zero organic results on the first page, the second, the third, actually they have no organic results in any of the top 10 pages (100 total results, I gave up after that).

I’m a little bit lost. If Google thinks a company is relevant to the search query, and important enough to give it 4 top local listings, which in accordance with AOL’s leaked search data (I know it’s for organic search and not local) is worth 50.98% of all clicks, then why aren’t they important enough to be in the top 100 organic results for the same search query.

Local search is cool and I’m sure if you’re looking for a specific pizza chain you want to receive only those results in your local to find the closest one, but there needs to be some sort of correlation between the great quality of work and Spam filtering Google and Matt Cutts do in their organic results and the quality of Google Local.

I twittered Matt Cutts about this and this was his answer:

I don’t know if these restaurants are legitimate or not, I honestly believe they are. I don’t think that this restaurant has had Google Local verification cards sent to all their family members spread over London and then entered all their addresses in order to get more listings. My one issue is that it makes no sense that they can have this kind of presence in the local listings without ANY presence in the organic listings. I think that Google needs to make that connection and soon for their local results to have any kind of credibility.

Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land also did a write up about something similar and how he managed to hijack some local results and change the details, you can check his post as well, it’s worth the read for sure.

Google has recently opened its GAAC program in order to create standardization of web analytics online. Only companies or people who pass a special analytics test can present in their website the GAAC logo and authorized to call themselves GAAC. Therefore, clients will be able to get professional service and know exactly what to look for when giving the access to their precious database to others.

Compucall is presently one of only two companies that received the GAAC authorization in Israel and one of 62 worldwide.

Read more details regarding our web analytics services.

Compucall is GAAC!

The upcoming change will include, among others:

*Advanced Segmentation
*Custom Reports
*Motion Charts
*Advanced Account Dashboard
*Data Export API
*Integration with AdSense

Below is a detailed review of some of these new upcoming features:

Advanced Segmentation – Visitor Segmentation Magic

In the past, real audience segmentation was only available in a handful of web analytics tools. My personal favorite has always been ClickTracks, a tool I’m actively using since 2004 (I wrote a post on its segmentation engine on my blog).

Ever since Google Analytics launched, its major weakness vs. ClickTracks has been its inability to custom segment, on the fly as well as to run analysis on historical data.
Well, something happened today folks. Google’s new segmentation engine is an amazing segmentation wizard, fast, easy to use, deep and able to go back into data from the past – simply beautiful!

Custom Reports – Google Analytics A La Cart

OMG. Simply select you’re desired KPI’s, drag them on to the page whiteboard and save – you’ve got yourself a report! I cannot imagine how much time this is going to save!

Motion Charts – Web Analytics Diamond Mining

In first look, this feature seems out of some crazy geeky labs, but come to look deeper into the philosophy – What web analytics is really about – it’s about getting the dirt off the raw data and finding the uncut diamond at its origin – how can I compare multidimensional KPI’s, get rid of irrelevant data and find my gold? simply click “visualize” and you’re on the way!

AdSense Integration – BI for the rest of us!

I saved this one for last, as opposed to the previous features, this one is not pure web analytics, but IS very much business intelligence, a tool which for many web properties may very well help open their eyes and improve both their top lines, bottom lines and user experience.

Wouldn’t you like to know which country generates users with highest eCPM for your web site? Wouldn’t you like to visualize how users click ads on your popular pages? Wouldn’t you like to see all the data in one place so you can see the holistic view of your online business? Well, you’re going to be able to do it real soon!

As mentioned, there a few other changes to the system, some visual, some practical – all will help us get more of our analytics experience -

P.S For more info on web analtics and google analytics professional services..

Following their successful passing of the accreditation and the results we see every day from the PPC campaigns they manage, I have asked them some key questions about the way they use web analytics to improve the campaigns’ ROI.

During our conversation we started to compare the various ways people advertise their products today. Whether it be by “traditional” methods like TV, radio and print or by online campaigns like Adwords, advertisers are constantly looking for ways to increase their conversion rates and ROI. This is when the discussion took a turn towards behavioral targeting and the possibility to retarget visitors. So I decided to write about retargeting and PPC instead.

PPC – How Does the Google Adwords Content Network work?

Google Adwords metrics are centered around keywords and websites that relate to those keywords and allow Google to place your PPC ads on them.

According to Google:
“Using your keywords, Google’s contextual targeting technology can automatically match your ads to web pages in our content network that are most relevant to your business.”

Google Adwords - contextual targeting technology

Google Adwords placement performance reports also allow you to refine the placement of your ads in order to improve your ROI:

“With the Placement Performance Report , you have visibility into where all your ads appear. Review your ad’s performance on a site-by-site basis to see impression, click, cost, and conversion data, and use this data to identify well-performing sites to target more aggressively and low-value placements that require content optimization or exclusion.”

Google Adwords - placement performance report

Retargeting and PPC

The basic idea behind Retargeting is that by visiting a website, the visitors are showing that they are interested in what that website has to offer. Retargeting uses a website visit — or a search ad that led a web user to a website — as a behavior that can be targeted. This behavior can then be used to serve relevant ads to the visitors after they leave the website.
 
For example, if I search for digital camera reviews and click on a PPC ad for a site that is relevant, then by using retargeting methods I could be served PPC ads for digital cameras sold on that site after I already left it. If I click the PPC ad and go back then I am more likely to purchase a camera because I have previously shown an interest in the products. Moreover, I placed interest in a brand, and the retargeting re-enforces the marketing message of the brand I already met (“oh, I already saw that nice site… let’s come back and buy the camera…”)

PPC data – Relevancy or Recency?

As the interview with my colleagues progressed we discussed such web analytics metrics as search queries, top referrers and time on site. But then the conversation turned to retargeting.

One metric that is available in Google analytics but is currently underused by PPC managers is “Visits to purchase”.

Google Analytics - visits to purchase

Right now it is less useful to them because the Adwords PPC ads are arranged by ad groups and not by visitors. This means that you can track a certain Ad’s performance right down to the keyword level and see which keywords perform better than others. But you can’t track visitors that clicked the PPC ads after they leave your site. Google however, can and does.

The Future of PPC?

This is where the conversation got interesting. We all read about the fact that Google has started to serve PPC ads that are targeted to the searchers based on their previous search queries. Google also knows how long it takes for a visitor that came from PPC to convert. Basically, this is the way Google calculates the “Visits to Purchase” metric. This means that using cookies, and Google search history (if you are logged in) Google knows if and when you visited my site before.

Wouldn’t it be great if Google was to add a new feature which allows you to create special ad groups to be shown specifically to user that visited your site before?

Now this is COOL!!! We have keywords campaigns, content campaigns, placement, radio, print, TV, local, mobile – why not “retargeting ads”!

Think about it, you could serve highly targeted and personalized ads for your would be returning visitors. Imagine being able to have an ad on the lines of:

“Remember your last visit to our site www. oursite.com?
You won’t believe the things we have to show you now!”

Hey, I don’t create PPC ads I just analyze them . The above example may be a little simple but you get my point.

 Targeted PPC traffic – would you use it?

After going over the idea several times I finally asked both PPC managers the following question:

If you could create ads targeted specifically for visitors that saw your site before, would you?

One answer was a quick “yes. For sure” while the other one was “probably not. I’m not sure it’s worth the time or even if it will be productive. But it might be interesting to test.”

We all agree that it’s better to make this distinction on the site itself and have special welcome messages and pages for returning visitors, but most sites today can not do that.

I am interested to know what you think on the subject:

If you could retarget visitors that saw your site before, would you?