Finally, there’s an even more aggressive feature (internal Google code name: “Spellmeleon”) for when we really think the user messed up. In that case, we’ll include a couple results for the corrected query first, then results for the user’s original query. Take the query [ipodd] for example. Our algorithms strongly suggest that the user meant to type “ipod” so we’ll include those search results first.

At the time I commented that “Spellmeleon needs to be more aware of British English spelling when on google.co.uk”.

Fast forward 8 months and it’s been reported by Starstruck who runs Search Engine Optimisation that Google have actually made things a lot worse for the British.

A search on Google UK for search engine optimisation now shows the results for the American spelling with the comment:

Showing results for search engine optimization. Search instead for search engine optimisation

The same thing happens for conversion optimisation and conversion rate optimisation

You can click through and see the results for the proper British spelling, but the amount of people that will do so is minuscule.

Cultural Imperialism

I’d always found the “Did you mean: search optimization” to be annoying, now having those results forced upon me is adding injury to insult – to remix a metaphor.

And it is an injury. I want to talk to British companies and British businesses. By using the local spelling of the phrase I am self selecting the market I wish to speak to and write for. Google have not only made it harder for me to attract local business, but made it harder for British business to find information and service providers that can best meet their needs.

The forcing of an American spelling by Google in the UK results is nothing less than cultural imperialism. I wish the British Government would take a leaf out of France’s and insist that the English language is respected and protected.

No Flipping Poxy Results

Comparing the URLs between the American spelling and the British version there are a few new parameters. Adding the variable &nfpr=1 (or as I now call it, “No Flipping Poxy Results”) to the search string seems to clear away the instance on the American spelling and just show the prefered results – albeit still with that “Did you mean: …”

It’s a lengthy read showing specific examples of how conversion rate optimisation can affect your business and increase the customer base. I then go on to show examples of how to test, and finally what elements you can test.

I hope you enjoy it.

Trim Google URL

The following version also adds pws=0 to turn to personalied search and num=100 to display 100 results at once:

100 PWS

At the suggestion of Martin Bromley of Smart Landing I also made a version that rather than just simplfy the URL with the hash it replaces the hash with the old style “/search?” URL.

Wait there’s more! It also doesn’t open a new window with the results this time, but creates a textarea box on the actual Google results page. It also adds the pws=0 and num=100 to the URL to get 100 unpersonalised results. This lets you copy the cleaned up Google URL in the old style – this is useful for instance in the AdWords keyword tool which doesn’t like the hash version of the search URL.

The textarea box will generally appear above the search box near the top of the page, but it does depend on the version of Google you are using.

G’URL to Search

I’ve updated the styling to highlight the nofollow links, and to “stripe” the output to make it easier to read.

At the bottom of the page I’ve created several of the textarea boxes, so you can grab various types of links:

• All the no followed links
• All the followed links
• Just the external links
• Just the external followed links
• The external nofollowed links

Once more drag the link in the big green box to your bookmark bar and when you’ve on a page you want to analyse hit the bookmarklet. It will open a new window showing all the links and with several text boxes with the links as detailed above.

Links On Page

Here’s the code:

javascript:(function(){var hostname=window.location.hostname; hostname=hostname.replace("www.","").toLowerCase(); this.check = function(obj){var href = obj.href.toLowerCase(); return (href.indexOf("http://")!=-1 && href.indexOf(hostname)==-1) ? true : false; }; strhead="<link href='http://www.onlinesales.co.uk/seo/bookmarklet/seo.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>\n"; anchors=document.getElementsByTagName("a"); str="<table>"; str+="<tr><th>#</th><th>HREF</th><th>Anchor</th><th>Rel</th></tr>\n"; var allExternal=allExternalFollow=allExternalNoFollow=allLinks=allFollow=allFollowLinks=allNoFollow=allNoFollowLinks=""; var nflc=flc=xlc=xflc=xnflc=0; for(i=0;i<anchors.length;i++){var j=i+1; var anchorText = anchors[i].textContent; var anchorRel = anchors[i].rel; if(anchorText === undefined){anchorText = anchors[i].innerText; }if(j%2=='0'){if(anchorRel.match(/nofollow/i)){str+="<tr style='background-color:#ddcccc;'>"; }}else{str+="<tr style='background-color:#eeeeee;'>"; if(anchorRel.match(/nofollow/i)){str+="<tr style='background-color:#ccbbbb;'>"; }}str+="<td>"+j+"</td>"; str+="<td><a href="+anchors[i].href+">"+anchors[i].href+"</a></td>"; str+="<td>"+anchorText+"</td>"; str+="<td>"+anchorRel+"</td>"; str+="</tr>\n"; allLinks+=anchors[i].href+"\n"; if(anchorRel.match(/^(?!nofollow)/i)){allFollow+=anchors[i].href+"\n"; allFollowLinks+="<a href=\""+anchors[i].href+"\">"+anchorText+"</a>\n"; flc=flc+1; }else{allNoFollow+=anchors[i].href+"\n"; allNoFollowLinks+="<a href=\""+anchors[i].href+"\">"+anchorText+"</a>\n"; nflc=nflc+1; }if(check(anchors[i])){allExternal+=anchors[i].href+"\n"; xlc=xlc+1; if(anchorRel.match(/^(?!nofollow)/i)){allExternalFollow+=anchors[i].href+"\n"; xflc=xflc+1; }else{allExternalNoFollow+=anchors[i].href+"\n"; xnflc=xnflc+1; }}}str+="</table><br/> <br/><a name=a></a><h2>All Links ("+j+")</h2><textarea cols=80 rows=10>"; str+=allLinks; str+="</textarea><br/> <br/><a name=b></a><h2>Followed Links ("+flc+")</h2><textarea cols=80 rows=10>"; str+=allFollow; str+="</textarea><br/> <br/><a name=c></a><h2>NoFollowed Links ("+nflc+")</h2><textarea cols=80 rows=10>"; str+=allNoFollow; str+="</textarea><br/> <br/><a name=d></a><h2>All External Links ("+xlc+")</h2><textarea cols=80 rows=10>"; str+=allExternal; str+="</textarea><br/> <br/><a name=e></a><h2>External Follow Links ("+xflc+")</h2><textarea cols=80 rows=10>"; str+=allExternalFollow; str+="</textarea><br/> <br/><a name=f></a><h2>External NoFollow Links ("+xnflc+")</h2><textarea cols=80 rows=10>"; str+=allExternalNoFollow; str+="</textarea><br/> <br/><p align=center><a href='http://www.onlinesales.co.uk/'>Bookmarklet by Liam Delahunty of Online Sales</a></p>"; strhead+="<table><tr><td>"+j+"</td><td><a href='#a'>Links on page.</a></td></tr><tr><td>"+flc+"</td><td><a href='#b'>Followed links.</a></td></tr><tr><td>"+nflc+"</td><td><a href='#c'>No followed links.</a></td></tr><tr><td>"+xlc+"</td><td><a href='#d'>External Links</a></td></tr><tr><td>"+xflc+"</td><td><a href='#e'>External Followed Links</a></td></tr><tr><td>"+xnflc+"</td><td><a href='#f'>External Nofollowed Links</a></td></tr></table>"; doc=strhead+str; with(window.open()){document.write(doc); document.close();}})()

Just drag the following link in the big green box to your bookmark bar and when you’ve completed a search in Google it will open a new window with the results listed with position, URL and anchor text (the page title normally).

Below that are two boxes so you can easily grab the URLs themselves or use the HTML to make a resources page.

This video should make its usage clear.

Simple Google Results

Here’s the code:

javascript:( function(){ str="<link href='http://www.onlinesales.co.uk/seo/bookmarklet/seo.css' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>\n"; anchors=document.getElementsByTagName("a"); str+="<table>"; str+="<tr><th>#</th><th>HREF</th><th>Anchor</th></tr>\n"; var k=0; var listing=""; var links=""; for(i=0;i<anchors.length;i++){ var anchorText = anchors[i].textContent; var anchorLink = anchors[i].href; if(anchorLink.match(/^((?!google|cache|youtube\.com\/results|javascript:{}|javascript:void\(0\)|api\.technorati\.com|botw\.org\/search|del\.icio\.us\/url\/check|digg\.com\/search|search\.twitter\.com\/search|search\.yahoo\.com\/search|siteanalytics\.compete\.com|tools\.seobook\.com\/general\/keyword\/suggestions|web\.archive\.org\/web\/|whois\.domaintools\.com|www\.alexa\.com\/data\/details\/main|www\.bloglines\.com\/search|www\.majesticseo\.com\/search\.php|www\.semrush\.com\/info\/|www\.semrush\.com\/search\.php|www\.stumbleupon\.com\/url|wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Special:Search).)*$/i)){ listing+=anchorLink+"\n"; links+="<a href=\""+anchorLink+"\">"+anchorText+"</a>\n"; k=k+1; if (anchorText === undefined) anchorText = anchors[i].innerText; str+="<tr>"; str+="<td>"+k+"</td>"; str+="<td><a href="+anchors[i].href+">"+anchors[i].href+"</a></td>"; str+="<td>"+anchorText+"</td>"; str+="</tr>\n"; } } str+="</table><br/> <br/><h2>Plain Listing</h2><textarea cols=80 rows=10>"; str+=listing; str+="</textarea><br/> <br/><h2>HTML Links</h2><textarea cols=80 rows=10>"; str+=links; str+="</textarea><br/> <br/><p align=center><a href='http://www.onlinesales.co.uk/'>Bookmarklet by Liam Delahunty of Online Sales</a></p>"; with(window.open()){ document.write(str); document.close(); } })()

In it he said he’d like to make the URLs cleaner, leaving just the search?q=whatever parts. He mentioned writing a Greasemonkey script, so I thought I’d write a little bookmarklet to help him out.

Just drag the following link to your bookmark bar and when you’ve completed a search in Google it will open a new window with the corrected search string and replace the URL.

javascript:(function(){var queryString=window.location.search.substring(1);var domainName=window.location.hostname;var myPathname=window.location.pathname;var searchArray=queryString.split('\&');var mySearch='';for(myElement in searchArray){if(searchArray[myElement].match(/^q=/)){var mySearch = searchArray[myElement];}}var searchOnly='http://'+domainName+myPathname+'?'+mySearch;with(window.open()){self.location.href=searchOnly;document.close();}})()

Trim Google URL

Edit – Thanks to a comment by Bruno Sabot I’ve updated the bookmarklet to work with iGoogle.

Edit 2 – I’ve changed the way I grab the query string and now the bookmarklet seems to work okay in most flavours of the main Google search.

Edit 3 – See Trim Google Search URL – Now with Added Hash! for a version which handles the form of the Google URL with (or without) hashes.

Now, you can simply add this tag to specify your preferred version:

<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish” />

inside the <head> section of the duplicate content URLs:

http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish&category=gummy-candy

http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish&trackingid=1234&sessionid=5678

and Google will understand that the duplicates all refer to the canonical URL: http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish. Additional URL properties, like PageRank and related signals, are transferred as well.
Google Webmaster Central

I have a client and their shopping basket was being reported in Google 293,000 times. Each link to the basket had options, and within the cart there were remove links. All of these got crawled and added to the index.

The canonical tag seems the natural solution. So on the 12th of Novemember it was added to the cart page. This morning though there are still 265,000 instances of the page indexed.

I wrote a bash script to see how many visits the Googlebot had paid the cart’s page, and since the 12th of November it’s visited 20,765 times. 293,000 less 20,765 is 272,235 which is very broadly 265,000 I suppose.

Google seem to be removing 2300 odd pages a day, but it will still take four months at the current rate to rid the site of the duplicate content issue using the canonical tag alone.

See also:

• Dave Naylor – rel=canonical tag and Affiliate links
• Matt Cutts – Canonical Link Tag

Curious as to the equivalent UK results I tried London dentist and saw a similar pattern. When I clicked through to the map results though I saw something I’ve never noticed before:

London Dentist Google UK Map Results

The first advert on the right contains a “mystery meat” icon that I can’t quite decipher. Presumably it’s supposed to be a building and has appeared because of the address featured in the advert’s copy.

London Dentist Adowrds Detail

I’d never seen an icon that size before with adwords, so it grabbed my attention, and I apologise to the advertiser as I clicked on the icon wondering what it was! Perhaps this has been available in other markets for a while but this is the first time I’ve noticed anything so dramatic by Google in UK local search.

The first couple of parts are already live:

• Part One: Goals and Tracking
• Part Two: Conversion Rate Measurement

The final part Conversion Rate Optimization will follow in the following week. (Link will be updated here when available).

Marty is a great copywriter and editor and it has been a real pleasure working with him on these articles.

In the near future Marty and I will do a back and forth SEO “Ping Pong” interview and particularly focus on copy writing as an integral part of the sales process.

Even now, with the web being even-my-mum-makes-money-on-it popular for much of the last decade there is still so much opportunity. However with that popularity comes the feeling that like the land run the opportunity will soon pass. As such the web pioneer may forge ahead into new territories grabbing as much land as possible, but hasn’t yet fully developed the properties already picked out.

The truth is, ten years ago people thought it was too late to get involved, that circumstances had changed and all the good ideas had been done; the same was said five years ago, three years ago and in years to come people will look back to the time we are in now and regard it as a golden period full of promises and easy fortunes.

With this in mind, what many do – and this is indeed a failing that I’ve suffered with more than most – is spread themselves far too thinly.

This means that lots of ideas are explored and many sites are started but nothing really makes it big.

The solution however is simple:

1. Pick one business or site to concentrate on.
2. Get the website to a level that you are happy with.
3. Start to promote it by asking for feedback, links and engaging with others
4. Then improve it further making it increasingly remarkable.
5. Promote it heavily.
6. Go to 4.

Making a site or business remarkable is the key to success. Being remarkable brings discussion, comments, awareness, branding and links. Links are the lifeblood of any online business.

Aiming for remarkable takes you above the mundane and ordinary. Shot for the stars to hit the moon.

Envisage the remarkable and map the site’s growth and development towards that. The opposite approach, starting from a blank page, and adding known and comfortable technology & design will get you a comfortable and ordinary business.