It's Friday, time for some fun! Advanced API analytics fun :)Here is a captivating way to look at your Google Analytics data in a Treemap visualization. You can visualize your own data with our live demo. (Note: IE currently not supported for visualization part.)click to enlargeAnd, here is a video explaining how to look at the Treemap...

Spammers may want to steer clear of Facebook in the future.  Late yesterday, a representative of the social network's legal team announced that it was awarded $711 million in damages as a result of a case against Sanford "Spamford" Wallace. As Sam O'Rourke explained on the Facebook Blog, Wallace is "one of the spammers who...

Since IAC/InterActiveCorp CEO Barry Diller indicated on Tuesday that he's willing to sell Ask.com, the question on many people's minds has been, "Who might buy it?"  And at this point, the most likely answer seems to be "Microsoft." Let's run down the possibilities within the search industry.  There would be little...

The proposed Microsoft-Yahoo deal seems to have hit a small and oddly unspecified bump.  The companies missed an October 27th deadline by which they hoped to have some details ironed out. Yahoo admitted yesterday in an SEC filing, "The Letter Agreement specified that the parties would execute Definitive Agreements by October 27, 2009,...

NASDAQ, the world's largest exchange company, has launched its own social networking site called NASDAQ Community, aimed at people in the financial sector. "NASDAQ Community promotes market transparency and investor education through active engagement among people with shared interests," said John Jacobs, Executive...

Last week, we announced a bundle of new enterprise-class features in Google Analytics. Over the next few weeks, we'll do posts which go into depth on each new feature. Here is the first, which goes into detail on the expanded and improved goals in Google Analytics (related video). It's very clearly and insightfully written by our friends at...

Bing and Google may have gotten a head start, but Yahoo isn't ignoring the whole real-time search arena, according to a new report.  In fact (or at least in rumor, if you will), Yahoo may be working on a product with OneRiot right now. Yes, Michael Arrington reported that Yahoo isn't pursuing anything with either Facebook or Twitter. ...

Online retailers can expect to see an increase in consumer spending compared to the previous quarter, according to a new survey by Javelin Strategy & Research and released by eBillme. Online shoppers predict they will spend an average of $281 online during Q4 2009, a 24 percent increase over last quarter. This is the first increase in...

Matt Cutts has provided some useful information for webmasters in the last few videos that have been uploaded to Google's Webmaster Central YouTube channel. It should be noted that this channel is designed to answer questions and provide useful tips for webmasters regarding their site's performance in Google. The topics are not always breaking...

Online music video site Vevo, launching in December, said today it has signed AT&T as its first advertiser. Partners in Vevo include Universal Music Group, Sony Entertainment and investor Abu Dhabi Media Company. The new music video site will be powered by YouTube. The announcement did not include details about ad revenue sharing, but...

Baidu shared its third quarter earnings report last night, and the part that actually concerned the third quarter was quite positive - the Chinese search giant reported higher revenues and profits than most experts expected.  Unfortunately for the company, its forecast for the fourth quarter then caused what can only be described as...

The following is a guest post from Julie Ferrara-Brown, Director of Quantitative Analysis for WebShare. WebShare is one of our Website Optimizer Authorized Consultants. The case focuses on exploring more than just a single conversion. Often, optimizing a site means more than optimizing for a single conversion. Understanding how your test pages and...

Many webmasters think that low quality links or links from spammy websites can have a negative effect on the ranking of their websites on Google. The problem with links from spammy websites is that it is very difficult to do something against them. Here's an official Google statement about bad links.

Yesterday, the surprising news that Facebook and MySpace are negotiating a content-sharing partnership broke, yet that's not all the latter social network has on its plate.  A fresh report indicates MySpace is also in talks with MSN over some sort of music deal. MSN is interested in "using the social networking site's music service,...

Internet marketers can take a leaf out of the movie “Peaceful Warrior” and apply techniques for success to their marketing campaigns. Based on a book by 1964 World Trampoline Championship winner and co-captain of the 1968 NCAA University of California gymnastics team, Dan Millman, the movie Peaceful Warrior contains a number of success...

Since we launched the Google Analytics Individual Qualification (IQ) program, many of you have asked for a way to prove to others that you have passed the Google Analytics IQ test and are therefore Google Analytics qualified. We're pleased to announce that you are now able to create and publish a link to your official test record. You can publish...

Never mind swine flu - it may in fact be time to start watching out for flying oinkers.  Social networking archrivals Facebook and MySpace are discussing the idea of sharing content, according to people at the highest levels of both organizations. On Facebook's side of things, Sheryl Sandberg, the company's COO, told Emma Barnett,...

Online town hall meetings with a member of congress has significant and positive impact on a voter's view of a lawmaker and increases the likelihood that they will become more politically engaged, according to research form the Congressional Management Foundation. "Conducting online meetings with constituents offers Member of Congress a...

Welcome to part two of this three part series on SEO tools and resources. In the last article we discussed the variety of Firefox extensions used for SEO. In this article we'll discuss some of the free and affordable tools you can use to better your organic optimization efforts. To make sure that when I say affordable I mean for virtually...

Every SEO uses different tools and resources. Some tools are paid, some are free and some are internally developed tools that we use for ourselves and our clients - but we all use them. Very often I get asked what tools people should use if they're looking to optimize their own sites and what resources they should use to keep up with the...

Microsoft reported its quarterly earnings today with a 14% decline in revenue from the same period a year ago. The company reported revenue of $12.92 billion for the quarter. Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $4.48 billion, $3.57 billion and $0.40 per share, which represented declines of 25%, 18%...

The Kentucky Supreme Court heard arguments on Thursday on whether the Common Wealth of Kentucky has the power to seize 141 domains belonging to online gambling sites. Previously a Franklin Circuit Court Judge ruled for the state saying it was allowed to seize the domain names, but the Court of Appeals overturned that decision. The case was then...

Newsday said today it will begin charging $5 a week for most of its online content. Newsday said it will start charging for access next Wednesday, except for its customers who are current home subscribers or those who are Optimum Online customers, the Internet access service offer by its parent company Cablevision. Users who are not subscribers...

eBay continued a trend started by Google and Yahoo in the sense that it beat analysts' expectations while announcing its third quarter earnings this afternoon.  Unfortunately for the company, it broke with their tradition by issuing some rather weak predictions about the fourth quarter. Let's start with the stuff that's in stone.  eBay...

Google puts out a lot of useful videos through its Webmaster Central YouTube channel. If you are a regular reader of WebProNews, you have probably seen some of them covered here. They generally offer helpful advice for webmasters that have questions about ranking in Google's search results. Google has announced that the total views for the...

Yahoo has partnered with WPP's GroupM Entertainment to help marketers incorporate their brands into original online programming. The programs will appear across Yahoo's network of media properties, including news, sports, finance and entertainment. "Marketers need big, ground-breaking ideas that engage and delight consumers, and this...

Ning, the social platform that allows users to create their own social networks introduced a virtual gifts feature today for its 1.6 million networks and 36 million registered users. Ning Virtual Gifts offers a built-in revenue-generating feature for network creators, allowing them to create custom gifts and stores related to the topic of their...

Although Yahoo's last few months have been defined by its deal with Microsoft and a trimming of nonessential units, the company proved today that it has a little life in a yet.  Plenty of the stuff, really, as Yahoo's third quarter earnings report beat analyst's expectations.  Analysts thought Yahoo would reel in $1.5 billion in...

Today at the eMetrics conference in Washington DC we announced the new Website Optimizer Experiment Management API. The API allows for the creation and management of experiments outside of the Website Optimizer interface. I'd like to share a bit about why we are so excited about the API.Today, creating and launching a Website Optimizer experiment...

If you've recently looked at your Website Optimizer reports you may have noticed something different. Today we launched another new feature designed to help you better understand the performance of your variations: over time charts.With over time charts you can see the cumulative conversion rate of each combination over the life of an experiment....

Today, we're announcing a new set of Google Analytics features which builds on last year's enterprise-class feature launch. Some add more power to existing capabilities. Others provide new flexibility to further customize and adapt Google Analytics according to the needs of your enterprise. Finally, we'll introduce Analytics Intelligence. Resist...

This week, we're showing you how you can optimize the listings of your website on Google Maps. Good listings on Google Maps can result in many website visitors.

Every now and then, we like to shout out events that our Google Analytics Authorized Consultants are doing for the community.Seminar For Success In MelbourneTwo weeks ago we mentioned some upcoming Seminars For Success which are all day seminars on Google Analytics. Here's one more Seminar For Success in Melbourne, Australia this Thursday and...

I'm blogging from 30,000 feet on my way from San Francisco to Washington DC (thanks Virgin) to let you know that the Website Optimizer team will be at the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in Washington DC this week. If you'll be at eMetrics please come by the Google booth or the Google room to say hello.Additionally we're holding two free...

An interesting topic was discussed at the BlogWorld Expo in a session called the "Death and Rebirth of Journalism," which WebProNews attended. Brian Solis moderated with speakers including Hugh Hewitt of the Hugh Hewitt Radio Show, Jay Rosen, an NYU Professor of Journalism and Author of Press Think, Don Lemon of CNN, and Joanna Drake...

Google's Matt Cutts has posted a new video talking about how Google deals with geographic targeting. This is a subject he has tackled on more than one occasion in the past, but in this latest one, he is elaborating on it a bit more, and explains that Google is looking more and more at this stuff as time goes on. This particular video deals...

Experts had high expectations heading into Google's third quarter earnings report, but that was no problem for the search giant as it beat estimates in almost every way.  Google's stock is now heading up in after-hours trading.  The consensus was that Google would bring in something like $4.24 billion in terms of net revenue.  It...

Recently we started an initiative to ask you to share your most burning questions via Google Moderator (link: Google Analytics Google Moderator site).This week, Avinash and I sat down to do a rapid fire Q&A to answer your questions. Rather than do a dry text Q&A version, we chose to do a video, and we think you'll find it educational and...

New content - and quite a lot of it - will soon become available on YouTube.  The video-sharing site's struck a revenue-sharing deal with Channel 4 that'll give it access to full-length, recently broadcast shows along with about 3,000 hours of archive material.  This development represents a big breakthrough in several ways. ...

Technorati has launched a new version of its site. Among the changes is a feature that lets users post content directly to the site. This pretty much gives authors a chance to promote their blogs with links from their profile pages, while giving Technorati itself some unique content. Another significant change to Technorati is to its Top 100...

The latest IPA/BDO Bellwether survey published today (12th October 2009) indicates that marketing spend in the UK fell for the eighth quarter running in Q3 but with the smallest reduction in budgets in over a year. The survey showed that online marketing budgets have returned to growth, though all other budget categories are still on a downward...

In about 74 hours' time, Google is supposed to announce its third quarter financial results.  Holding a sort of countdown seems appropriate, too, as a lot of analysts and onlookers expect that the figures will be worth celebrating. There's something to be said for precedent, first of all; since Google's IPO in 2004, it's been very rare for...

Come to the nation's capital and join us again this year at the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in Washington, D.C. from October 19-23.Ah, The Fall Classic. If you're stateside*, you may be aware that the baseball playoffs are in full swing. Full swing.Bear with us here. Are you familiar with the expression, "Right in your wheelhouse"? In...

As you may recall, Google launched its "search options" feature earlier this year. This is a set of filtering options users can engage for their search results. They include things like blogs, books, images, video, forum results, timeframe, etc. Google has now launched search options for mobile in the United States on Android, iPhone,...

Matt Cutts has appeared in yet another Google Webmaster Video, and this time he has a whiteboard with him so he can illustrate what he's talking about. What he's talking about this time are uncrawled URLs in search results. Cutts says Google gets a lot of complaints from webmasters who say the search engine is violating their robots.txt files,...

Earlier this year, we asked Forrester Research to help us understand the key trends in enterprise web analytics. The commissioned study conducted by Forrester, "Appraising Your Investment in Enterprise Web Analytics" provides rich insights into what large companies want from an enterprise solution and how they are thinking about their web...

When News Corp. acquired MySpace in 2005, it paid $580 million, and all sorts of large figures (the $900 million Google ad deal, for example) have been attached to the social network since.  However, it's never had a chief financial officer, and this morning, MySpace changed that. Mark Rosenbaum, the new CFO, does not appear to represent an...

We often take for granted the results we get for any given web search. When we search, we expect to find what we are looking for. That's the way it should be. The average user doesn't normally consider what it takes for a search engine to deliver those results, but there are so many factors at play, working behind the scenes and coming together to...

If you write for the web, whether that be on a blog or any other content site, there is a good chance your content has been scraped at some point, if not on a continuous basis. The good news is that it's probably not that big of a deal. At least that is what Google's Matt Cutts imples. Answering user questions as he so often does, Cutts took on...

Often, the source of a statement means everything.  It might, for example, be more newsworthy if Gordon Brown labeled Americans "silly" than if (or when) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called us all evil pigs.  And Matt Cutts would just like everyone to know that one source of a study on advertising isn't exactly Google's best...

Google has people riled up with its latest local search effort Google Place Pages. Place Pages are a Google Maps feature launched last week, which serve the purpose of providing everything you want to know about a place (a city or a business) in one spot. For example, if you search for a specific restaurant, you should get web pages, directions,...

Do you learn best by clear examples? Do you get the feeling you could be doing so much more with Google Analytics, but are not quite sure how? Do you want to take your skills to the next level? Or are you starting from scratch? Whatever your goal or skill level, there's a day-long Google Analytics Seminars For Success that is right for you - and...

Two helpings of Facebook shares apparently weren't enough.  Russian investment firm Digital Sky Technologies has gone back to the well for a third time, spending perhaps $100 million to buy still more shares in the social networking company. Digital Sky first demonstrated its appetite for Facebook shares back in May, when it spent about $200...

Google has started adding links to specific parts of webpages in the snippets on search results pages. Google gives the example of the result for the Wikipedia entry for "Trans Fat." The snippet provides links to History, Chemistry, Presence in food, and Nutritional guidelines. These are all sections of one page that the user can go...