VaBeachKevin

Switching to Thesis

VaBeachKevin — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:17:44 +0000

As you can see things around here look a little goofy. I have never been happy with any of the Wordpress themes I have used, so I would switch them up constantly. Between that and working on my main Web Analytics site, Web Analytics Land, I have unfortunately neglected this site a bit. But no worries, I seem to have found an answer. It comes in the for of the Thesis theme. That’s right boys and girls, I have decided to give the uber-popular Wordpress theme a try. I am going to be playing with it on here a bit, experimenting with a few things here and there, to see the capabilities. My goal is to be able to use this theme on Web Analytics Land. So as I play with custom php files and learn all about hooks, things around here will look a little funny. Please excuse the mess, it will be done soon (I hope).

Whats going on

VaBeachKevin — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 20:16:48 +0000

Well I’ve decided to change up this blog again. First I wanted to talk about what I do for a living, Web Analytics, but I’ve decided to save that for my specific Web Analytics site, WebAnalyticsLand.com (still under construction). I was trying to show off my super crazy views about life, but I don’t want this to be a complaining ranting bitchy blog. Still not sure what direction to head in, but it will be coming soon.

Reconstruction time

VaBeachKevin — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 03:13:36 +0000

I am in the process of re purposing this blog. I have it currently set up as my place to talk about web analytics, seo, and general search engine issues. I am in the process of building a new site, which will be heavily focused on web analytics, with a little seo thrown in for good measure. I always believed a good web analyst should be familiar with seo, some programming, sem, html, along with a ton of other very important things. You need to have a strong attention to detail and not to be afraid to question everything. I think the new site (which will hopefully be launching soon) will be better suited to address these items. One of the keys to the new site will be a web analytics forum, which will serve as an alternative to the webanalytics group on Yahoo. Where I have found that to be very informative, I feel a standard forum layout will be much more user friendly and helpful. This blog will move to more of my personal views on politics religion, the country and a handful of other issues that are an intrest to me.

So while this site is being rebuilt, please dont mind the little bit of ‘wonkyness’ gong on with the pages. I hope to have it up and perfected soon (so long as I can decide on a template that I like).

Google to capture your browsing history

VaBeachKevin — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:24:25 +0000

Google announced today that they are coming out with their own web broswer, known as Google Chrome to go with their already long list of products that ~~steals~~ monitors all you browsing information. I guess all the data they ‘acquire’ from the Google Desktop, Toolbar, Analytics, etc just wasn’t enough for the Big G. I wonder how much longer it will be before we get the Google cerebral implant, so they can get all the data right from the source?

Wikipedia Needs More Links in Google

VaBeachKevin — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:06:54 +0000

Alright, I get it. I understand that wikipedia has its place as a valuable resource. Sure there is a bunch of incorrect information there, but for the most part I would have to admit its pretty spot on. Thats fine with me. I’m ok with it. I look at the wiki as I do a dictonary. A good reference that is usually what I’m looking for. There are a handful of words I use that the dictonary definition doesn’t really match up with how I use the word, but thats ok. I’m fine with it. Overall its a good resource. Just like Wikipedia. But Google, I like what you have done with the dictonary. You don’t have it showing up number one for every work that exists because you know that is dumb. But for every other search I do what do I see? Thats right, Wikipedia showing up at the top of the page.

This is pretty lame. What you should do Google is do what you have done with the dictonary definitions and stick it up in the corner. This is what I would like to see. Wikipedia is still on the page but it doesnt screw up the search results.

I think this is a good solution. You have your assignment Google, now get to work.

Lets start flashing

VaBeachKevin — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:16:05 +0000

Nike.com it looks like your troubles are over. Google just announced that they are now going to start indexing flash content. Looks like I can start working on those real sexy all flash websites I always wanted to try.

Nike.com Pay Attention - Googlebot Cloaking Broken

VaBeachKevin — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 17:47:13 +0000

I like Nike.com. I think it is a real neat site with a good amount of sizzle. Lots of videos and fancy flash all over the place. Nothing wrong with that in my opinion. But as far as Google bot is concerned, it’s a no-no. But hey, thats cool, adjustments can be made to make everyone happy. This is a case where cloaking is a good thing. Nike’s all flash website is a nightmare for crawlers, so they decide to just serve them up a nice simple non-flash version, so their data can still be crawled. I’m fine with it, Nike is fine with it, and Googlebot is fine with it. The problem comes in when you don’t pay attention to it. You have basically created another page that needs to be kept up regularly, and properly maintained. And if you don’t problems arise.

I often use Nike as an example of good cloaking. I show people the regular site, then show them the cloaked page and everything is fine. But today I go to take a look, and what do I see when I swith my user-agent to Googlebot?

A busted page. Google comes along to see you site and what do they get? A busted page. Not good. OK, maybe they can try to fix it before the spiders come along and that busted page gets indexed. Let’s take a look at their Google result.

It seems that Googlebot has seen the busted page, indexed it and is using that error text as the site’s description. Bad news. All the more reason to keep up with this kind of thing. Now this may not hurt Nike to bad, they are a massive global brand. When someone types in Nike and see’s that result, chances are the description will do little to deter them from clicking the link, which will take them to the correct homepage. But how about your site that is not as big as Nike? Make sure you pay attention to your good cloaked pages, your robots.txt file, and other vital site elements. Its just good practice to keep aware of what’s going on with your site.

Alexa Attempts To Make Rankings Less Flawed

VaBeachKevin — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 01:57:22 +0000

Alexa, the highly skewed web ranking system, announced an overhaul to their ranking algorithm.

We’ve been working hard behind the scenes for several months and are excited to announce that our new Alexa Rankings system is available.

Ok what does this really mean? Alexa for the longest time has had a very flawed means of determining a sites ranking. It was completely dependant on users installing their toolbar and being tracked in that fashion. Now if you didn’t have an Alexa tool bar installed, you were not counted which led to misleading rankings. Now they claim that they “aggregate data from multiple sources to give you a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users“.
Alexa rankings are not what everyone makes them out to be, a general positioning and ranking as a whole compared to the entire internet audience, but it is merely how well you do among the other Alexa toolbar users. this has been widely know in the SEO community for some time, but not too many outside of it were fully aware. With this new change it looks like Alexa is attempting to make their service a bit more respectable. I’ll be keeping an eye on them, and now may even give them a look to see how some of my sites are doing.

Google jumping the gun again

VaBeachKevin — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 02:45:06 +0000

One thing about me, I’m an early adopter. Anything new out, a new beta, a new product, I want to try it. Not waiting for reviews, I jump right in. So when I go to my igoogle homepage I see a neat new button.

What is this I see,a new feature, oh boy! Without thinking twice I go clicking away, full of anticipation of the new Google feature that lays ahead. What does the result of my click give me?

Oh Google why o why? Why do youtease me again and again? Why don’t you test something before you push it live? It’s just so frustrating…

Quality inbound links from sponsorships

VaBeachKevin — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 04:08:06 +0000

I read an article earlier on getting links by sponsoring a charity. I’ve got to say that this seems like a pretty good idea, but it also seems like a backdoor workaround to get some paid links. You’re not getting these links naturally due to the relative content of your site. You had to put up something on your end to get those links. Even though it may not be a straight cash exchange, you are giving some kind of valuable item, whether its goods or services. Now I’m not bashing the idea at all, I’m just curious to see how Google will look at it. I have a feeling they won’t like it because it’s only a matter of time before its abused and you see some buy Viagra site sponsoring Jerry’s Kids or something and the porn/pills/casino affiliates screw it up for everyone. Are we going to have to nofollow every single link on our site that has some kind of reimbursement attached, no matter how distant that relationship is just to be on the safe side?