Keyword “Not Provided” – Google Analytics
It’s been around 6 months now that Google is using SSL as the default on their search engine, for the users connected on a Google account. The article “Accessing search query data for your sites” has been added to the Official Google Webmaster Tools Blog on October 18th 2011 to announce this change.
This change this not pleased SEOs and Webmasters, since it reduces the amount of information that is available in web analytics products. Since that change, Google Analytics (and the other web analytics products) do not show the keywords that were searched by visitors connected to a Google account.
What we now see in Google Analytics is that some keywords are not available, so “Not Provided” is now displayed.
Google wrote that this change has been implemented to make the web a more secure place (“…provide a more secure online experience”). It is to be noted though that visits coming from Google Adwords still pass the “refer”. Google Adwords advertisers still have access to their keywords data, so they are not penalized by this change. Google wants to make the web more secure, but do not want to upset the advertisers that bring Google billions of dollars every year…
Other interesting information can be found on the subject in the SEOmoz video, at the “Google Hides Search Referral Data with New SSL Implementation” post.
As written above, this change is not new, but it’s effects can be felt more and more everyday. Since the launch of Google Plus, more and more users are connected on Google, reducing the list of keywords available in the analytics reports.
Complaints are still being sent at Google, and pressure applied so that they revert the situation. It remains to be seen if it will be enough to make Google change it’s mind.
User Management – Google Webmaster Tools
At last, Google announced this week that it was now possible to give limited access to other users in the Google Webmaster Tools console.
Before this improvement, giving access to the Google Webmaster console to another user meant that this user would also be able to modify important and critical parameters of the website, such as crawl speed and preferred domain.
It is now possible to grant 2 types of access to other users:
- Full Access: Will allow this user to see all the data and to make most of the changes in the Google Webmaster Console.
- Restricted Access : Will allow this user to see most of the site data, and to make some changes to the site configuration, parameters and settings. This access will now often be given to SEO consultants in big firms that have their in-house SEO team.
Other information about these new user management features in the Google Webmaster Tools are also available on the official “Google Webmaster Central Blog”, at the « Safely share access to your site in Webmaster Tools » blog post.
Gene Vollendorf – Wolverine Opportunity Fund
OptimisationV had the chance to work with Gene Vollendorf, one of the best Canadian small-cap fund managers. He is the founder and portfolio manager of the Wolverine Opportunity Fund, located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
One of the many things that makes the Wolverine Management Team so unique is their use of a proprietary technology to help them handle huge amounts of company data. This database and associated programs was conceived by programmers at hired out of Stanford University. The value and information contained in this database keeps on expanding, giving Mr. Gene Vollendorf and his team the opportunity to become increasingly proficient at their work.
OptimisationV is working with Mr. Gene Vollendorf and the Wolverine Asset Management team to counsel and help promote the Wolverine Opportunity Fund using Social Media. The new technologies will be shown by Mr. Vollendorf on his blog to share tips and information about asset management, investments, and equities. Hopefully this will help investors get a better understanding of how investments work, how they are managed, and how they create wealth over time.
More information about Mr. Gene Vollendorf can also be found here, on the Gene Vollendorf website.
Google Freshness Update
A few weeks ago, Google announced a new algorithm change to serve “fresher” results in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages). So, for searches done on the Google search engine, the results displayed will sometimes contain very recent pages. The name of this algorithm change is the “Google Freshness Update”.
As an example, if you search for “final score hockey Pittsburgh Montreal”, you probably want to see the result of the most recent game between these 2 teams, and not the score of a 2006 game, right? For many other searches however, this Google update has no impact. You do not need a very fresh result for the “Songs Last Album Elvis Presley” search…
Image by SearchMetrics.com
This change in the Google Algorithm has been made possible by the major architecture changes done in the Data Centers that were completed last year. This huge infrastructure change was called “Caffeine”, and made possible for Google to crawl and index the web much more quickly than before. That change was a prerequisite to the Google Freshness Update.
More details on this on the “Giving you fresher, more recent search results” blog post of the Official Google Blog.
Google Plus Pages for Enterprises
Finally, Google is letting enterprises have their own Google Plus Pages, which was only allowed to “humans” before. It has been announced on the official Google blog at the “Google+ Pages: connect with all the things you care about” on November 7th 2011.
This of course was to be expected, since Facebook allows enterprises to have their own Facebook Pages.
To create your page, you can go on the plus.google.com/pages/create. To see what possibilities are offered, here are some examples of big brands having their Google Plus Pages:
As of today, it is not possible to link a Google Places address to a Google Plus Page though. It probably will soon be offered though, from what can be heard from Google representatives. Also, it is currently not possible to have a “Vanity url” like Facebook is offering. As an example, the Google Plus page of Pepsi is at https://plus.google.com/111883881632877146615 instead of https://plus.google.com/pepsi. Of course, it will probably become available in the next few months.
To help promote you Enterprise Google Plus Page, Google offers badges that can be displayed on your website. To create a badge, the web address is https://developers.google.com/+/plugins/badge/config.
Another interesting particularity of the Google Plus Pages is that more than one is allowed per enterprise.
Google Plus Pages for Enterprises are another way to help promote your business online.
