18 Dec

Refresh trends to end 2011

Posted by David in review. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

In what looks to be a trend that appears to be ramping by business up as traffic patterns typically decline as the year ends. A product relaunch can be at times risky if users love your existing design/functionality or if you take away or hide popular features within a new interface.

Twitter Relaunch #letsfly
Twitter relaunched its platform with a new version of twitter “Fly” which is designed for a more common experience across Twitter.com and mobile devices. Their relaunch was focused on bringing everything under 4 new tabs but not everyone has responded positively to the radical change to the interface. Their new interface seems to bring them closer to a Facebook style interface but even with an improved search function the new interface has been found confusing by a number of their users.

YouTube interface Refresh
In what was an expected move YouTube finally flicked the switch and rolled out its interface across all its users bringing the interface closer to the other Google properties. The rollout was unusual for Google as it was not progressively rolled out but was done in a single update which was fairly risky for the company considering the size of the audience that could be impacted. The new interface brings the platform up to scratch with a new look and feel but also seems to make it easier for Channels and Google to maximise both their advertising revenue but also the branding and visitor experience as YouTube chases higher quality content.

Path upgrades to 2.0
One of the big upsets to the idea that a refresh could hurt your growth or revenues was Path, who after upgrading their platform saw a reported 30 fold increase in user sign ups. Their personal journal style platform offered new and improved lenses; greater privacy and less noise for their users which was a successful and welcomed refresh ending 2011.

WordPress goes Sonny
While it only appeared to be a minor update going from WordPress 3.2 to WordPress 3.3, the actual admin interface refresh too a large step forward. The new more responsive admin design offers better functionality for adoption to smaller screens such as tablets. The new liquid layouts and scaling media seemed focused on the growing audience of Mobile users that WordPress needs to cater for if it’s platform is to continue to grow. The media support gets a welcome boost as does the co-editing functionality and is certainly worth the update even with the increased number of sometimes annoying notification tips.

Google Toolbar relaunched
Google just recently rolled out a consistent black Google toolbar across a number of its platforms which made navigation more consistent for users across Google properties.

Google Black Toolbar

Google Black Toolbar

Google Toolbar relaunched (again)
Just as most users had started to see and accept the new Google black bar at the top of Google pages they introduced another Google bar within a few months. The new interface has now moved the navigation to under the Google icon and centralised the search panel across Google properties. The new Google menu is a bit more confusing way to navigate Google products and the quick links are surely going to be missed by most users and will change how you navigate within Google properties.

Gmail refreshes
Gmail has been one of the slowest adopters of new Google features over the past few years but there has been a number of recent improvements including the overhaul started in July. While the navigation had a big upgrade the search functionality is still below expectations. The biggest issue for users is to get used to the new streamlined conversation view which strips out much of what was previously shown meaning searching an email thread can be more time-consuming. The biggest benefit for the mobile users is the elastic density which allows easy changing of display to suit any device automatically.

Blogger refreshed
While it happened a few months ago Google’s blog platform got an update as part of the overall Google product refresh. The biggest elements to get updated was around streamlining the blogging experience but also improving the audience analytics and insights information for admins. Recently there has been the addition of the ability to publish your Blogger posts straight to your Google+ circles. There is certainly a fair bit more work needed across the Blogger network to match WordPress or Tumblr but it’s a good start to finish off 2011.

Color 2.0 tries again
Following on from what was a slightly disastrous launch, Color decided it was time to start again following on from the success of Instagram. The new app updates focus around a “visit” which also now allows for sharing of 30 second movie clips but also offers a visual timeline similar to the new Twitter/Facebook streams. The question is it all too little and too late with the new website being far too forceful to remind users to login to interact, and their mobile app does not work on a majority of Android devices.

Facebook Timeline rollout
Based on the growing amount of media its users are sharing online Facebook has finally rolled out its timeline feature for all accounts. This is not yet enabled on all accounts but is available if you want to upgrade your profile globally. Finally Facebook is learning its a global platform and not limiting features to it’s US users. Learning from its privacy failures in the past it now offers a 7-day review period before anything that appears in your timeline is made public. It will be interesting to see how many users fill in the blank spots in their timeline as more accounts enable Timeline. There has already been so many complaints about Facebook interface refreshes it will be interesting how warmly this overshare functionality might be accepted.

Watch the Facebook Timeline (download video)

Ending 2011…
So it seems that a number of platforms have taken the time to allocate resources to updating their interfaces, how many will rollback functionality after user riots during 2012? Mostly it seems the interface updates revolve around making them more usable on mobile devices so will desktop users benefit from this continuous update process or will it led to more resentment and drop off?

10 Dec

Google Currents on Twitter Trends

Posted by David in marketing.

Google Currents on Twitter Trends

27 Nov

Newspaper optimises for Marlboro Cigarettes

Posted by David in search. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , .

Marlboro Menthol

Marlboro Cigarettes

Working in the SEO industry full-time starts to mean that you begin to look for patterns and relationships between content, links and advertisers and often things stand out as not quite natural.  The background to this article started out with an innocent read of a Miami News Times post on the Russian billionaires battle for Fisher Island, Florida, but all stopped when one embedded hyperlink for “Marlboro” stood out from the text.

There was something about the placement and context of the link that didn’t really sit well within the article and it’s rare for media organisations to link to Tobacco companies and even less common these days to both sell in a romantic image of smoking and mention the brand. It’s sometimes a coincidence but too often than not there is something to the finger prints left behind but the question is who do they belong to the publisher or the advertisers?

The clear point I want to make is that the paper is not directly linking to any of the Tobacco companies website but is actually linking to an internal SEO friendly page focused on that Tobacco brand, but there are a number of other factors that seem to muddy the water a little. If the publisher was linking directly to the Cigarette companies then this post would be fairly clean cut and would have certainly been noticed by now.  The quote from the article that captured my eye is shown below along with the screenshot of the text link and how it doesn’t seem to add to the article or why people would want to read related posts on cigarette brands.

Zeltser mostly listened, recording the percentages Berezovsky wanted to carve from each asset. Every ten minutes or so, he stepped out into the cold March night to suck down a Marl……., his eyes lolling upward with the power of each drag.

Marlboro Cigarettes Link

Marlboro Cigarettes Link

Dual Benefit for Internal Links

There is certainly a benefit for both the Tobacco companies but also the Miami New Times to optimise their internal links for such a high traffic term but the question is how much effort has been put into this process.  Was it just a random one off item in a recent post or has it been something that has been retrospectively done across every post ever written? There seems to be around 62 articles that have had the internal linking treatment by the editors at the Miami New Times, with many of these posts going back to 1991 well before it was a common editorial process to link to related sources or similar posts.  This appears to be likely more a process done by the Miami New Times but the sheer number of posts that mention Marlboro Cigarettes by chance seems too high compared to other brands.

Subject: Marlboro Cigarettes

Subject: Marlboro Cigarettes

Miami New Times Over Optimising for organic Cigarette traffic?

While it seems the publisher is going hard to rank by matching the page title, h1 and onpage text around Marlboro, they aren’t showing organically in Google for any related terms currently so it doesn’t appear to be offering an SEO advantage just yet, it’s possible they are optimised for various local Miami terms as you can see below. There is certainly some method to their madness by creating these static search results pages for capturing extra traffic from search engines it likely violates Googles technical guidelines which state “Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don’t add much value for users coming from search engines.“

Marlboro Cigarettes Miami

 

Code of Ethics on Cigarette Marketing Practices?

There was something that was really not sitting right about that part of the article, it didn’t add to the article by mentioning the brand and it seemed to be very much promoting Marlboro brand to Miami New Times readers that aren’t all adult smokers. If this is part of an organised marketing activity, then the promotion of Marlboro products within the article US market seems to be at odds with Philip Morris USA and Altria’s Code of Conduct and raises questions where else this might be happening and who is organising it?

The Philip Morris US website information is fairly clear that they have a company policy to deny all requests to product placement in films, television or media since 1990, and have stated they are not using newspapers or magazines currently for marketing, inline with the Tabacco settlement agreements.  So it could be possible that the internal link does not have the support of Philip Morris but there brand is getting exposure so is it a one sided benefit just for extra organic traffic for the Miami New Times?

Philip Morris Marketing Practices

PM USA is guided by Altria Group’s Mission, as well as Altria's Code of Conduct, and is committed to marketing our products responsibly by building relationships between our brands and adult smokers while taking steps designed to limit reach to unintended audiences

Is Marlboro alone in this?
No certainly not this is not a sole case of Marlboro having the only presence but they do have a significantly larger number of internal links from the stories to a central related posts section, there are also the following companies that have dedicated search results. It is unclear if these pages were created solely by the web team at the Miami New Times to capture more organic search traffic or requested by marketers to expand the exposure of their brands online, I want to make it clear that these are not natural pages.

Newport Cigarettes

Newport Cigarettes

Camel Cigarettes

Camel Cigarettes

Parliament Cigarettes

Parliament Cigarettes

Who is left out?

I checked and there are a number of the largest cigarette brands that manage to not be featured in this internal linking by the Miami New Times which makes it stand out as more of an organised campaign than just a few random links to related search results. Previously in price fixing cases it was the one that was left out that outed the price-fixing, it can also be the case that leaving one out in the cold can be just as suspect.

  • Lorillard
  • Old Gold
  • Maverick
  • Pallmall

Typically if it’s organic or natural everyone is included if there are a few major players/products left out then it looks more to be something that is organised or planned, this time it looks a little too organised and structured by the advertiser.  The question still is if there are so many other brands that could have been featured why so much focus around Marlboro within the Miami New Times, and how do their readers benefit?

This is just accidental or coincidence?

The interesting part about this internal linking to a dedicated page is that it’s not dynamic, it is a specific static page setup that lists all the stories featuring Marlboro.  Often the internal link within the article does not match the actual page which relates to “Marlboro Cigarettes”, there is often various types of Marlboro brands mentioned but they all link to the same static page.

What about other media sites?

The question is have you seen this or a similar type of strange internal linking campaign happening on other websites, as with Tobacco, Pharmaceutical or Alcohol companies that have strict advertising guidelines and often have to think creatively to reach their audiences.   I’m not saying Altria or any of the other Tobacco companies are or have done anything illegal or are behind this article marketing campaign, but I feel that some parts of this don’t seem to sit right and someone is benefiting, is it just the publisher?

6 Nov

Amazon hints at keyword traffic

Posted by David in search. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Black Friday DealsThe crew over at Domain Name Wire have picked up on an interesting registration by Amazon of several Christmas and Black Friday related generic exact match domains. These .com domains enable Amazon to benefit globally but a number of the terms are very American retail specific such as “black friday” and “holiday toy list”.  The purchase of the domains signals that Amazon is trying to increase the number of direct visitors that they are attracting and trying to cut the reliance on Google to deliver these visitors.  The strategy can be very effective but also can start an arms race with competitors to register every variation of domain that Amazon has failed to register first, and also search engines may adjust their algorithm further to reduce the benefit of exact match domains.

What are their exact match domain keywords?

  • black friday deals clothing
  • black friday deals movies
  • black friday deals tools
  • black friday deals watches
  • amazon holiday toy list
  • gift ideas books
  • gift ideas cameras
  • gift ideas games
  • gift ideas kitchen
  • gift ideas movies
  • gift ideas music
  • gift ideas toys
  • holiday toy list electronics
  • holiday toy list games
  • holiday toy list movies
  • holiday toy list music
  • holiday toy list sports
  • holiday toy list toys
  • holiday toy list videos

What is the value of this typed-in traffic?

If amazon wanted to buy this traffic via Google AdWords it would be costing them around $0.56-0.80 per click so it’s going to be a lot cheaper to try and capture visitors via type-in traffic.  When a visitor types the keyphrase directly into the web browser’s address bar, Google will often see it as direct navigation and send the visitor directly to your website.  This is a very effective way for Amazon to capture traffic for a number of these long tail terms but benefits them as it also skips the entire process of them seeing Google results and possibly clicking on your competitors links.

What is the traffic trends around the “Gift Ideas” terms?

It’s perfect timing as the biggest area of traffic that spikes in the 2nd week of November each year according to Google Insights for search.  The related search terms around “Gift Ideas” also show that this area is larger than just the holiday season with search variations of gift ideas including: birthday, christmas, wedding, anniversary, diwali, baptism.  This might also hint that some of the low hanging fruit for SEO or PPC might be focusing around the same terms as the new Amazon domains, that may now deliver them several thousand extra visitors every month.

What is the traffic trends around the “Black Friday” terms?

The generic term of “black friday” outperforms “gift ideas” by around 30 to 1 according to Google Insights for Search.  The purchase of the domains also support Amazon’s new Black Friday Deals website which is counting down to the start of the Christmas shopping season and one of the busiest shopping day for US retailers.  Being how Cyber Monday is the online version of of Black Friday it’s interesting to see that Amazon is focusing on the offline retail channels.

What is the traffic trends around the “Holiday Toy List” terms?

The potential traffic that these terms will drive is much lower that “gift ideas” and “black friday” but it’s likely that many of these terms are keywords used during the research phrase before a decision is made what toy they should buy.  If Amazon has multiple touch points and manages to get an item added to their wish list or shopping basket the chance they will purchase from Amazon greatly increases.  Even if the visitor doesn’t purchase this year, Amazon is also able to tag the visitor with a cookie to better understand consumer behaviour in time for 2012 Christmas shopping season.  You will also notice that Amazon is not focused on “toys” or “lists” but the singular version of the keyword.  They are focused on the plural version of the actual item as they understand the shoppers mentality and also want shoppers who are going to purchase more than one item.

What is the Top Toys for 2011?
While we are talking holiday toys, the Guardian has already outlined what presents parents must ensure they purchase for their kids, based on the Toy Retailers Association “Dream Toys” list.

So if Amazon is on the money already, so have you started planning your Christmas campaigns yet?

29 Oct

Qantas destroy’s tourism by grounding all flights

Posted by David in news. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Qantas Grounds all FlightsFollowing on from the recent fights with unions Alan Joyce has made the decision that has killed the Qantas brand in Australia and possibly destroy the Australian travel industry at the same time.  The fight has been dragging on for month’s but this extreme move has taken Qantas from one of Australia’s strongest brands into the gutter with a single statement that they are grounding all Qantas flights effective immediately.

Qantas has advised passengers not to go to the airport until further notice!

The cards Alan Joyce is now playing involves shutting down and killing off Qantas “part by part” and the staff lockout and grounding their entire fleet has be the only insane and stupid response that the CEO of Qantas could have done. This move is a direct strike at the Australian traveller and just adds them to the pile of the 70,000 passengers already disrupted by the ongoing union disputes. The CEO of Qantas has said he will ensure this grounding of the carriers entire fleet of 108 aircraft goes on for as long as needs to prove it’s point, even with it’s $20,000,000/day price tag.

So who is effected by this tantrum?

Atleast 10,000 passengers per day within Australia will be affected immediately plus thousands of travellers, across the world who are travelling to or from Australia on Qantas or it’s One World partner members. The impact on the Australian tourism industry cannot be underestimated based on the number of travellers that Qantas brings to Australia. The Australia tourism body has called for help from the Government as it’s going to directly affect it’s $94 billion tourism industry and the 500,000 people that are directly employed by tourism operators. As a precaution Qantas has grounded their fleet immediately and this has also impacted the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting that is due to finish in Perth this weekend.

What about One World members?

It seems likely that all travellers passing through Australia on international flights or relying on Qantas will have their plans disrupted.  This announcement will appear to impact any travellers flying on the following One World airlines via a code share agreement with Qantas:

  • American Airlines
  • British Airways
  • Cathay Pacific
  • Finnair
  • Iberia
  • Japan Airlines
  • Mexicana
  • Royal Jordanian
  • S7 Airlines
  • LAN
  • Malev
What are they doing about it?
Qantas has started off by saying that it is offering refunds and possible ticket transfers to passengers who find their flights are cancelled due to the grounding, which shows that this action will last for a longer period of time that most travellers want.  Qantas has said they will offer hotel accommodation and alternative flights to those travellers who are mid-trip and can’t get home due to the Qantas grounding.  The issue is that due to the sheer size of this impact there will not be enough accommodation or alternative flights available to deal with all the passengers that are going to be left stranded.
Are you covered?

Qantas have said refunds can be requested anytime until 31/1/12. They are advising customers not to call them on 13 13 13 if possible, and just check here for more info: http://bit.ly/QFdisrupts

How are people responding?
Across social media there has a massive spike in discussions both humours and angry around the Qantas grounding announcement, with the number of tweets featuring Qantas doubling every 30-40 minutes.
Qantas Tweets

Qantas Tweets

Virgin Australia respond
In a great PR move Virgin has started working on a Special “Stranded Passenger” recovery fares for those with a QF ticket and away from home will be offered…. available here.
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