SEO Kolkata - Experienced SEO Consultant India, Kolkata

Google has again made a change to their search result page URLs that is likely to create trouble with most other web analytics package besides Google Analytics. A few days back they experimented with their SERP URLs by using AJAX and putting the URL parameters after a #. While that experiment had the potential to kill all the existing web analytics package in the market and created a big buzz in the blogosphere, they seem to have stopped that.

Now in their new experiment with the Google Search result URLs, they have done some changes which again would leave most other web analytics package high and dry to track Google referrer data.

At present a typical Google search referrer URL would look like
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=candles&btnG=Google+Search

The New Referrer URL format would be
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=7&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.example.com%2Fmypage.htm&ei=0SjdSa-1N5O8M_qW8dQN&rct=j&q=candles&usg=AFQjCNHJXSUh7Vw7oubPaO3tZOzz-F-u_w&sig2=X8uCFh6IoPtnwmvGMULQfw

Now besides showing the complete result page URL and other multiple parameters, the key difference between these two referrer strings is that in the first on the parameters started after "/search?" and in the second one they start after "/url?". Now most of the present day analytics packages parses the Google referrer string based on the "/search?" part and looks for information after that to figure out which keyword or which page of the search result the traffic came from. Also most of them look for the "/search?" to determine if a visitor is coming from organic search results. Replacing "search" with "url" would leave them all messed up.

Google analytics however does not depend on the "/search?" string in the referrer and would continue to work properly. Also the latest version of Urchin (6.5) would not be affected by this change.

Other analytics packages would probably need to do some changes to adapt to this change in Google referrer string to provide accurate analytics report.

These new referrer String is launched at beta stage and only a small percentage of users are getting this at present but it is likely that Google would soon roll out this in the main stream.

While Google has not explained or given any reason for this sudden changes there seems to be just two possible reasons for this.
a) Making other third party analytics less usable / giving them a hard time - I don't think other analytics providers would have a lot of problem to adapt this but they would definitely need some time and webmasters would need an option for that period and Google Analytics would be the choice.

b) This new referrer string would allow Google to pass all clicks through their server thereby making it much easier for them to track the CTR for individual sites. As it has always been said that Google uses CTR data as a factor for their algorithm, now that Google can track individual CTR with so much precision I would think that they are very likely going to use these information for further refining the organic results.

Related Post:
Google Planning AJAX Interface - Doom's Day for Analytics
Google Analytics Blog Post

Labels: click tracking, Google analytics, Google referral, Web analytics

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There has been a lot of buzz going around about the Twitter search, how it can be used and even speculations on whether Twitter is going to have a monetization plan using Twitter search. However, one key area where Twitter search fails miserably is in its ability to read URLs. In Twitter, people typically use short URLs and Twitter search doesn't have the capacity to read the actual URLs hidden under them.

As a result, if you are one of those marketers who has been putting some effort to spread the word about your website or blog through Twitter and would like to see how it has been working for you Twitter search would probably not be the best tool to use.

Back Tweets fills this gap just perfectly.

Search for any URL and it can read through all the posts with shortened URLs ( irrespective of the URL shortening service used ) and show you the ones that talks about your website. An excellent way to see how your links are traveling through the Twitter world.

I liked the interface that they have for Back Tweets and it is pretty similar to the Twitter search interface. While I loved the way this worked one thing that set me off a bit is the lack of a RSS feed. Its good that I can search about my website URL and happy about the results but why not throw in a small RSS for me to grab the search results and add it to my feed reader and monitor it regulalrly ? I think getting a RSS feed for the search results would be a great addition for BackTweets.

However, while Back Tweet is great for searching Tweets containing your URLs they are no good if you are just searching for a topic or message.

I think a mix of Twitter search with Back Tweets would be an ideal solution as it would allow us to search the content along with the links. The Back tweet guys would probably have an edge on this race as they already have the Back Type Connect application in place which allows them to search for conversation. So the next step would be to integrate both the platforms.

Let's see if Twitter Search can keep up with the Back Tweet guys.

Related Posts:
How To Integrate Twitter With Blogs ?
Dell Boosts Revenue With Twitter

Labels: Back Tweets, search, twiiter

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In my last article I discussed about the various reasons for which a website can throw a 404 error. While they are largely avoidable, with a little effort we can actually get the 404 errors to work for our website rather than working against it.

The solution is simple, create a custom 404 page. Instead of the ugly "404 Error - Page not Found" we can have a nice page that tells the visitors that something has gone wrong and provide him with alternatives. This would help retain the visitors to your website to great extent.

Now the question is, how to create a custom 404 page ?

Creating Custom 404 Page in Apache

a) Download your .htaccess file from server using FTP.
b) Open using Notepad and look for the line below..
ErrorDocument 404 /path/to/your/error/file.html
c) Download this error file mentioned in the path and modify the HTML to customize it, alternatively, create a separate custom 404 page and replace the "/path/to/your/error/file.html" with the path to the new file.
d) Save the .htaccess file and upload to your server.
e) Type in a wrong URL that you know doesn't exist and check if the custom 404 page shows up.

Points to Note:
a) Make sure you keep a back up of your .htaccess file before uploading the new file. This is a very crucial file for websites on Apache and can create a mess if you write anything silly in it.

b) In case you don't have a .htaccess file on your server, you can create a new one in a notepad. Just add the line below and it should work well.
ErrorDocument 404 /path/to/your/error/custom404page.html

c) Though most web hosting companies that offers Apache server gives access to .htaccess file, some of them still don't. In case you are on one of those servers speak to your host.

How to Create Custom 404 Error Page in IIS

This is again a very simple process but you will need to have access to your server to do this.

a) Open Your Internet Service Managerand right click on the website for which you want to set the custom 404 error page.
b) Click on Properties
c) CLick on Custom Errors tab.
d) You will see a long list of errors, scroll down till you see 404 HTTP error on the left column.
e) On the right column (Content) you will see a file associated with it.
f) You can edit this file and customize it. Alternatively, choose Edit Properties and change the file to the custom 404 file that you have already created.
g) Check if the custom 404 error page is working by typing a wrong URL.

So don't let those visitors bounce off , create a nice and attractive custom 404 error page and keep them in.

Related Post: Various Causes of 404 Error Code and Solutions

Labels: 404 error code, Apache, custom 404 page, http status code, IIS

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This morning I received an email from one of my blog readers who is a bit disappointed by the overwhelming number of 404 error code that shows in his server log. He is aware of the fact that 404 HTTP status code stands for "Not Found" but that confuses him further because all his links are working fine and there is no link that leads to a page not found. ( Well, I guess he is missing the fine difference between "Not Found" and "Page not found" )

Instead of answering his email I thought I would put up a post here, so it can be of help to all my readers who are struck with such 404 error issues.

As per the W3.org, 404 HTTP status code is defined as "Not Found". It further says,

The server has not found anything matching the Request-URI. No indication is given of whether the condition is temporary or permanent. The 410 (Gone) status code SHOULD be used if the server knows, through some internally configurable mechanism, that an old resource is permanently unavailable and has no forwarding address. This status code is commonly used when the server does not wish to reveal exactly why the request has been refused, or when no other response is applicable.

Here are some of the common causes of 404 Error

• Moving a Web Page - At times you reorganize your website or move resources from one page to another for various reasons. Now even after you have removed the page it is likely that you will still have some references to the page both on-site ( links from other pages) as well as off-site ( search engine result pages, links from external sites etc) While you can take care of the internal pages and remove all references you are helpless with the external references and any visitor following those links would get a 404 error.
  Solution: Set up a 301 redirection from your old page to new page. All your visitors would be able to find the page. Search engines would also recognize the move, drop the old page and index the new one.
  
  
• Mistyping by Type in Traffic - If your website is very popular you might be getting a lot of type in traffic. Any mistyping by those visitors would return a 404 error page.
  Solution: Not really a solution for this because you don't know what your visitors are going to type but as a best practice try using file names that are logical, short and easy to remember. Also, you can gain back some of these traffic by using a custom 404 error page ( will write a separate post on this soon ) .
  
  
• Misspelled URLs in External Links - Its always good to get links from other websites, but if the URL is misspelt all visitors would get a 404 status code.
  Solution: Monitor your 404 error logs and see if they are sent by any particular site. If it is a case of misspelt URL, contact the webmaster and request them to change the link with correct spelling. If that is not possible, create a page with the misspelt URL and set up a 301 redirect from that page to the intended page.
  
  
• Renaming Documents & Change of URL Structure - At times pages are also renamed or URL structures are modified. This is a common case with old dynamic websites with complex URL structures with parameters who might be changing over to a nice static looking URLs with URL rewriting. Even in this case the old URLs and file references remain in various locations on and off the site and any visitor trying to access the old URLs would get a 404 error.
  Solution: Again 301 redirection is the best solution that you can have to avoid these 404 error codes.
  
  
• Case Sensitive File Names - While this is not an issue with IIS this can be a major problem if your website is on Unix or Linux server. Apache is case sensitive in respect to file names. If your file name is seo.html and you have linked to SEO.html , your server would return a 404 Http status code.
  Solution: Be very careful while naming your files. Its a generally accepted practice to have file names in lower case and following the convention should save you much trouble in case you are on Unix or Linux server.
  
  
• Old Domains - Many of us would buy an old domain and put our site on that in lure of those few extra backlinks, PR juice and domain authority. Now these domains might have some of their pages still indexed in search engines or linked from other websites which can give you a trickling flow of visitors and most of them getting a 404 error code ( unless coincidentally some of your URLs are same as the old site).
  Solution: You would probably like to ignore this traffic unless the traffic is highly relevant to your website and the volume of traffic is also good. In case you see a good amount of traffic flow, you can always set up a new page based on the old URL.
  
  
• Missing Favicon.ico - Favicon.ico is a small graphic icon that gets displayed on the address bar when you open a URL in Firefox or when you try to bookmark a URL in IE. Its great for branding to have a small logo beside your URL or eside your bookmarked URL. Some of the browsers like Mozilla would call for this favicon.ico file whenever it opens a page and IE would call for this file whenever somone tries to bookmark a page. Now if you don't have a Favicon.ico it your server returns a 404 http status code to the user agent .
  Solution: Simple ! Add a favicon.ico to your website. If you are good with graphics you can do it yourself using Photoshop or other similar programs. Alternatively use this Favicon generator.
  
  
• Missing Robots.txt - All search engine spiders and bots calls for the robots.txt file whenever they visit your website. A robots.txt file contains the directives that tells the bots which part of the website they should not spider. These days robots.txt file is also used to provide links to XML sitemaps so it is easier for spiders to crawl the entire website. Each website must have a robots.txt file in their root directory. Even if you don't want to block any part of your website from the spiders, upload a blank robots.txt.
  Solution: Make sure you have a robots.txt file in your root directory. In case you want to know more, read how to create a robots.txt .

Related post:
Guide to URL Redirection - How to set up a 301 redirect
How to Create a Custom 404 Error page

Labels: 301 redirection, 404, 404 error code, http status code

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As a SEO and Internet marketing consultant I come across various clients with varied requirements and usability is probably one of the most important yet hardly ever asked question that I face from them.

SEO has evolved to great extent and now just getting good rankings for a website doesn't finish a SEO consultant's job. Client's today are more ROI driven and if you really want your clients to convert the traffic that you deliver you will often need to help them with usability.

Though not really specific to increasing conversion, here are few usability tips that would help make your visitors spend a nice time on your website.

a) Users Don't Like to Keep Guessing: Users love web pages that are self explanatory and don't leave them guessing. We already have too many questions to answer in our life why would anyone like to visit a web page that just adds a few more questions to the list - what is this website about ? which link do I click next ? is that graphics clickable ? Yes, usability flaws basically means your users gets more questions for which they need to find the answers and keep guessing what next .

Provide your users with an intuitive navigation structure, help them move from one page to other in a logical way, provide them with visual clues and easily recognizable links that guides them to their goals - they should be happy with it.

b) Don't Test Your User's Patience: If you are offering a product or service to your visitors to test that's great but it doesn't allow you to test the patience of your users. The less action is required from users to test a service a random visitor is more likely to try it out. First time visitors would not be willing to fill in long forms or put in personal details. Give them a small form they might fill that to play with your product or service but give them a long form and they are likely not to visit your website again.

People often ask for email address while offering a test service, while I do understand that this is a good way to collect leads and a way to communicate with prospective customers, it would be much better and probably many more people would try the services if you don't ask for the email address at the beginning. If you need to get the email address, may be you can ask users for a feedback at the end of their first use of your product or service and there you ask there emails.

c) Manage Your User's Focus: Well we all know that user don't read but they scan web pages however what we tend to neglect is during this scanning process user's focus keep diverting. We should understand that human eyes typically move in a non linear fashion and this gives us the opportunity to arrest the user's focus to any part of the web page and this can be used effectively to give users a better experience on your web page.

For example, bold texts, graphics, text in bigger fonts, videos or animations tends to get the users attention before the other page elements. If these elements can be used effectively to convey the necessary message and then provide hints on the way they should navigate through the pages to reach their goal it would definitely enhance the user experience as well as contribute to increasing the conversion rate.

d) Keep it Simple ( KIS ) - The Keep it Simple principle is just perfect when you are designing with your users in mind. Visitors typically don't visit a website for the design, they come for information and keeping a simple design helps them to find the information they are looking for more easily. Look at Google, one of the most used website in the world, don't you love the simplicity of their interface ? Present your information on the site clearly and give your visitors a few options for action without overcrowding them with unnecessary content.

e) Test, test and test some more - Testing is one of the key factors that improves your website's usability. While it is good to get the site tested by a lot of people it might not be a viable option for new websites. But even conducting a test on a small audience is good. Test from the very beginning, organize the feedback , do changes based on them and test again. Testing is an iterative process and it is important to be organized with the process. Also bear in mind, don't test your own application or website - you know exactly how it is built and how it is supposed to work so you would likely not see any issues with usability. Get it tested with people who are using the website for the first time and get their feedback.

Please feel free to add your own tips on improving usability in the comments section.

Labels: Conversion, design, SEO, tips, usability

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It's a great relief to see that the Feedburner subscriber count is now back to normal. It actually dropped to 45 suddenly which was pretty surprising however now it is back to 81.

The feed count has again dropped to 39 after just one day of showing the proper figures. You can read the updates and participate in the discussion in this other post about Feedburner subscriber drop.

Please help me grow this count - subscribe to my blog feed :)

Labels: feed count, feed readers, Feedburner, subscriber count

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