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Tuesday, 21 June 2011

Google Analytics Filters That Every Website Should Have

Google analytics is one of the most commonly used web analytics program today. While most of use it how many of us are actually aware of its full potential. This wonderful free analytics platform has got some really good features which if used effectively can provide great insights to marketers and business. Filters in Google Analytics is one such extremely powerful feature. Are you using it ?

Filters in Google analytics is one of the most powerful feature that allows for a lot of customization and manipulation of the data. Filters are applied to the data that is received in a Google Analytics account to manipulate the final data to provide more accurate information. They allow you to include, exclude, search and replace data in addition to the options for creating custom and advanced filters.

In this article we will discuss some of the Filters that you must have, if you are using Google analytics for tracking and website performance.

How to Create a Filter in Google Analytics
You can access the Filters from your Profile Settings page in Google Analytics. Just click “Add Filter” to add a new filter to a profile.

RegEx in Google Analytics
RegEx or Regular Expressions are extremely important when it comes to creating these filters. Regular expressions are special characters that match or capture portions of a field, as well as the rules that govern all characters. You can read in details about the RegEx used in Google Analytics here .

Google Analytics Filter to Exclude Internal Traffic

Every website gets a fair share of internal traffic that is visits by webmasters, marketers and other members of the team who are part of the same business. It is important to exclude this traffic from your analytics data as otherwise you would have an inflated traffic count.

Google analytics provides a predefined filter for this, after you have clicked on the “Add Filter” on Profile Settings page it would take you to the “Create New Filter” page. On that page..

Name for your Filter

Select “Predefined Filter” from the radio buttons

Under Filter Type, select “Exclude” in the First drop down box, “traffic from the IP addresses” in the second drop down and “that are equal to” in the third dropdown.

A box would appear below, where you need to put your / your client’s IP address that you want to exclude

Save Changes and you are done .

Filter to Exclude Multiple IP addresses or a Range of IP Address ?

This is a very likely situation when your client has multiple offices in different locations and Google Analytics provides a solution for that as well. In such cases, we will have to use a “Custom Filter”.

Instead of “Predefined Filter” ( as in Step (b) above ) select Custom Filter radio button.

A new set of options would appear, select “Exclude” radio button.

In Filter Field drop down select “Visitor IP Address”

In Filter Pattern, you will have to mention the IP addresses, or the range of IP addresses using Regular Expressions , commonly referred to as Reg Ex.

Example 1 - if you just need to exclude two IP addresses – 65.42.34.123 and 72.42.35.125 – your Filter Pattern would read as below
65\.42\.34\.123$|^72\.42\.35\.125$

Example 2 – if you need to exclude a range of IP address - 65.42.34.1 - 65.42.34.25
Your Filter pattern would read as below
^65\.42\.34\.([1-9]|1[0-9]|2[0-5])$

Google Analytics All Lowercase Filter

This filter is effective if your URLs are available both in uppercase and lowercase format. Google analytics in such case would treat these two as two different URLs and your data for the same page would be split between the two. The all lowercase filter converts all URLs to lower case.

The picture below explains how to set it up.

Click Image to View Larger

Full Referral URL Filter for Google Analytics

This is a marketer’s bliss :) While Google analytics tells you which websites are referring traffic to you it doesn’t really show the exact complete URL that is the referral source. If you are getting tons of referrals from a huge portal, it can often become difficult to identify the complete URL of your referral source. With this filter you would be able to see the full referral URL for your site.

However, this would require you to move a step further and not just use a Custom Filter but an Advanced Custom Filter. The picture below shows how this is set up.

Click Image to View Larger

You would be getting the resulting data from this filter under User Defined Section in Visits.

These are just three of the common Google Analytics filter that you must apply if you are using GA. There are many more filters that can be used for various purposes and to get a lot of valuable information besides the great insight that GA provides by default.

Before we end, one word of caution. Applying filters can make dramatic changes to the data in an account because it effects the data that is collected by GA. It is advisable to create a separate profile and then apply the filters to it and observe the data in both (with and without filters) profiles for initial few days to ensure that the filters are working as intended. Also, keep in mind that applying filters would affect future data and would not have any impact on the data that is already there in your account.

In case you would have any specific question or requirement about Google Analytics implementation feel free to contact me.

Related Posts:
Ultimate Guide to Google Analytics Setup & Ecommerce Tracking
Measuring Impact of online marketing on offline presence
How to Improve Adwords Campaigns with Analytics
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Page Load Time a Part of Google Algo ?

It has often been argued in the SEO world whether or not page load time affects your organic ranking. While there has been no definitive statement from the search engines most good SEOs would suggest all possible methods to reduce page load time for delivering a better user experience. (and yes that too is a part of a SEOs Job).

Google did declare that they would be considering Page load time in calculating the quality score of a landing page in Adwords more than a year back, however, they have been silent about its impact on the organic front.

Though not a clear statement yet, Google now has given a clear indication to the webmasters about the importance of page load time by including the "Site Performance" tool in their webmaster tool set .

This is a wonderful tool that gives you a detailed graphical representation of your page's load time as well as a relative value of its slowness / fastness ( e.g., slower than 53% of websites etc ) compared to other websites .

In addition the tool also points out some of the pages that are guilty of being slow and a detailed diagnosis of those pages pointing out exactly what is causing the delay and how you can make your website faster.

Now with such a wonderful tool available ( and remember its Free !) there is no reason why you should have a slow website. So get your website registered with Google Webmaster Tools ( if you are not registered yet) and use the site performance tool to reduce your page load time.

Let's all work towards a faster web!
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Height of SEO or a Google Screw Up ?

Well, am still undecided! Searched for the keyword Symbiosis Distance MBA in Google and the first result was a hard core p**n site. And further even without clicking on the link it attempts to download some malware onto your site - which looks absolutely absurd and unbelievable to me. While I can attribute the ranking for the p**n site to some out of mind SEO genius, I have no clue how is it technically possible to initiate a malware attack from the site without clicking the URL or visiting the site.
Check the screen shot for details..

When I first saw this search result, the only thing that I could think of was Google bombing, but then Google has already formally declared that they have killed Google bombing - so what is it this time ?
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How Google Instant Affects SEO and PPC

I have been watching the launch of Google Instant and keeping a tab on the updates and predictions on the web, based on what I see here are few points on how Google Instant would affect SEO and PPC.

How Google Instant Affects Adwords

The number of impressions are going to increase – Google now considers an impression if the visitor is on the same page view for 3 seconds or more – this would be pretty common as visitors would tend to scan through the changing results as they type and also there are slow typers for whom typing a search query with some long words are going to take time. In addition the regular impression count as we used to get based on when the user hits enter or clicks through to some other page would be accounted for.

As an effect of the above point, we are likely to see a higher CPC – with more number of impressions happening on the go the click through rate is likely to go down. Once the CTR is down that would adversely affect quality score and to offset that we will likely have to increase CPC.

Broad keywords would become more important, importance of long tail would be reduced – As we start typing Google starts showing results, as an example- if we consider the query “iPhone Application Developer” – when the user starts typing iPhone Google starts showing relevant ads about iPhone, the user types “app” the results change a little and focus more on iPhone apps and developers and finally if the user completes the query and hits enter Google shows the most relevant set of iPhone application development ads. Now, it would be a clear benefit for a advertiser trying to get traffic from the final keyword to be visible right when the user has typed in the first word of the search phrase( in this case , iPhone) – because if the user can see the relevant result right after typing the first word he is more likely to click through to it rather than completing the full query.
This would mean the advertisers would need to spend more on broad keywords ( making it difficult for smaller companies). Again in doing that, in most cases the broad keywords might not be the most relevant one’s for you – so you tend to receive a bunch of un-targeted click and also the broad keywords would likely have lower level of relevancy, in turn affecting quality score and CPC.

How Google Instant Affects SEO

On SEO front while there is no major shift in the algorithm or ranking factors with Google instant, it would definitely affect the traffic from organic searches. As Google starts to show results on the go, the top three positions would become more important than ever as many searchers would click through to the site once they see the relevant results . Most of them would not bother to scroll down the first page unless they complete the query and in case of a multiphrase search query it is likely that they might find their answers even before completing the query.
However, one of the factors that we always hated Google for might now come to our advantage in some industries. Google has always listed the most authoritative sites on top - taking the example of the previous query "iPhone application development" the above the fold positions are mostly taken by Apple website who is not a direct competitor to the companies trying to sell iPhone development service - hereby forcing the visitors to scroll down. I would also presume, because users would not be able to find the exact type of results as they type the query, chances of them completing the query is much higher in some industries like this ( unless they click through to paid search results) compared to various other industries, in which case they are likely to scroll through the entire search result page.

In long run however the importance of long tail keywords are likely to be reinstated because with this predictive search query inputs and instantly changing results, users would get more knowledgeable on how to search , and which queries can get them the most relevant results and this is likely to initiate more long tail searches.

I think it is too early to predict exactly how Google Instant would change SEO and PPC but apparently it seems this would mean more Adwords spend for advertisers and a tougher competition on the SEO domain.
Feel free to share your thoughts and inputs on how you think Google Instant's effect on SEO and PPC.
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Does Google Bend Their Rules for Brands ?

There has always been a rumor that Google tends to offer some special privilege to the big brands - may it be in organic listings or paid search. While I have mostly been against such notion, today I found something which really surprised me.

We all know, the Google ad standards allow only 25 characters for the headline of an Adwords ad but see the ad copy below - ad ad by ESPN promoting live cricket streaming....

This headline has 30 characters - I tried inserting the same ad into one of my account and as usual Adwords would not allow me to write anything beyond 25 character in the field specific for ad headline.

Then how did ESPN get this?

Does Google bend their rules for big brands ?
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Google Keywords Tool Now Shows Mobile Search Keywords

As I mentioned in my 7 Notable points for Internet marketers in 2011, Mobile is going to get bigger this year and it seems Google is doing everything possible to help the search marketers to target this growing mobile audience.

Google Adwords campaign by default includes desktop as well as mobile devices to run
your ads, however, over the last year we have seen further fine tuning of this capabilities, which now allows paid search professionals to target their mobile ads through Google Adwords to users on specific mobile devices and on specific carriers.

Google mentions that in the third quarter of 2010, Google mobile searches jumped 130% year over year, which indicates that more and more advertisers would be interested in mobile ads.Now to further help Adwords consultants Google has enhanced its Keyword research tool to show mobile specific data. The Google keyword tool now offers options for users to see keyword ideas and statistics for various types of mobile devices under "Advanced Options".

The tool is pretty detailed and there are multiple options to choose from, you can choose to view keyword ideas for -

Mobile device with full internet browsers ( iPhone, Android and similar smart phones)

Mobile WAP devices ( most Internet enabled phones)

All Mobile browsers

Besides, desktop and laptop devices

This could be a fantastic addition for search marketers to understand which queries are specific to or are more common on which type of device. It’s a good idea to search for your target keywords using the keyword research tool, set once for “Desktop and Laptop Devices” and once for mobile. Export both the options in Excel and the compare the volume for common keywords across platforms to better understand the search trends by device.

Also, I would strongly recommend keeping a close eye on your analytics to see if you are getting a sizable traffic volume from mobile devices. Based on this consider setting up separate “mobile only” campaigns, so you can further experiment with these platforms.

It would not be surprising if Bing also beefs up its mobile user targeting options and starts offering new tools of similar nature. This enhancement to Google’s keyword research tool is definitely a great addition for all SEO and Adwords consultants in the New Year and I am sure there would be a lot more new stuff happening in the mobile marketing space this year.
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Google Plus One Likely to Effect Search Results and Quality Score

Google is adding its own version of “Like” button with the launch of +1 ( Plus One) in an attempt to make search more social. Now Google will allow users to vote Plus One for search results as well as on Search ads. Users will get to see both the total number of Plus One votes along with names and contacts of their contacts who have shown their preference.

While it looks primarily like Google’s attempt to replicate Facebook’s “Like” what does it mean for search marketers ? A Plus One vote is a clear indication of human preference and there can be no better judge of a webpage’s quality than a real human user. Google is definitely going to use this as a signal in its algorithm. In fact, this time Matt Cutts himself clearly admits to this , “"When someone recommends something, that's a pretty good indicator of quality," said Matt Cutts. "We are strongly looking at using this in our rankings."

Similarly, on the Adwords front, we already know that high quality score would mean lower CPC and better exposure and this is going to get a shot in the arm with implementation of this Plus One feature. Ads that get a Plus One would likely have a higher quality score, resulting in better performance for the advertiser. This has been further confirmed with the statement by ads group product manager Christian Oestlien, "We will provide reporting in AdWords for plus-ones” "Our belief is that advertisers will see increased performance from ads with personalized annotations."

Inbound links have been one of the strongest signals for organic ranking for a long time now and now as Google has started to become more social , incorporating personalized search results, real time twitter results etc, Plus One is definitely going to be a big step ahead in that direction and can prove to be a key player in determining relevance for algorithmic search results.

Also, looking at it from Google’s perspective, introducing Plus One has multiple benefits. Besides getting a new powerful signal to tidy up the search results, Plus One can actually give Google a second chance to penetrate the social web. When the user tries to hit Plus One for the first time, they would be invited to create a Google profile and adjust the privacy settings. Also, Google would offer publishers the option to embed Plus One buttons to their content pages, so users can vote on content on other websites beyond search results pages and most webmasters would be more than eager to implement this as they realize that Plus One votes can help them get better with organic search results. A positive aspect of this for webmasters would be that to get this Plus One embed code, they would need to login to the Google Webmasters Tools. So the ones who have not yet registered with Webmaster tools would probably have one more reason to do it now.

Everything said and done, it would be fun to see how BlackHats and spammers use the Plus One votes to their advantage. Though Google has been doing a fair job at fighting them, there has been one too many cases where BlackHats and spammers have gamed the Google results and introducing such a simple, manual signal to influence the search results might throw a new challenge for the Google anti-spam team.
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Sunday, 19 June 2011

Google Transit goes to Washington

[Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog]

Every day, many thousands of commuters, locals, and tourists ride public transit in Washington, D.C. To help all of these transit riders find their way around the metro area, today we’re making comprehensive information about D.C.’s public transportation available on Google Transit.

In partnership with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), we’re adding all of D.C.’s Metro and bus stations, stops and routes, as well as connections to other transit systems in nearby cities. You can find this information on Google Maps as well as Google Maps for mobile—no matter where you are, you can get to where you’re going. With Google Transit, D.C. metro-area commuters—including those in Baltimore, Montgomery and Jefferson counties—may discover a quicker route to work, while visitors can easily make their way from Reagan National Airport straight to the Smithsonian.

Public transportation is a vital part of city infrastructure and can help alleviate congestion and reduce emissions. But planning your trip on public transit can be challenging, especially when there are multiple transit agencies and you need to use information from multiple sources to figure out the best route. With mapping tools like the transit feature, we’re working to make that easier.

Directions are also available on Google Maps for mobile—so if you’re graduating from GWU and want to meet some friends in Adams Morgan to celebrate, it’s as easy as pulling out your phone. If you’re using an Android device, for example, search for [Adams Morgan] in Google Maps, click on the Places result and select “Directions.” Switch to Transit in the upper-left corner and find out which bus gets you there fastest.

Wherever your journey takes you, whether using public transit, driving, biking or walking, we hope Google Transit directions in D.C. make finding your way a little easier.

Posted by Noam Ben Haim, Product Manager, Google Maps

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Google Map Maker on Campus

As part of the recent US Map Maker launch, the Map Maker Community team has begun a series of campus visits across the US.

Our first stop was the University of California at Berkeley, where we gave students and faculty a chance to learn about Google Map Maker and work with Map Maker team members in person to map their campus.

Even though the map of Berkeley and the UC Berkeley Campus on Google Maps were already well mapped, students still identified many opportunities to add their local knowledge to the map. Edits included moving location markers, tracing building boundaries, and adding names of campus dorms. The Google Map Maker community team was on site to guide these new mappers and note their thoughtful feedback.

Participants were excited about making corrections and contributions to the map in their area, particularly the U.C. Berkeley campus, and seeing the edits they made appear on the monitor that had been set up on the big screen at the front of the room to show real-time mapping.

Everyone has local knowledge they can add to the map. Help us make your school look even better! Check out your college campus at mapmaker.google.com and leave your mark on the map by drawing walking paths, adding details to your school's buildings, and more.

For more information on how to get started and to connect with other mappers, check out the Google Map Maker community forum. You can also reach out to the Map Maker community team at mapping@google.com.

Happy Mapping!

Posted by Andrew Kornblatt, Map Maker Community Team

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Exploring space with Google

Cross-posted from the Google Students Blog

Update: The live interview with the crew of the Endeavour will stream at 6 AM Eastern time on Thursday at youtube.com/pbsnewshour. That's 11 AM in London, 12 PM for much of Europe, and 3 AM on the West Coast of the United States. Don't worry, it'll be up soon after for later viewing.

At Google, we’re never afraid to think big, and our mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful doesn't stop at our exosphere. The universe is full of information, and as we push the boundaries of exploration, our job will be to organize it and make it searchable.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone out there that we have a passion for space. Google’s culture of innovation stems from our pioneering quest for knowledge; each one of us is empowered to think differently, break the limits, and take intelligent risks. Googlers are scientists, engineers, technologists, space enthusiasts; I have yet to meet a Googler who didn’t share the spirit of exploration.

In partnership with NASA, and PBS, YouTube and Google Moderator will pose your questions to the crew of STS-134, the final mission of the space Shuttle Endeavour, in a live interview emceed by stellar talent (another space joke!) Miles O'Brien.

To mark the occasion, we put together this video to celebrate our love for space, told with the help of products we pour our hearts into every day. You’ll see everything from historical sky maps featured in Google Earth, to 3D buildings at Kennedy Space Center, and our salute to both the astounding achievement of the Apollo era and the Google Lunar X PRIZE, a new space race of entrepreneurial leadership.

With our main campus less than a mile away from the NASA Ames Research Center, it seemed natural that our organizations should strike up a relationship and find ways to work together. Over the years, we have collaborated with our NASA colleagues on some amazing projects, and are very proud of the joint work and collaboration that have contributed to our space products, such as Moon and Mars in Google Earth. Most importantly, the longstanding friendship between our organizations means we can use our skills to complement each other, and bring people together around the globe. Literally. When we say around the globe, we mean....around the globe. With an altitude of roughly 200 miles, and orbiting at about 17,500 miles per hour! (I crack myself up with my space jokes.)

We hope you love the video as much as we do; it's our way of making space exploration open and accessible to everyone. Happy viewing, and keep exploring!

Posted by Tiffany Montague, Intergalactic Federation King Almighty and Commander of the Universe

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