As evident by the latest Googlebomb, “cheerful achievement” that went to the White House website, Googlebombs still work. Previously, as Danny Sullivan somewhat inaccurately noted, Google tried to “defuse” Googlebombing through an algorithm. Google did not kill or defuse Googlebombing, but instead minimized the impact over the long-run (one has to really fine-tune what Google says and not over-react to the meaning).

Nonetheless, with sites such as Wikipedia noting that Googlebombing at one point potentially no longer worked, there was a public relations blitz using the public face of Matt Cutts to talk about how Google really detects Googlebombs through its algorithm. Useful information, but more insightful was two points in the official Google Webmaster Central Blog.

Hidden gem #1:

By improving our analysis of the link structure of the web, Google has begun minimizing the impact of many Googlebombs. Now we will typically return commentary, discussions, and articles about the Googlebombs instead.

Sounds like as long as no sites are talking about a new Googlebomb and the referenced phrase, then any Googlebomb that is kept quiet will still rank until it is publically exposed and that is only if a small number of people are pushing the Googlebomb.

Hidden gem #2:

Because these pranks are normally for phrases that are well off the beaten path, they haven’t been a very high priority for us. But over time, we’ve seen more people assume that they are Google’s opinion, or that Google has hand-coded the results for these Googlebombed queries. That’s not true, and it seemed like it was worth trying to correct that misperception. So a few of us who work here got together and came up with an algorithm that minimizes the impact of many Googlebombs.

Yet, having sitelinks for non-brand keywords either is Google’s opinion about what site should rank high for or not enough people are complaining/publically assuming what site to go to. Would be an interesting question to learn about from Google.

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If you are in or around Shanghai and work in the gaming industry, take consideration into the upcoming event:

“China Game Licensing and Investment Forum 2009”, a B2B event, will be held in Shanghai, China in April 2009. The B2B event is a platform for Chinese online and casual game developers to present their products in front of China’s top publishers and investors to make licensing and investment deals.

Previous participants of the event include all major Chinese online game publishers such as Giant, Tencent, and Shanda. Online and casual game developers from around the world who have products they want to license to China are welcome to participate. For more info about the event, please contact Mr. Zhan Ye at zhanye [at] gamevisiongroup.com.

Wish I could check that out.

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I forgot to mention this previously, but wanted to point out that even for someone like myself who is very into web analytics and is always thinking about how to use analytics for my clients, that even I learned a few tips (or inspired some as well) from the videos on Avinash’s post about some actionable web analytics video tips.

Ironically though, the third video with Avinash’s top tip did not supply me any new ideas or tips such as the first two. It is not that his thoughts were not good (they very well certainly are), it was just that I had already thought of those things already for goal values on my own.

Nonetheless, I highly recommend the viewing of all three videos if you want to learn more about how to use web analytics on a higher level.

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If your first thought of President Barack Obama’s new White House website change is the above title of this post or even a “Wow! That looks nice,” it is time to update the look of your company’s website. Within an hour of Obama’s inauguration, the White House website underwent a whole site redesign to look as the following:

The site redesign is not perfect (I am allowed to have some quibbles) as it could have some stronger call-to-actions, SEO, etc., however, considering this is a government website, the design is very well done.

This only raises the bar for full-service interactive advertising agencies dealing in creative, heurestic analyses, and SEO all around, I will attest to that.

Oh, and the site is using WebTrends:

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I wonder if Web Analytics companies have to go through the same bidding process as contractors do?

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Beautifully made image of Shanghai (and Chongming island) out of poker chips:

The author is Liu Jianhua and more can be found over on artnet.

My personal favorite is the “Reflection in Water” of Shanghai as well:

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The Worldmapper has some unique views of mapping data and probably the most interesting one to me was through international power usage by type. The data is based back in 2002 or 2001, but still interesting to note the differences between hydroelectic power, oil power, gas power, coal power, and nuclear power:

Hydroelectric

Oil

Gas

Coal

Nuclear

Fascinating to see which countries rely on only one major source of power such as South Africa on coal or how the United States consumes every type available for power generation. I am surprised at the amoung of oil power Japan uses as I had thought Japan had reduced a lot of their reliance on oil to focus more on nuclear power. South America heavily uses hydroelectric power, but am unsure as to whether that is due to low power usage or millions of dams along the many rivers snaking through the Amazon.

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If you are interested in some top notch search engine optimization scientists, I recommend reading SEO Theory’s post listing who these SEO scientists are. Mainly, these would be people useful for doing in-depth research into areas for academia (or learning) and heavy-duty research papers above all else.

Just keep in mind that being a search engine optimization scientist does not necessarily mean they would be good at marketing and providing the most efficient bang for the buck.

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Custom reports for Google Analytics, though second best in my opinion to the advanced segmentation filters in the latest update, provides some rather helpful and great uses for the rabid Google Analytics user. The Google Analytics blog provides some tips about what to use the custom reports for:

• Combining metrics from multiple reports
• Creating relevant drilldowns
• Simplifying reports to share with colleagues

With any new feature (or really with any features) there are going to be limitations so keep in mind how to combine metrics and dimensions. I have run across some of the limitations below:

• You unfortunately cannot directly create a Landing Pages & Visits custom report–Entrances (which is really the same thing), yes. But otherwise, you either have to drilldown by landing page in the traffic sources section (which, honestly, I have some qualms about) or within the custom report put in the other values you want, create the report, and then do the drilldown.
• Just about anything with AdWords data–sadly, the data within Analytics (when its linked) comes from AdWords and not through Google Analytics so it cannot be modified (that is, the click data) in important ways.
• Ecommerce Conversion Rate–I honestly have no clue why this is not in there when the custom report has average value and per visit value, but there you have it.

Nonetheless, there are a variety of useful custom reports that you can create and to throw in some fun, albeit more for data research, I can create the following:

• Ad Slot Position & Keywords (and vice versa)–I now know where my keywords show up in a far more useful manner to see whether the PPC ads being clicked on are coming from what position and which side of Google’s SERPs (Can I please beg someone at Google Analytics to provide the same information for SEO?). I can then see how the positions conversion rates are doing for each keyword. More for data research as AdWords has some of this information already and that PPC cannot change their bids based on top of the SERPs versus the right hand side.
• Keyword Visits & Bounces–If you ever want to see a depressing custom report, look no further than a custom report that removes all keyword visits that did not result in a bounce (or one that has all bounces).
• Browser & Per Visit Value–Should you really care about Mac Safari users? You may find that although they may account for a small version of your site traffic, the amount of revenue they generate per visit may necessitate you creating a website that works for the top browsers & computers.

If you are new to custom reports, be sure to check out the Google Analytics video below:

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Slashdot has some of the best stories for nerds around the net, with the latest on a social skills class for nerds:

“According to Reuters, Potsdam University in Germany is now teaching social skills as part of their IT courses. This is intended to ‘ease entry into the world of work’. The 440 students enrolled in the master’s degree course will learn how to write flirtatious text messages and emails, impress people at parties and cope with rejection(s).”

A modern nerd has no need for a social skills class while the pre-Bill Gates nerds would not care about taking such a class, unless it was to persue the opposite sex. A modern nerd understands how to have social skills as it would be a dork who would not have those skills, however, he may still take the class out of pure hilarity.

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The stronger the rule of law becomes in China, the more cases such as Gooogle’s become the norm. A Chinese company, Beijing Guge Science and Technology Co., sued Google China for using the same Chinese name, Guge (谷歌).

A year ago, the Chinese courts dismissed the case against Google China as Google had registered the name seven days prior to Beijing Guge. More startling was that Google actually responded with a counter-suit and today won 100,000 yuan compensation from the previous lawsuit and ironically forced Beijing Guge to change their own name!

This was a major mistake in their ability to research or a corrupt attempt to forcibly change a foreign company’s name that really came back to bite Beijing Guge. Either way, this is a just another example to show that companies can safely do business in China even when the Chinese government does not like the industry very well.

In any case, would it be too over-the-top to say that Beijing Guge should have used Google for their research on trademark registration dates?

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