Google News: Google Analytics Layout Changed

Google seems to be in very aggressive mood these days. It seems like google has either decided to complete a to do task list which the google engineers might created in beginning of the year & as we are near to end of the year they are just started completing that to do list or Google has decided to cover headlines of almost all famous SEO blogs daily :)

After hummingbird, penguin update & No PR update announcement, one more change thrown by google today. Google analytics layout has been changed. Though this is not for the first time, Google is famous for back to back changes. Again withing 15 days 4 changes/announcements by google making SEO industry keep on moving.

Today's Google news is traditional google analytics navigation layout have some changes. Overview section which was showing direct, referral & organic traffic has been changed by a panel, namely, "acquisitions" which has 2 new subitems, namely, "overview & Channels"

Overview channel will give you an overview of overall performance of organic search [via search engines], direct traffic, referral traffic & social traffic with details separated in 3 parts.
1. Acquisition
Giving overview of total visits, % of new visits and new visits.
2. Behaviour
Gives an overview of bounce rate, pages/visit and avg. visit duration.
3. Conversions
Gives an overview of goal conversion rate, goal completion & goal value. This is the only section which gives you choice of selecting 1 goal out of x no of goals you have set. So you can see the performance of each goal you have set by selecting any from the small drop down buttonn.

Each of these section will give you the value in % and not in actual digits and that in horizontal bar chart.

Channel section will give you details of almost everything you might be seeking for. Channel section also have all the sections Acquisition -> overview has. The only twist is this section will give you more detailed values in form of actual digits rather than % or bar chart. You can see all the values with details so you can track from which channel out of 4 namely, organic, social, referral & direct. Again conversions have the selection option to measure the performance of individual goals.

You can navigate in traffic sources by clicking on traffic channel for more details as you were doing before. Rest of the things are as it is.

When you open the analytics, at first glance you might feel like lost in your own home. It's like after having relaxing sleep when you open your eyes interior of your house has been changed which might make you uncomfortable for a while as we used to be habitual and familiar with the old stuff and it seems bit difficult to get used to with new things. But when you take a deep breath and navigate it seems more productive, helpful and satisfying the meaning of name "analytics" which make your analysis task bit easier & more productive by comparision.

Though Google used to implement changes for better user experience for sure weather it is for normal net surfers or webmasters but back to back changes are making SEO industry bit uneasy with the stuff :)

We will wait for new changes or announcement by Google which will again rule the headlines of many authorised SEO & digital marketing blogs. And that can be expected in nearer future as per the footprints of google :)

Till then keep on reading digital marketing blogs for more updates, tips, tricks and guides on digital marketing topics. Feel free to leave your mark by leaving your questions and feedbacks in comment.

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Posted in: analytics layout change,ashseo,ashvyasseo,Google analytic appereance update,Google analytics,google news,google update,major changes by google

Google News: No Google PR Update in 2013

Google's web spam head Matt Cutts came up with new headlines of many blogs and articles on twitter when he replied to Niels's question that he would be surprised if there is any page rank update in 2013.

In detail, Niels Bosch asked Matt Cutts on social media website twitter "Will there be any PR update before 2014? And Matt simply replied "He will be surprised if that happened". Check the below image of their tweet conversation

No PR update before 2014

As the SEO industry knows it's almost more than 7 months last PR updated by Google and as per Matt, It won't get updated in nearer future. So those who were eagerly waiting for PR update have to wait more. Friendly advice I would say just stop getting worried about Page Rank because even Google might not getting much bothered about Page rank itself. And as per the symptoms of not updating PR, it seems PR will be one of the very minor factor to be considered for search engines rankings. We can also expect PR just flew away with any of Google algo bird.

What is Page Rank?
Those who are not aware of the fact that what is page rank here is brief for you. Page rank is a google toolbar digit which is kind of measurement of website having which kind of backlinks. As many well reputed & high PR websites are linking back to you as max page rank your website earn. Maximum page rank is 10 and minimum is NA or 0. Twitter has 10 Page rank. Google is very unbiased in terms of page rank as Google's own page rank is 9. Page rank is all about backlinks and have nothing to do with quality of content you have.

Page rank is topic of criticism since many years by SEO experts as higher page rank has been used by spammers to spam the net by paid links or bulk link building to get high page rank. SEO experts used to not bother much about page rank and care more for other better factors like traffic, quality, branding, reputation, etc. And I think after defending so many criticism  against page rank Matt just replied in one of his recent videos that page rank will be updated less often. Google always used to advice to be more concerned about other factors to improve user experience and rankings rather than keeping eyes on PR. Somewhere in it's support Google's own web browser Gogole chrome don't have toolbar or built in PR check tool. As we all know new hummingbird algo changes old PR algo of ranking of Google. So Indutry experts are saying it can be predictable that page rank will be updated less often and then will be thrown away.

So PR is dead?
At the moment we can't say so strongly. We can just wait and watch and focus our energy at better place rather than focusing on page ranks.

Keep sending your feedbacks in comments.

Thanks

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Posted in: ashseo,ashvyasseo,google announcement,google news,page rank,Page rank facts,PR update

Google News: Hummingbird - New Algo Announcement

Google HummingBird Algo Update

Google - The most famous and widely used search engine hosted a special event at a garage of the Menlo Park (Calif.) where Google born. On occasion of 15th anniversary of Google foundation, Google's VP Amit Singhal given more information about a new algorithm launch of a google, namely, "Hummingbird". So after having animals like panda and update, now Google has launched a bird :D This algo launched before a month and rolled up completely but officially they announce it today.

The name "Hummingbird" is derived to express fast and precise result of the Google search. This algorithm is specifically designed to improve the search result for all devices. After 2010 "Caffeine" algo launch this is the complete algo change of google. The panda and penguin were just an algo update. Means both of them were minor/major changes to the already existing algorithm. While hummingbird is completely new algorithm which will sort and display the search result.

So what about Panda and penguin update? They are uneffective? 

If you are thinking that now panda and penguin are gone and not going to affect you negatively and you got a free sky to spam the net with low quality links and content then you are going to feel bad with my upcoming lines :) The Hummingbird algo change has woven all previous updates including panda and penguin which means Google will make sure all the search result will filter out with the thumb rules of high quality content and authority. So you still have to follow the penguin and panda rules to be in top or to not get thrown out of the search result.

Why hummingbird algo launched?

Google always want to make sure that the users get the best result out for what they are searching for. And for that google used to work day and night to assure quality result serving to it's users. Of course that is the reason Google is favorite of many and home page of many :) So to make result more quality and related to the search of user Google launched this algo.

What will it do ? How will it affect the search result?

Hummingbird algo will try to understand the conversation search and deliver the best result. Now you might wonder what is conversation search? The answer is when someone insert query like conversation, for example "library near my area" "best alternative of joomla technology for website development" . In previous algorithm Google was used to go for a like query means it will show result with all those links which has any or many words from the query. but now Google will try to understand the complete query and will deliever the result as per the query. For example if someone search for  "library near my area", in previous scenario Google might show all the result having keywords "library","near", "my", "are" or any combination of it. But now-onwards Google search algorithm will try to understand the query inserted and will even be more smarter and will also try to figure out your area [could be ahmedabad for me] and then display the relevant result means in previous scenario Google might show me libraries of US and UK and are of different places but now if i'm logged in it will sort result in a way that I see library list near or in ahmedabad. isn't it cool?

If this is really what google is going to introduce then this concept sounds like graph search of Facebook to me. of course not for all queries but for few. don't you think so?

On other note it's quite cool feature from end user's perspective. I mean people who are not master in surfing the net and who are normal end user, this search algo will going to be boon for them i guess. As it will make search easier for them by serving the relevant result and excluding irrelevant results which it was showing before by it's like query practice.

Does it mean Google wont use like query? means Does google exclude result of combination of words of queries? 

No. Google will use like query and will show result with combination of words as it was showing before. But the sorting of result will be in a different way. The most relevant result will be listed first. As simple as that.

Hummingbird algo will hurt your website?

Have you noticed any drop in traffic or results in past month? No? Then it won't affect you. Because this algo rolled out before a month and the it was a smooth process so no-one noticed the change before announcement. After announcement many SEO people might dug their analytics stats :D So if there are any drop or increase in past month in your traffic stat then that's because of hummingbird change. If not, you are on safe side.

Is SEO Dead with this algo launch?

LOL. why should SEO get dead with such algos change and update? SEO is just becoming smarter day by day. Each SEO people have to go with an agenda to get the quality services for their clients and that's the only intention of Google. So if Google and SEO both will work smartly to serve the quality result they can better be friends rather than thinking to kill each other :D SEO is not massive linkbuilding tactic anymore. But in very smart way use your logic and vision with thinking of 3rd person who might looking out for a service and what that person might look for? you just need to serve that as simple as that. Because if you do so, you will rank highr in Google as that's what google want to show the users high quality and relevant result. and it will also help in lead generation and decreasing bounce rate by getting massive unrelevant traffic.
In short, SEO is and will be alive but in a smarter way ;)

What can you do to rank higher after hummingbird algo launch?

• Create good quality content and build an authority of your website.
• Try SMO to get others way open for your traffic and lead generation
• Work for user/client and not for search engine's. This is most important. I will write more on this for designer, developers and seo :)

How do I know all these? or how can you know all these?

• Reading and common sense and experience  :)
• Reading the posts and news of authorised writer. Don't read from anywhere as they will make you confuse so read from people having name or authorised in SEO industry
• Don't trust everything you read and use your common sense to conclude the facts because each person might have different analysis or point of view
• Use your or others experience and get the best

Give your queries and feedback in comments. Bye for now. :)

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Posted in: ashseo,ashvyasseo,Google algo update,google news,hummingbird algo,hummingbird algo update,SEO Tips

SEO Tips for Website Testing for Developers, Designers, Testing Team

SEO Tips for website testing

Hi there,

Today I would like to talk about few tips for testing team that includes developers, testers, beta tester, designer, etc. We SEO people usually face a problem in terms of traffic tracking because of testing team sometimes. Because when developers are trying any new development change or designer is going to change an image, logo or design of a site, they used to follow some bad practise which generates some unnatural stats for traffic, bounce rate, etc. and sometimes. Some traffic tracking sites like Alexa start giving stat like maximum traffic from India Though site is developed for a foriegn client. And then to count real traffic SEO people need to apply filters or block ip range of a company. It also make job of SEO tough to explain the clients that why such stats are there. It also affect in other way by showing downfall in traffic in upcoming months when development and testing part is over and they stopped opening sites. Few search engine also measure it as false or unnatural traffic if repeatedly site open requests are there from the same IP address and it can harm a site's performance in search engines, adwords, affiliate, etc. Of course it's not a fault of people who are testing as they do not now this is affecting the SEO, traffic tracking, etc because they are unaware of world of SEO.

So today I am going to give few tips or standard practise which a developer, designer or tester can follow to avoid condition of unnatural traffic and can help SEO people somehow:

• Don't open and close website again and again just to check a small change of code or design. 
• If you are developing or designing anything new and want to test it then better to test in local system first and then upload it on live site. So it will save lots of open close request of live site for small small changes
• If you know that you are about to work on the website for whole day then let it stay open in one tab of 
• browser so whenever you make any change, you can simply go to website and refresh it to check the change. It will save new site load requests and will continue in one session. 
• If you are doing changes in multiple pages, the rather than opening each page in new tab better to open a website in single tab and the navigate through the website in different pages.
• If you have opened a page of website and the test is successfully done and you think you won't need to open website again still do not close the website right away. just stay on the website for a while and navigate afterwards to 1-2 pages and then close it. 

You might be thinking why to do all these? :) or what if we don't follow this. Explanation could be technical and difficult to understand but I would like to point out the factors of it:

• It will save website from getting unnatural traffic stats.
• Decrease unnatural bounce rate [when you stop opening and closing single page it will decrease bounce rate]
• It will increase user engagement, page views and user loyalty.
• It will make job of SEO bit easier by not spending hours in explaining client or filtering the native traffic.
• It will preserve the bandwidth and will use it for actual clients and never gives "509 bandwidth exceed" error to actual visitor :)

now what is bounce rate and what is traffic stat that needs one more descriptive blog post :) So just start this practice and contribute in your site's SEO :)

Give your feedback and queries in comment. As feedback helps in improvement & queries leads to solutions. I will catch you again in digital marketing world on tis blog next time with other digital marketing topic :)

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Posted in: ashvyasseo,basic seo tips,designers,digital marketing,SEO Tips,seo tips for developers,tester