Google PR Update
Update: False alarm on this. I thought that google was doing an update, but it looks now like a few datacenters were rolling back like a year or something which explains why newer sites were showing low (or 0) PageRanks. They all look like they’re back to normal now.
It looks like Google is in the process of a PageRank update of some sort (they may be raising the bar for higher PR’s which would explain the slide that I have seen on quite a few sites). Checkout SEO Chat’s Future PageRank tool to see what different Google datacenters are reporting your PageRank as.
Consumer packaging on the internet
A lot of internet retailers wonder how important product packaging is when they are doing business online. Since you are not relying on the packaging to close the sale you may be tempted to throw out packaging altogether and pad your margin with a poly bag.
I would warn most retailers about taking this approach unless selling a very low-consideration product that is truly commoditized. Having nice packaging will not increase your conversion rate (even if you publish the type of packaging included, most customers won’t really notice until they receive their package).
Having a nice presentation, however, can really help a customer feel good about their purchase and want to purchase from you in the future. When somebody spends a significant amount of money buying something they want to know that they got a nice product - packaging reenforces to the customer that you are selling brand-new merchandise as opposed to a second-hand or refurbished product.
Of course every situation is different and you will have to figure out what makes the most sense for you - when making this decision, consider the retention benefits of consumer packaging as opposed to presales considerations.
AdWords integration with Google Analytics
When I first heard about Google Analytics I was really excited about the “seamless integration” with Google Adwords - well, I have done everything right so far, but Google still thinks all of our traffic is organic. I wish it were, but the majority of our traffic is driven by Adwords - in two weeks of logging data Google still has not associated our clicks with our Adwords account.
On the bright side I heard that Google will give you double your money back for Google Analytics if it isn’t working right - the downside is that it is free 
On vacation
I will be on vacation with my wife’s family for the next week so don’t expect any blog posts (unless, of course, they have high speed internet in the hotel room in which case you can pray that my wife doesn’t kill me).
Advertising on Ask Jeeves
Typically in the world of marketing, or in business for that matter, consumers and suppliers are both better off when middlemen are cut out of the equation. A good example of this is Business.com - I have met a lot of advertisers that swear that Business.com is an effective advertising channel but in my experience Business.com just advertises in a lot of places that I could advertise directly on, such as Yahoo.
A weird anomoly I noticed recently is advertising directly on Ask Jeeves versus advertising through Google Adwords with Google syndicating content to Ask Jeeves. Allowing Google to syndicate ads to Ask Jeeves (for our most popular keywords) is actually cheaper than advertising directly with Ask Jeeves. I guess Google has enough clout that they can negotiate competitive pricing with Ask Jeeves and make a decent margin marking their average PPC up less than Ask Jeeves does for end-users.
Google may have underestimated “Google Analytics”
At the end of Matt Cutts post about Google Analytics yesterday morning he mentions that the only downside of Google Analytics is the 6-12 hour waiting period to be able to start running reports.
I think that Google may have underestimated the popularity of Google Analytics when they announced it was free yesterday. First of all, it took me several hours to actually be able to sign up - no big deal. I’m sure they have a ton of other customers they have to take care of first. But now it has been almost 30 hours and I still can’t run a report.
Don’t get me wrong - I’m not complaining. I think it’s awesome that Google made this move and opened up the software. I do wonder, however, how real-time the stats are going to be when they start working. One thing that I really like about StatCounter (even the free version) is that all of your reporting is real-time. Like literally real-time. Setup an account, plug the code in, hit your webpage, login to your account and you will see the hit. (Side-note: you can filter out hits from your own IP address or place a cookie on your computer that will keep your traffic from skewing your results in the future)
I’m excited to see what Google Analytics is capable of, but for now I think I’m going to leave both Google Analytics and StatCounter installed on my sites. I guess I’m a data junky.
Google makes Urchin free
If you’re looking for a decent analytics package Statcounter may no longer be your best option. In March Google announced its purchase of site-analytic software developer Urchin Software Corp. Urchin’s analytics package is great for small businesses, but up until today I couldn’t justify the $200 per month pricetag for the package compared to Statcounter’s $30 option.
Today, however, Google renamed Urchin “Google Analytics” and made the product completely free. If you have more than 5 million pageviews per month you will have to sign up for an Adwords account, but Adwords requires no minimum spend and you are then entitled to unlimited pageviews.
One of the coolest things about this is the tight integration with Adwords for advertisers - easily track your conversion rates, average revenue per visitor and more. In my opinion this marks the beginning of a new era for Google - in the past they have focused primarily on offering free consumer software technologies, but this is the first enterprise-level business product that I have seen them (or any other company) offer free of charge.
Yahoo update in progress
If you’ve been noticing your Yahoo rankings jumping around you’re definitely not alone - Yahoo is currently in the middle of an update - check out the Yahoo Search Blog for more info.
I commend Yahoo for taking the Google approach in giving us these “weather updates” but I sure wish that Jeremy Zawodny would follow Matt Cutts’ lead and talk about internet marketing a little more often or at least create an rss feed dedicated to search engine marketing topics.
Ezine articles
I’m going to take a page out of Nate’s book and post some links to recent articles that I have written on Ezine Articles. For marketers, by the way, Ezine Articles is a great way to get some free publicity for your site by writing quality content. They also have syndication partners that will help distribute your content.
Adding Serial Ports to a Computer with Only USB Ports [2005-08-16]
PPC and SEO - Inhouse Vs. Outsource [2005-08-17]
Setting Up Your PC for Dual-monitors: It’s Easier Than You Think [2005-10-07]
The Importance of Site Search for Internet Retailers [2005-10-31]
USB: The Clear Winner [2005-11-09]
Wireless USB Vs. Bluetooth [2005-10-31]
Finally…
OK, this is my last post about my broadband issues - I promise.
So here’s how I finally solved my issues with going about 500 feet with two brick walls between me and the Belkin Pre-N Router - I bought two Netgear HomePlug adapters and used those to go from the cable modem to about the halfway point between me and the modem. I put the Belkin Pre-N router on the other side of the HomePlug adapters and now I’m averaging an 18 Mbps connection to my router - way higher than the 6 Mbps limit Comcast claims to have, so I am surfing the net as fast as I would connecting directly to the router.
I guess it’s goodbye to the Sprint EV-DO card - I just can’t live with the frequent crashes and relatively low speeds. That being said I do think the 3G technology is pretty cool and I can’t wait for 4G, which will be several years.