I’m sharing this mainly to see if there are improvements that can be made so I would welcome your ideas, opinions and feedback.

Before we look at how the tool works let’s set it up.

The Spreadsheet

You can get the spreadsheet tool here. But you’ll need to create your own copy so you can change the settings and keep the data private.

http://bit.ly/rZzW2k

Within the document is a sheet named ‘Settings’ where we’ll need to input the login details of your Google Analytics account and the source and medium for the traffic data you’d like.

I’ve included a key to show examples of medium and source settings but by default it’s set to call organic visits from Google.

Add Profile ID Keywords

Firstly you’ll need to get the profile ID for the analytics profile you wish to get the data from. Once you’ve selected it from the profile view the ID number will appear in the address bar  you’ll want everything after the ‘p’.

Finally, replace Keyword 1, Keyword 2 etc. with your desired keywords.

The Formula

I’ve used the following formula to pull in the Google Analytics data from the account we’ve specified in the settings sheet. Hopefully by breaking it down you’ll be able to not only understand but improve it and get around some of problems the limitations I’ve found.

=getGaMetric($B$6,”visits”,B17,C17,CONCATENATE (“ga:medium==”,Settings!$B$5,”;ga:source==”,Settings!$B$6,”;ga:keyword==”,A10))

=getGaMetric()

Tells Google Docs what the formula is to do, in this case it will request metrics from a Google Analytics account.

$B$6

The cell that holds the analytics profile ID

“visits”

The metric we wish to fetch

B17,C17

The start and end date of the period we wish to call data for

CONCATENATE()

I was unable to write a formula that could pull in the keyword automatically and fetch the data without doing it in fragments. I would welcome your ideas on improving this.

“ga:medium==”,Settings!$B$5

Fetch visitor data where the medium by which they arrive exactly matches the value in cell B5 on the settings sheet.

“ga:source==”,Settings!B$6,”

Fetch visitor data where the medium set above is true and the source exactly matches the value in cell B6 on the settings sheet.

“ga:keyword==”,A10

Fetch all the data that matches the medium and source specified where the keyword matches exactly the value in cell A10.

Issues

Data Can Be Slightly Off

It’s logical to think that as the data is being pulled directly from Analytics the figure outputted should match exactly the figure given within the Analytics interface yet it seems to always be less, albeit by a small amount.

It’s possible that Google Docs works on a different time zone to that set within the analytics account but I’m unsure.

Too Many Requests

I’ve only included 4 keywords as 4×12 months = 50 requests for analytics data at any one time. This seems to be the limit as if you add anymore it returns an error.

Does anyone know if 50 is indeed the limit or if there’s a way to get around this?

Changing The Year

This method requires a start and end date be specified for the data you wish to collect, hence the table January to December. Is it possible to have the year held in a separate cell and pulled in to make the date valid?

I have tried this method and while it’s entirely possible to concatenate two cells to give a valid date format the getGaMetric function does not seem to like it.

Here’s the spreadsheet again – please get in touch if you find it useful or have any suggestions on improving the usability.

Caffeine was designed to crawl, index and display results faster than ever before and is estimated to have affected around 17.5% of search queries, but the latest update (yet to be given a catchy nickname) is said to affect around 35% of all search queries.

So what kind of search queries will be affected by this change?

From Google…

• Recent events or hot topics. For recent events or hot topics that begin trending on the web, you want to find the latest information immediately. Now when you search for current events like [occupy oakland protest], or for the latest news about the [nba lockout], you’ll see more high-quality pages that might only be minutes old.
• Regularly recurring events. Some events take place on a regularly recurring basis, such as annual conferences like [ICALP] or an event like the [presidential election]. Without specifying with your keywords, it’s implied that you expect to see the most recent event, and not one from 50 years ago. There are also things that recur more frequently, so now when you’re searching for the latest [NFL scores], [dancing with the stars] results or [exxon earnings], you’ll see the latest information.
• Frequent updates. There are also searches for information that changes often, but isn’t really a hot topic or a recurring event. For example, if you’re researching the [best slr cameras], or you’re in the market for a new car and want [subaru impreza reviews], you probably want the most up to date information.

It’s worth noting that Google has not renewed its agreement with Twitter which expired in July this year, something that limits Google’s ability to crawl the most up to date index of new and popular content on the web (although Google says this is only delayed by minutes rather than hours).

How Will it Affect Me & My Website?

As a website owner creating content relevant to the types of searches mentioned above you may see pages indexed faster and traffic arrive in a shorter space of time. Of course it’s possible your page will be ‘flushed out’ as newer pages are crawled and indexed so while it may be tempting to pump out targeted and spammy content to get the ‘quick wins’, the wins won’t last long and that content will soon sink down into the lower results pages never to be visited again.

Quality content combined with a lucky break through the new algorithm changes will mean your content will get noticed and the long term benefits will be worth the extra effort!

Step 1: Enter your search query and go the results

Step 2: Click on a search result – I went with animatedknots.com

Step 3: Press back on your browser to return to the search results and you’ll see the following fade in from red to blue:

Step 4: If you click the link you’ll either be asked to log in or you’ll see the following:

And that’s it – I will never see results from animatedknots.com again! I of course have no problem with this website and have removed the block.

What does this mean for website owners?

It’s no secret that Google is on a march to stamp out bad content from appearing in its search results as the Panda updates show, but this is giving people the ability to filter their own search results based on their own personal tastes and opinions on what constitutes relevant and quality content.

As a website owner it means that low quality content is going to be subject to blocks from logged in Google users. While this isn’t a significant percentage of Google users it is a percentage that’s likely to increase.

Could this affect my SEO?

As with most things Google do, it’s hard to say for sure what the real intentions are but it’s not unreasonable to imagine Google penalising websites that have been voted down by many of their own logged in users and I expect it won’t be long before we start hearing about examples of this.

On Tuesday October 18th, Google announced on their official blog that over the next few weeks visitors to Google.com who are signed in to their Google account will be redirected to a secure version of the search engine (SSL Search) as found here:

https://www.google.com

Amy Chang from the Google Analytics blog said:

“As search becomes an increasingly customized experience, we recognize the growing importance of protecting the personalized search results we deliver. As a result, we’re enhancing our default search experience for signed-in users…”

“…This is especially important when you’re using an unsecured Internet connection, such as a WiFi hotspot in an Internet café.”

What Does This Mean For Website Owners?

Currently when a user visits your website through the organic search results the search query used to find your website is recorded in your analytics package. This data is often used to identify the phrases that contribute to sales or goal conversions on your website which can then be used in marketing activities to grow sales further – this is especially true in regards to SEO where the focus is improving rankings on these keywords. It’s also useful in identifying pages on your website that attract visitors with certain search queries but causes them to bounce.

For example a visitor may arrive using a query that is perfectly related to the content of the page but if the term or a variation of it is not immediately obvious on screen it may cause people to bounce, despite it being precisely hat they were looking for.

With the new changes starting to take affect this data will no longer be available where a visitor meets the criteria above. Instead this data will be grouped under “(not provided)” within Organic Search Traffic Keyword reporting.

Currently the changes only affect a small number of Google users that search through Google.com rather than regional versions such as Google.co.uk however it is likely to be rolled out to all signed in users in the coming weeks.

FAQ

How much of my analytics data will be affected by this?
The percentage of your visitors data that will be affected by this change in the short term will depend on the percentage of your visitors that arrive through Google.com, however even when completely rolled out Google estimate less than 10% of that traffic will be affected, even when .co.uk users are redirected to the secure search.

Will this change be rolled out to non-logged in users?
While Google has not said as much there is speculation that this will be the case as it was with personalised search results that moved from being exclusively for logged in users to all users in December 2009.

Should the changes be rolled out to all Google users it will result in the search query data currently available becoming completely unavailable for visitors arriving through organic search.

Will Bing, Yahoo! & Ask organic data still be available?
Yes, this change only affects traffic arriving from Google properties; however it’s important to keep in mind that Google’s UK share of the search market was 90.78% in October 2011 compared to 3.7% for Bing and 2.5% for Yahoo! so data is likely to be sparse and not necessarily reflective of the search queries that convert from Google.

Is there an alternative source for this data?
While there is not another source for the data in its current format you will be able to access the search query data that is supplied by Google Webmaster Tools through your Google Analytics account. At present this data is only held for 30 days and is not associated with ecommerce of goals data.

Will this affect data collected from AdWords?
No, only organic search data will be affected. All keyword data that is currently available for Adwords will remain available.

Which analytics packages will be affected by this?
All analytics packages will be affected by these changes, including but not limited to:

• Google Analytics
• Adobe Omniture
• WebTrends
• ClickTracks

Will this change the way SEO is carried out?

If secure search is rolled out to all Google users as discussed above, it would mean a change in the way SEO is carried out as the data available to help with developing effective strategies will become limited.

Data gleaned from Google AdWords will become increasingly important in this scenario and the quality of a website, both in terms of content & usability will become even more important than before. While such a scenario would pose problems for website owners looking to carry out SEO, it simply poses new problems to be solved and almost certainly they will be solved with the kind of well rounded, forward thinking and holistic strategies that that practicing SEOs who adapt will be able to provide.

However it’s important to note that this is speculative at the moment and while it’s important to think ahead, it is equally important not to get carried away worrying about what might be. For now you should keep practicing SEO as you always have but keep monitoring the announcements that Google makes and be prepared to change as required.

What Can I Do To Prepare?

Retroactively analyse your data
While it’s still available it’s important to go back and look at historic analytics data which will give you an idea of the keywords that drive sales and those which could with improvements in rankings, something many of you are no doubt doing anyway.

If you’re a retailer you should be especially interested in the seasonality of these keywords so you can co-ordinate your marketing with this.

Learn from AdWords
As previously discussed this data will still be available for AdWords traffic so make use of this data wherever possible to guide you on making marketing decisions. Keep in mind that the paid search keywords shown in Google Analytics are the keywords set in the campaign and not the actual search query used by the user. That data is available from within your AdWords account.

Integrate social sharing ability to your website
Google has made no secret about its desire to move away from the link trust model it currently uses to rank web pages for search terms as it is open to manipulation. Over the last year or so new ranking factors have been introduced that look at how popular a page is on Twitter, Facebook & Google+ and this is set to become an ever more influential in time. If the keyword data available is going to be reduced it makes sense to get any head start you can and having a strong social presence is important.

Make Google+, Facebook & Twitter most prominent, and if desired include social bookmarking sites but hide them to avoid clutter.

Google Analytics Real-Time

Announced September 29th, this was a real ‘oh, wow’ moment for me. Still in beta, this feature lets you see how users are interacting with your website right now, and while it lacks some more advanced features I would like to see (Real-time ecommerce tracking for example) it’s still insightful and slightly addictive!

If the new feature is available to you, you’ll find it under the ‘Home’ tab on the left hand side navigation. If it’s not, you can apply for early access here.

Please note that you’ll need to be an administrator of the account to access this data.

Check out the original post

Google Webmaster Tools Integration

Next up we were given the ability to integrate Google WMT with Analytics which can be accessed in the left hand menu shown here. This was announced October 4th.

For those familiar with Google WMT the data here is nothing new but the ability to see it from within your analytics account certainly streamlines the process when you’re digging deep and trying to understand problems.

You’ll need to be the administrator on both the Google Analytics account and WMT account to connect the two but otherwise this feature is available to all.

Check out the original post

Google Flow Visualisation

Flow visualisation is a powerful new feature that was announced by Susan Wojcicki and Phil Mui at the Web 2.0 Summit, October 19th and gives website owners and analytics users the ability to see users flow through their website with easy to understand graphical visualisations.

At the moment the feature provides two basic report types; visitors flow and goal flow but you’re able to apply any advanced segments you’ve created to them.
Of all the new features announced to date, this is by far the most useful to those looking to maximise the ROI seen from marketing activity, so I’d strongly recommend checking out the original post over on the official Google Analytics Blog.

The visitors flow visualisation can be found on the left hand side navigation under the visitors section. You can find the Goal Flow visualiser in the Conversions > Goals section of the “Standard Reporting Tab.”

Check out the original post

But wait, I don’t see these new features!

As all of the new features discussed here are so new, it’s going to take a little time for them all to be rolled out to every analytics user so it’s possible you’re yet to see these available in your account. Sit tight but keep an eye out and trust me; they’re all worth the wait!

Read Reggie James’s new blog post here http://www.reggiejames.org/

Originally the deal was to include delivery of paid search (PPC) adverts, but due to dificulties merging the platforms the deal currently extends to the natural (organic) search results only.

The merger started in August 2010 in the USA and Canada and now it’s being rolled out in Europe, with Yahoo! properties presenting Microsoft Bing results in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy.

A Yahoo spokesman said:
“For Yahoo! this is an important step toward our goal of improving the overall relevance of Yahoo! organic search results and attracting a larger audience to Yahoo! Search. This transition will also enable both companies to continue to innovate on their respective consumer search experience, whilst relying on a common algorithm used by a combined user base.”

Since the launch of Bing, Microsoft have been attempting to improve the quality of their organic search results with ever more tweaks to the search algorithm, which comes under criticism for being too easy to manipulate by those with ill intentions. However there is hope that this merger will provide the funding and resources required to improve.

There is some speculation about how this merger will affect organic search traffic to websites, but given that Google has a 92% share of the search market in the UK (Bing & Yahoo! combined hold just 6.78%), it is not expected to be significant.

For those websites with a US audience the results may be a little more interesting, where combined, Bing & Yahoo claim 29.7% of the market; however the serving of Bing results to Yahoo! users was launched 12 months ago with little outcry from UK businesses.

The table below shows the market share of Yahoo! & Bing combined alongside that of Google in the key search markets in Europe:

So How Will it Affect Me?

In truth the answer is probably very little or not at all, but it’s important to look at your own website in isolation. If Yahoo traditionally provided visits & sales where Bing did not there is a chance that you’ll see some negative results from this merger, on the other hand if your keyword rankings were good in Bing but not Yahoo! you may see a small improvement.

If you’d like to discuss how this merger affects you in more detail or get advice on what to do next, get in touch with one of our SEO account executives who will be more than happy to discuss your website and how best to move forward.

High Resolution images of the masterpieces within these galleries allow you to zoom in to such detail that you can study the brush work of pieces you may never have otherwise seen. I’m not a huge art fan myself; certainly not to the point of traveling the world specifically to see it, so I can imagine there are millions of others like me who would never have otherwise seen the works Google Art Project gives you access too.

The video below gives a full explanation, or you can visit the site now at www.googleartproject.com

The lines shown in the map above link pairs of friends in cities across the world and after a little tweaking of the rendering process a picture emerged that shows how much of the world connects.

What’s interesting is not that the continents are clearly defined (not many people connect to Facebook in the open ocean!) but the idea that it visually demonstrates how people around the world are connected with one another in ways that would have been impossible before the rise of the internet and social networks like Facebook.

Areas such as China, central Africa and much of the Amazonian basin are missing due to Facebook lack of reach in these areas.

Original Source

While it’s still very early days the dust has started to settle and we’re starting to get a picture of what to expect in the months to come.

SEO has, and always will have a negative reputation in the eyes of some, and to an extent it is understandable. If you own a blog or website that allows public posting you’ll no doubt have experienced the vast waves of automated spam comments that need to be moderated & removed, so it’s completely understandable that some have a serious misconception about what SEO is and how it should be practiced.

It’s because of these misconceptions that some people are all too happy to jump on the ‘SEO is dead!’ bandwagon, and the launch of Google Instant is yet another opportunity to do so.

SEO is, and always has been about making a website as accessible to users and search engines as possible while providing content of value that users wish to share (originally through back-linking but increasingly through social networks). Note in this definition of SEO the absence of buying links, spamming blogs & defrauding the search engines.

So is SEO dead?

In short the answer is no. As long as search engines exist and decide how to rank pages based on the quality of content & popularity among other websites there will always be a place for SEO. However (and it’s a big one) it will make many of the existing SEO techniques redundant & the competitiveness of head term keywords increase.
Long-Tail & Head Terms

The long-tail is likely to shrink as people change their search behaviour – if you originally intended to search for “Music Tickets in 2011” (long-tail) but see the results you need after “Music Tic…” then the websites who rank well for your original search query will miss out on your visit, while sites ranking well for “Music Tickets” (head term) are likely to see traffic increase.
Note: if the same website ranks in position 1 for both of those searches they’ll see their long-tail shrink without the loss of traffic.

Importance of Rank

We’re not the first to suggest that people will be less likely to visit the second page of results when Google Instant launches to all, but it will be equally as likely that people will no longer bother to scroll the browser window down beyond the results they can see:

Even if I have no intention of clicking on a PPC advert I’m presented with three relevant organic results – if none of these are what I’m after I simply need to continue typing until I get what I want – why bother moving my hand to the mouse and scroll?

So what does this mean?

Websites that rank in position 4-10 (certainly 6-10) are probably going to see their traffic levels drop, even on head terms like ‘Holiday Spain’ that would previously have been very lucrative.

Conversely, the top 3 ranking websites will see traffic increase, giving them an even greater share of the market. This will put pressure on websites to either increase their SEO activity or compete through PPC (which is of course lucrative for Google).

Monitoring the Effect

Firstly it’s important to note that the way pages are crawled and ranked has not been changed with the introduction of Google Instant; if you ranked 1st for a keyword before you should still rank 1st.

It’s too early to say with any certainty how Instant is going to affect website traffic, largely because it’s still only available to a relatively small number of users, especially outside of the US. The main driving force of any change is going to be how people’s search behaviour evolves and only once this happens will we truly know the impact Google Instant will have had.

However if you’re a website owner concerned about how Google Instant will affect your traffic I would recommend keeping an eye on traffic levels as a whole and any geographical regions where Google Instant is available without being logged in (US).

Are keywords that were previously driving steady volumes now changing? If you notice a dramatic drop (or increase) then it may be as a result of Instant.

Have you notice any strange trends sine Google Instant? Has your traffic been affected? Leave a comment and let us know.