Traffic Flow SEO

I have used a lot of analytics programs in the last couple of years and as of late (since Google bought it from Urchin) I have been using Google Analytics almost exclusively. As Google has made some updates I have liked the service even more, but recently on a whim I decided to try a new analytics package called GoingUp!. While I was initially drawn to the idea that it was an analytics package geared towards the SEO crowd, I have grown to really like some of the features which Google Analytics lacks. While I was a little put off by what they call free SEO tools which ended up actually being cheap (freely available) tools that were not completely functional in some instances, overall I am very happy (using the free package to test the service) as of now.

Here is the pitch from GoingUp!

"Introducing GoingUp! site tracking, web analytics and search engine ranking. Similar to Google analytics, you'll see a COMPLETE picture of your website traffic, visitors and ranking. Where we excel over other site analytics is our extra features and great service. Easily see web traffic, visitor actions, where your visitors come from and where they go on your site, all in real-time. Need to track sales and other critical onsite factors? With our advanced web analytics you'll always be in the know."

While I agree with the additional features that Google lacks, I would not completely remove Google Analytics from my sites. I would run GoingUp! to be an additional, and sometimes easier to read source of analytics and real time information.

Some of the benefits of GoingUp! I have experienced are (as compared to Google Analytics)

- A better and easier to digest presentation of the much of the analytics data.
- Better layout and options for tracking visitor paths within the site.
- A feature called - Visitor Activity that gives you a quick snapshot of each visitor, where they came from, what page they entered and what page they exited.
- My favorite - SiteSpy, track your visitors in real-time as they come to the site and as they bounce around. It really gives you a completely different perspective on the site usage as you are watching people interact with it (a little big brother, but fun).

The biggest disadvantage I have experienced is the lack of long-term data. You can buy packages that allow data to be collected for a longer period of time, but the pricing can run upwards of $60 per month and would not even handle the traffic data for 6 months of one of my directory Websites. This is a little disappointing.

Overall what I think I like best about GoingUP! is the way it makes analytics appear much more intimate where I find Google Analytics more formal and proper. GoingUp! allows me to get a better vision of my site on a minute by minute basis while Google Analytics allows me to see and analyze the long term data and traffic in order to make better marketing choices. As both packages serve a specific purpose, I will probably end up using both of them together on my sites in the future.

The DMOZ aka "The Open Directory" started out with the best intentions, but as of late has become that train wreck that you don't want to watch, but you can't take your eyes off of it. In it's original form it was a human-edited directory that would list all the best sites on the Web. This was very important as the search technology was not very advanced at the time and this directory was an important resource for Web surfers.

Many early (and some current) search engines utilized information from the DMOZ in their results. This gave the DMOZ some early recognition and respect which made it a desirable directory to have your Website listed. In 2000 Google decided to take a copy of the DMOZ, sort it by PageRank and call it the Google Directory. What is important about this is that in addition to creating the Google Directory, Google also started to give extra preference to Websites listed within the directory (DMOZ/Google Directory) and as Google has grown in popularity and reach getting a listing within the DMOZ has become even that much more important.

Today, it has almost become impossible to get your site listed in the DMOZ as the volunteers that run the directory may only be active within certain categories that they have an interest in. Many sites are submitted and the owners never hear anything back, even after years and years of waiting. How can you figure out which categories are active, which may give you a chance of having your submission seen by a volunteer? Well you can use - DMOZ is alive to check this out.

Even though a listing in the DMOZ is still considered a big plus for SEO efforts it may be coming to end. First of all, Google has becoming slower and slower in updating their Google Directory with updated DMOZ data. This may be a sign that Google is losing interest in the value of the directory. In the past couple of years I have seen many forum posts offering to get your site listed in the DMOZ for different amounts of money supposedly from DMOZ editors/volunteers. Recently, Shoe Money which is a very popular Blog was sent an email requesting money from a "so called" editor asking for $5,000 to not have their site removed. This email was ignored and amazing enough a follow-up email came and the site was removed. This is absolutely amazing and you can read all about it here under a post labeled - DMOZ Extortion.

In addition to everything else, the DMOZ had been sold, appeared to have potentially run out of funds for hosting, saved at the last moment, stopped submissions for a period of time and had general errors and inconsistencies. Is it just a matter of time before this mammoth directory ends it run or will it be updated and reborn? My guess is that the interest is waining and the corruption questions may be it's downfall.

UPDATE - Joost De Valk, a former DMOZ editor tries to figure out what is going on with the Shoe Money Blog corruption and gets locked out of his account. You can read more at - The DMOZ mob strikes again…

You can also see this corruption played out over at ScriptLance.com (custom freelance programming forum) where people are buying links. You may write this off as a fraud, but he reality is these jobs get completed and the people who complete these jobs do not get paid until the job is done. Check it out for yourself here - DMOZ Listings For Sale

If you are interested in seeing what the future holds for the Web, you may want to check out Killer Startups. This great site reviews around 30 new Web startups every business day. I have found many great tools and resources here and am always on the outlook for the next 'big' thing or idea and this provides a great consolidated resource for this type of information.

To check out all the new startups click here - Killer Startups

It seems like it never was going to be updated, but after 19 months Google has finally pulled a new data dump from the Open Directory (DMOZ) into it's Google Directory - which is essentially just the DMOZ branded with Google's logo. Why is this important? Well it seemed that not to long ago the DMOZ was all but left for dead. New submissions were halted, the directory appeared to not be accessible (or certain categories not accessible) for periods of time and Google had not pulled data from it in awhile. It looked like it's days were numbered, but recently the directory started accepting submissions again (getting approved - that is another story), it appears more stable and Google is pulling data again. I guess that this means the DMOZ will be around for awhile longer and still powerful in influencing Google search engine results.


For information adding your site to the DMOZ - click here.

mylivesearch (beta) just sent me an email to alert me to their "World Wide Public Beta Launch" on Wednesday August 29th. I thought by signing up early for alerts I would actually see something before everyone else, but it looks like everyone is invited.

You can check it out at - mylivesearch

In case you don't remember from previous posts, this new engine may be pretty interesting as it is supposed to search the net in real-time or as they call it 'live'. The idea is this would provide very current and up-to-date results. My guess is they may not have enough funding to keep a potential hit like this on their own and if successful it may get gobbled up by a larger player.

Finervista is a new search engine focused on finding the best online seminars and Webcasts. Here is how the site describes itself:

Finervista is a free and fast educational and learning resource for business professionals. Use Finervista to get up to speed or stay in the know with the latest in your field.

* Find the best free educational business webcasts and online seminars by industry experts on many business and technical topics.

* Search thousands of online seminars in all areas of information technology, computers, software, career training, business management, sales, marketing, human resources, and more.

* Find and attend a live online seminar today. Or view a recorded webcast at your leisure. Do it right from your web browser without ever leaving your office.

Check out today by visiting Finervista.

Google recently announced and released their new "Universal Search" system for anyone searching in English. What does this mean? It means Google will now blend in listings from their news, video, images, local and book search engines along with those it currently gathers from crawling Web pages. This leaves a lot of new opportunities for your SEO efforts. Below are some ideas you may want to consider:

Make sure your site/business (if applicable) is listed in Google Maps.

Add a video (or videos) to Google Video and YouTube (owned by Google) tagging it with your important keywords.

Make sure to use good alt tags on all the images on your site to entice the Google image bot to correctly index them. Please note that the Google image site gets updated rather slowly, so don't expect immediate results as they may take 6-12 months.

A great example of Google's "Universal Search" in action can be seen when you search for "Laird Hamilton". The first item you will see in the search engine results are 3 images, then a couple of Web sites followed by a couple of YouTube videos all within the first page of results!

This question gets asked all the time and the quick answer is yes. But not all free directories are actually worth submitting to. I just read a great article from the Alive Directory Blog which does a great job of summarizing this.

You can check it out by clicking here.

Social bookmarking/networking sites are part of the Web 2.0 experience that is the future of the more interactive Web. In the last couple of years these sites have really taken off and it seems new ones are added on a daily basis.

SEO marketers have been submitting to these sites hoping to create traffic and get quality backlinks for their sites. With the amount of social sites available to submit to this has become a very tedious job. As of late, we are starting to see some tools to try and make this easier. Below are a couple of newer ones that are getting a little attention:

Social Poster - Great site that allows you to submit to up to 40 social sites. Includes most of the BIG sites, but also has some of the smaller, less known ones as well.

OnlyWire - Offers up to 19 social sites to submit to. The list is very interesting and includes some sites not found in other tools.

META data makes your Web page(s) easier to find. Some search engines, like Yahoo and MSN still rely heavily on the contents of HTML META tags to understand the content of your Web page(s).

To build META data for your Web pages(s) can sometimes be difficult. I recently have found an online service that has teamed up with Yahoo, Google and Wordtracker to make this easier with relevant suggestions after reviewing your Web page(s), articles or any content that you load in. The service is a feature of WordsFinder.com called keyword suggestion.

An interesting service that promises to help increase your Alexa ranking is now available. The company is called UpMyRank.com and the premise of the service is that if you load the Alexa toolbar into your browser and visit sites they request you will receive traffic at a 3 to 1 rate (you visit three sites for them and they will request one other member visit your site). This traffic will be guaranteed to be running the Alexa toolvar which will create a credit for you with Alexa (as the toolbar is the way that Alexa gathers much of its information and ranking data). With enough of these people visiting your site your Alexa traffic ranking will increase and your site will appear as if it is getting more traffic.

Check out the service at - UpMyRank.com

Many sites have URLs that incorporate underscores. Examples of these could include:

Top level domain:
- www.i_love_google.com

Subpage domain
- www.xyz.com/this_is_an_extreme_example_of_an_underscored_url

Matt Cutts, head of Google's Web Spam Team recently announced at WordCamp 2007 that Google will now treat underscores as word separators. What does this mean to you? It means that in the past those underscored URLs appeared as one long word to Google, so from the examples listed above Google would see www.i_love_google.com not as three words - i, love and google, but as one big word - i_love_google. Since most people do not use underscores in their searching and they don't tend to search for big phrases utilizing underscores, having underscores in your URL did not help you from an SEO perspective. Now all that is changing and with this news I expect to see a lot more underscoring usage in the future.