Boy is Google upset with me

August 11, 2007 at 11:42 pm · Filed under Content, Online Marketing

It’s my site, not so much me. Maybe it was never happy with it.

What would make me concerned? Well, first, I do have a reasonable level of SEO knowledge. It’s not my role directly, but it is a service that is highly relative to what I do. So, admittedly, I’m not a practitioner guru by any stretch of the imagination, but I certainly don’t think I’ve done anything remotely harmful. So, back to the question—what would make me concerned?

1. The Google PageRank for my blog’s homepage is 2
   Google PageRank is on a scale of 0 to 10 (there is also a “not yet indexed”). If Google knows you exist, and you aren’t being penalized for any reason, you should have a PageRank of 3.
2. None of my pages beyond my homepage have any PageRank assigned to them whatsoever
3. Google’s Advanced Search indicates I have one inbound link
   The importance of relevant inbound links to Google is undeniable. Luckily, several web sites and blogs have picked up on posts and linked to them. However, Google is only crediting me with one when I use their advanced search and check (when I just search for smcandrew.com I come up with more than 200 in-bound links).

A little more backstory on my blog

I initially hosted a blog, on this domain, using Blogger’s hosted blog solution. My Blogger site did have more pages with PageRank, across the blog I had PageRanks of 4 or 3. I was looking for something that provided more flexibility and switched to a WordPress solution. When moving to WordPress, I did my best to make the transition smooth, and, if anything, improve my search affinity:

• I did 301 redirects for the new locations of all moved content since Blogger and WordPress’ directory and page naming schema are different
• I utilized WordPress plug-ins to populate my Meta tags (I honestly do not know how Blogger was populating them)
• I modified my page titles to focus on content (as opposed to the name of my blog)
• I incorporated a Google Sitemap, and a WordPress plug-in which updates and resubmits it automatically

I want to be in Google’s good graces. My site isn’t heavily trafficked, but of the traffic I do get, more than half is from Google.

So what did happen? Maybe it was the move from Blogger and the slight modifications I made in tags and page titling (though I’d hoped that since everything was 301′d Google would look at the ‘updated’ site and content as a good thing). Maybe it is something about how the HTML is outputted between Blogger and WordPress. I’m not exactly sure. I get SEO feedback and gain knowledge on what has upset the Google Gods, I’ll post it here on this blog.

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Joost Beta review

April 15, 2007 at 11:28 am · Filed under Usability, Television, Peer-to-Peer, Content, Video, User Interface, Applications, Beta, User Experience

I’ve been using Joost now on and off over several weeks.

A few thoughts:

• Video Quality: VERY good for the Internet. What the Joost team has done with Internet video quality is nothing short of remarkable. That said, it’s not ready for a high def set, however.
• Streaming: Fair to Good. At work I have a better experience than home. My home setup is broadband delivered wireless (Pre N). I experience streaming delays once every few to several minutes that last anywhere between 5 and 20 seconds.
• Usability: Good to Very Good. The user interface works well, but not great. On some of the menus, I have sluggish responses when navigating through lists of channels or shows. UI elements make sense to me for the most part, but I don’t think that the average consumer would understand it as readily.
• Overall Experience: Fair to Good.

In its current incarnation, Joost isn’t for me. Why:

• I want to watch video on a television. I don’t want to watch it on my computer.
• Video quality is important to me. While the quality of video is impressive for the Internet, the quality I’m looking for is better.
• The social networking aspects aren’t all that compelling at this time.
• Performance matters. Whenever the service stops to buffer video, the content consumption experience is abruptly interrupted.
• Dynamically inserted commercials (in the middle of viewing video content—not the bookend static ads that previously existed) are implemented poorly, derailing the consumption of content without warning. They also make it feel like… well… watching television.

Does Joost have promise? Absolutely. Why:

• Bandwidth and video compression technologies are improving rapidly.
• Whether it is a scramble to try to understand the streaming landscape and not miss the boat entirely, or, because they know more about Joost than we do, several premium content providers have announced content provision via Joost. Desirable content will bring advertising, and advertising revenue will enable continued improvements.
• If the service takes off, it will naturally be brought into the living room.

What else could propel Joost forward?

• A feature that is new and innovative; something that simply doesn’t exist right now at all which would allow a very different take on the way that users interact with video. For example, what if transcripts of all the video that Joost offered was indexed allowing more advanced ways of finding content and consuming it.
• A well thought out partnership. While the UI isn’t as polished as one coming out of Cupertino, it certainly feels Apple-esque. What if Joost was another option on the Apple TV interface? Joost would make it to the living room, and Apple TV owners would have access to FREE content.
• Killer content. What if Joost delivered new movie releases two weeks prior to DVD releases?

I’ll keep watching Joost, but that ‘watching’ will likely be in terms of reading the press to see what is happening as opposed to firing up Joost to watch video on my computer. I won’t be surprised, however, if next year I’m watching Joost in my living room and experiencing content in a whole new way.

Note: I’m currently viewing Joost on a MacBook Pro with 2GB of ram, utilizing the current version of the Joost client (0.9.2). At the time of writing this I have zero invites to give out.

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Free Google multivariate testing tool now public

April 4, 2007 at 12:36 pm · Filed under Content, Analytics, Online Marketing, Beta

Google opened up its Website Optimizer (beta) to the public (anyone can sign-up). Website Optimizer is a fractional factorial experimentation tool (also referred to as a multivariate testing tool) which allows marketers to test various facets of the content and/or design on web page(s) their visitors view. In comparison to A/B testing, fractional factorial experimentation allows testing of a greater number of variables at one time while still providing reliable testing results.

The cost for Website Optimizer? It’s free. The catch? Depends on how you look at it, and more importantly, what your needs are. Things to consider:

1. It appears, although nothing in the documentation I read says it explicitly, that you can only run experiments on a single page (as opposed to a flow which consists of multiple pages-like a checkout process made up of 4 screens, for example).
2. I could not find any documentation that ensured me that users who were viewing a specific version of a page would see that exact same version of the page if they returned during the testing period.
3. Website Optimizer does not allow variable content to be a part of the test. You can apply Website Optimizer ‘experiments’ to variable content pages, however, the variable content itself cannot be tested against.

If you’re looking to test a single landing page which is well trafficked, or a part of a marketing campaign, Website Optimizer is definitely priced right. And, there is no doubt that multivariate testing is a more effective way to perform these types of tests. If you’re looking to perform more involved testing, you’ll likely be looking to other providers such as Offermatica, Optimost, or SiteSpect. Be warned: those tools are decidedly NOT free.

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