Google will be officially announcing later today the ability for Google Analytics to track various metrics in flash applications.
I have included a demonstration by Google and Sprout:
With tracking engagement of Flash applications/widgets, this can open up new avenues of paying advertisers for using Flash widgets instead of traditional “pay per click” and “pay per view” models.
Nicholas Abramovic
Recently there has been some discussion on whether Google gives special attention to links from .edu or .gov websites. In a couple of statements, Google, through Matt Cutts, has stated they don’t.
Does this mean you should give up looking for links from .edu and .gov site? No way!
You have to read between the lines here to see reality.
Here is a quote from Matt Cutts from a Google chat question:
TylerDee, TX: Are .gov and .edu back links still considered more “link juice” than the common back link?
Matt Cutts: This is a common misconception–you don’t get any PageRank boost from having an .edu link or .gov link automatically. Hah John, I beat you to it! If you get an .edu link and no one is linking to that .edu page, you’re not going to get any PageRank at all because that .edu page doesn’t have any PageRank.
JohnMu: We generally treat all links the same - be it from .gov or .edu or .info sites.
Here is another quote from Matt Cutts in an interview with Stephan Spencer:
Matt Cutts: Typically, our policy is: a link is a link, is a link; wherever that link’s worth is, that is the worth that we give it. Some people ask about links from DMOZ, links from .edu or links from .gov, and they say: “Isn’t there some sort of boost? Isn’t a link better if it comes from a .edu?” The short answer is: no, it is not. It is just .edu links tend to have higher PageRank, because more people link to .edu’s or .gov’s.
While it may be true that Google has no special logic for .edu and .gov links, look at that last statement: “It is just that .edu links tend to have higher PageRank, because more people link to .edu’s or .gov’s”.
Gee — that sounds special to me! What they are saying is that links from .edu and .gov links are of higher value than many other links, simply because most of them have very high authority as link sources. www.berkeley.edu and www.stanford.edu are PR9, and most medium to large universities are PR6 or better. Are those good places to get links? You bet. Also, .edu and .gov sites have good traffic, so you can also get real visitors over these links.
So, bottom line, look carefully before doing what Google tells you. They have their own agenda and that is not necessarily helping you with SEO for your website. As you do link building, by all means include .edu and .gov sites in your list of candidates.
John Erickson
www.leadqual.com
Tired of the same people looking at your ads and want a more diverse group of Internet users to see your ads?
Google has introduced frequency capping with the DoubleClick cookies. This is great for both advertisers and users because it will help avoid the same ad appearing again and again, giving users a wider selection of ads to view and advertisers a more diverse user base to display ads against.
Nicholas Abramovic
When creating a blog, a key decision is how/where it should be hosted, and what domain structure is used.
Typically, you have several options for hosting, which include:
For SEO for the blog site itself there is not a big difference between these two options. In either case you can promote your blog, have a good structure, and create great content so that it can rank well.
For domain usage, you also have several options. These include:
If your blog is part of or related to your website, then it is generally better to use the first option, where the blog is part of the website and uses a directory within that website. This is because all your blog content is part of the site, and that content and any inbound links benefit your site as a whole. You can also get the best leverage from internal linking from your blog posts to other pages on your site (”internal page rank flow”). Also, your blog immediately benefits from the page rank and link popularity of your website, enabling your blog posts to rank better, faster.
If your blog is not related to a website, the second option is generally best, where you set up your own domain name for your blog. You can do this whether you are hosting your own blog or using a service (at least most services allow this option). Using your own domain gives you much more flexibility for moving your blog in the future – you can more easily change hosting services and keep control of your blog.
The other options can work OK for SEO, especially if you pay attention to other factors such as good content, keywords, freshness, etc, but generally the first two options above are better.
Ever wonder if the Ask.com sponsored search results appear if you click on Google’s “search network” option for your pay-per-click campaigns?
In actuality, the sponsored search results that are displayed on Ask.com are through Google’s content network and not search network.
Nicholas Abramovic
