Nothing’s wrong with this, mind you. Flash navigation is bad and needs to not exist.

But there are plenty of good reasons to [...]]]> The Google Webmaster Blog has a post about uses of Flash in Web pages. Naturally, as one might expect from Google, they focus on the ability of Googlebot or other spiders to ’see’ Flash.

Nothing’s wrong with this, mind you. Flash navigation is bad and needs to not exist.

But there are plenty of good reasons to use Flash. For instance, while it may not be spiderable, I know two sites where Flash ‘product builders’ are key drivers for conversion. Timbuk2, who make really great bicycle bags (and who’ve branched off into other bags too), have a great bag configurator tool that allows you to build your custom bag, see it, share it, and buy it. (I totally recommend their laptop bag, by the way.)

Similarly, Orbea’s USA site has a lot of Flash. But, they’re a brand play first and foremost. They are bikes yearned for by fanboys (and fangirls, hi), and aren’t going to be a primary (or tertiary, or billionary) choice for a casual shopper looking for help with bike selection on the Internet. Their bike builder tool is teh swanky. And that’s not a site that’s going to need lots of ‘how to choose components,’ since, again: the audience. We know what we like, and it’s shiny, light, and high-tech. Er, did I just say we? Anyway, a few runs through a configurator, then the next stop is a local shop who can help you fit and order a nice bit of carbon fiber with Italian componentry…

er, I digress. Again.

Flash can be a good part of a user experience. Not every site needs to live and die by spiderability. Should Flash be surrounded by spiderable goodness? Sure. Should a site owner decry Flash because it’s not 100% full of SEO goodness? Not if by adding Flash they can get people to drop some change.

(PS: Santa, all I really want for Christmas is Diva with a full Campy Chorus gruppo. I promise to be good.)

There’s a Salon blog post today on the reliability of online reviews. Here’s a choice bit:

Online ratings are beset by one main flaw, something pollsters call “response bias.” Because people are more likely to rate products that have moved them in some way — either positively [...]]]> This one’s for the Funk King of Minneapolis, Paul Jahn.

There’s a Salon blog post today on the reliability of online reviews. Here’s a choice bit:

Online ratings are beset by one main flaw, something pollsters call “response bias.” Because people are more likely to rate products that have moved them in some way — either positively or negatively — ratings for most items brim with extreme opinions. On Yelp everyone is above average; company CEO Jeremy Stoppelman told me that 85 percent of local businesses on the site get a three-star or better average rating.

The article is pretty good, so I won’t rehash it here. One thing that notably isn’t mentioned is ‘business owners posting wretchedly fake reviews in some mad faux-SEO urge.’ I’ve seen some awful, awful fake reviews — no real human writes like these reviews, or would say these things about a business such as that reviewed.

The visual range depictions discussed in this article won’t do much about those written reviews, although they’ll show the bias in the starred reviews a little more strongly. On the other hand, Paul and I have discussed that if a reasonable person found these fake reviews, they’d make a sane reader less likely to go to a business. Even though there’s massive response bias in even real reviews, at least they’re real.

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.

Consider:

But if you look closely, realty companies are clearly using the Web for brand presence, rather than search presence (save for PPC).

I did some SEO/SEM for a Major Real Estate Company(tm) about, eh, 2-3 [...]]]> I’m preparing to sell my house. Everyone knows that the Interweb is playing a big role in that process these days.

But if you look closely, realty companies are clearly using the Web for brand presence, rather than search presence (save for PPC).

I did some SEO/SEM for a Major Real Estate Company(tm) about, eh, 2-3 years ago. The experience was frustrating, because the site was not built to any specification that would support strong online marketing, and a lot of the work I could do involved either PPC or rudimentary code cleanup.

Looking at other real estate sites right now, I can say them with a confidence that the issues I faced there are more universal in the vertical than client-specific.

1. The Regional MLS is a train wreck of a database. Every site pulls its listings (‘Search listings from every agent!’) from the Regional MLS. The way every site pulls is such a nightmare I can only assume it is a flaw inherent on the MLS side.
2. Beyond that, though, the amount of insane URL structures on the average big-multi-office-agency web site? Wow. And it doesn’t even look like they’re using it for login or personalization in most cases.
3. The session cookies. Ai yi yi. What with session cookies, a lot of the standard, newsletter/brochure content (much of which is pretty good once you dig down), can’t be found or easily indexed for search.

Even if we skipped over the issues surrounding the MLS, setting up pages with local offices, strong geo-targeting footers for each, agent names, and even individual pages shouldn’t be too rough to do as standard-generated pages. Yet, it doesn’t happen. The agent pages set up by most agencies use a stock content template that few agents customize. The agents who DO care set up personal sites, but they show little search savvy — again, no local search elements, geo-targeters, etc., and I see a bunch of people using frames yet. Frames!

I’m not asking real estate agencies to set up a disintermediation system — something I know they all dread. But by making offices and geotargeters indexable and findable, they could create an excellent lead-referral system.

As it is, most of them must be driving traffic on name-recognition for the agency (drive-by signs, billboards, TV/Radio ads, etc.), and via PPC. Keyword bidding for real estate PPC, by the way, is insane. Given that most of them seem to route their PPC to their home pages, I doubt it’s especially effective — and I bet conversion tracking is near-nonexistent. Expensive and unmeasurable: two adjectives I hate, used together.

It’s a pity. This whole process is giving me a headache. I just want to find someone who actually knows my neighborhood who might be able to sell my house in comparison to others in the neighborhood. Mine is one of the larger single-homes, and actually has central air, which means it’s a bit of an oddity — especially since there are no fewer than 4 repossessed homes in a 3-block radius, all on the market for cheap, and all needing twice their price in work. My house is move-in ready (or will be). So marketing this place will take some delicacy. And instead of finding some info online, I’m going to be slogging with a phone and lingering around open houses. Sigh.

Hm. I wonder if I can get an agent to take part commission, part barter on this deal. I build them a decent, locally targeted site, they cut their take focusing on the long-term benefit…