He doesn’t mention Google Analytics, but I think GA also factors into Google’s reach for control. There’s some extent to which I [...]]]> I think Aaron Wall of SEOBook wrote a great post this week about Google and the ‘death’ of affiliate marketing. He really focuses on AdSense publishing, but I believe it goes further than that.

He doesn’t mention Google Analytics, but I think GA also factors into Google’s reach for control. There’s some extent to which I believe that the ‘free’ implementation of GA may have a greater price than many perceive.

First, it’s free up to 5 million page views/month… unless you’re displaying AdSense. Then, it’s unlimited. By doing both AdSense and GA, you’re providing Google a lot of traffic data on your site.

…the Service is provided without charge to You for up to 5 million pageviews per month per account, and if You have an active Adwords campaign in good standing, the Service is provided without charge to You without a pageview limitation.

Google may retain and use any data they collect via one’s use of the GA service:

Google and its wholly owned subsidiaries may retain and use, subject to the terms of its Privacy Policy (located at http://www.google.com/privacy.html , or such other URL as Google may provide from time to time), information collected in Your use of the Service.

Generally speaking, they cannot disclose specific, identifiable information about your site data to others without court order or consent. However, nothing within anyone’s privacy policy I’ve ever seen or written restricts a company’s ability to take the confidential data and use it internally.

I just think this opens a huge can of worms. You run a business that you want to develop qualified leads from search engines. You are handing a complete picture of all your traffic issues to one of your traffic sources — who can then learn all about where all your traffic is coming from, not just the traffic they’re sending you (or the traffic they can identify via people using Google Toolbar and Web History…).

Obviously, with some sites, this gives Google insider information to bid on other services to absorb into empire. This could lead to a better bid… or an early bid that’s lowball, but more than a lot of people ever thought to hope for. With many others, it gives them information to create speedbumps and roadblocks to search optimization.

This is why I typically tell my clients to pay for an analytics package, and why the company I work for provides an analytics package. It just seems safer and less fraught with peril.

Me: Yeah, let’s define evil, shall we?

Google is pure Web 2.0 in the sense of how they collect and [...]]]> The Wired interview with Google’s Eric Schmidt just confirms what I keep telling everyone who harps on the ‘Don’t be Evil!’ thing — ie, “But Google is GOOD! They have ‘Don’t Be Evil’ as a corporate motto!”

Me: Yeah, let’s define evil, shall we?

Google is pure Web 2.0 in the sense of how they collect and use data — user behavior helps to define their filtering mechanisms. What makes them scary and potentially evil is how freaking much data they can collect.

From that Wired article:

What does it take to improve the quality of ads on Google?

More computers, basically, and better algorithms. And more information about you. The more personal information you’re willing to give us – and you have to choose to give it to us – the more we can target. The standard example is: When you say “hot dog,” are you referring to the food, or is your dog hot? So the more personalized the information, the better the targeting. We also have done extensive engineering work with Google Analytics to understand why people click on ads. That way we can actually look at the purchase and go back and see what buyers did to get there. That is the holy grail in advertising, because advertisers don’t advertise just to advertise, they actually advertise to sell something.

When logged in to Google, data collection is nearly automatic. You can opt out of personalized search, but my money’s on 99.9% of people having no clue how to do so.

And being logged into Google isn’t exactly a case of ‘you must log in relative to search.’ Logged into Gmail today? Webmaster Tools? Any one of their 7 billion little services? Your search history is being ganked, even if you’re using the search box on your browser. (Unless you’ve hacked your FireFox, of course.)

I think some of the people who have traditionally defended Google’s information collection and use may back off a little bit now that they bought DoubleClick. The viva-Linux-we-love-Google crowd have traditionally despised anything that relates to DoubleClick, and would call them evil without even thinking about it. I don’t know that I know anyone in that crowd who would sing a merry song about ‘But Google will clean them up and make them good, like bunnies and kittens with little pink noses!’

And if it turns out I do, I will probably kick them very, very hard before I make them their very own tinfoil hat to match my own. I’m sure glad metallics are fashionable this season.

For instance, apparently this site ranks for the search phrase ‘adjectives for hate’ right now. Checking in Keyword Discovery, I find they have a record for the query “adjective for [...]]]> I am endlessly fascinated by some of the reports in Google’s Webmaster Tools, but wonder if they don’t provide too much information for the average user.

For instance, apparently this site ranks for the search phrase ‘adjectives for hate’ right now. Checking in Keyword Discovery, I find they have a record for the query “adjective for the word hate.” Uh, woo?

Of course, I play with my blogs for fun. When I think of clients I know, or clients I have had who know enough to think, “I will verify my site! This is going to be great!”… my head hurts. These aren’t people who have stablished real KPIs or who will evaluate if the terms they show for, either in Webmaster Tools or their own analytics package, are worth showing for. They won’t evaluate conversion rates. No, they’re just going to look and go hysterical. Crawl error? Never mind that the crawl error takes place on their print-friendly pages, whcih they really should imp a robots.txt on anyway, it’s hysterics time!

Even if they rank for something fun, like ‘flaming pop tarts,’ as one client of mine once did. (Note: In that instance, since the client didn’t like being found for that phrase, I suggested we remove it. We did. Problem solved.)

I only value hysterics from clients when they pay me by the hour.

Based on trends I have seen in individual client sites at the day job, where in many cases they are carrying ‘duplicate content’ or ‘canned content,’ surrounded by custom content, design, and geolocator text, duplicate content can actually [...]]]> I have a theory on duplicate content and local search that is insane, but seems to be true.

Based on trends I have seen in individual client sites at the day job, where in many cases they are carrying ‘duplicate content’ or ‘canned content,’ surrounded by custom content, design, and geolocator text, duplicate content can actually perform very well in search engines.

This content is not displayed via something designed for duplication/syndication like RSS. It is clearly duplicate.

The insane-but-possibly-true part is that I see this content performing decently on new domains, right from the indexing gate. You know, the sucking-sand period of any given web site’s launch.

No, I can’t show you the stats reports. But I see this repeatedly: Take some terms found in the duplicate content. Add a juicy geo term. Boom. There’s the new site performing well in a SERP.

I may go play with this on a new domain that’s not client-controlled, where I can show the data… hm.