Month: September 2009

Google does not use keywords meta tag

I’ve been explaining this to way too many people over the last few years – Google does not use keywords meta tag for ranking search results.  Which means you can totally drop it, or leave it empty, or fill it with whatever you want at all.  It just doesn’t matter.

And the reason for that is really simple.  SPAM and search ranking manipulation.  It started even before Google was around.  Back when Altavista and Yahoo were fighting for the title of the best search engine.  Altavista was using quite a bit of keywords meta tags.  And, as a result, you could often see sites which had nothing to do with the search query still rank at the top.  If I remember correctly, even Google paid some attention to that meta information at the beginning, but it was quite obvious pretty soon that it cannot be trusted.

Now, if you don’t believe me on this subject, either watch the video or read the explaination directly at the Google Webmaster Blog.  Satisfied?  Now stop spending hours upon hours of everyone’s time trying to develop the perfect tool and pick the perfect keywords.  It just doesn’t matter.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jK7IPbnmvVU]

Skating tribute to Tetris

Tetris recently celebrated its 25th year.  But despite all the progress in computer games, all those game consoles, it is still a game much loved and played around the world.  More so, people are often creating remakes, tributes, and all sort of creative appreciation. Here is an example video of a few skateboarders getting together and doing something cool.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fwvc6fmXmuY]

Google Wave hits developer preview

Google Wave – a new real-time collaboration tool from Google has entered the developer preview stage.  About 100,000 selected people got invited to see and use the system.  Some of those people are already posting early reviews and screenshot tours.  Here is one such review in Lifehacker blog.

Google Wave default view

I personally haven’t tried the thing yet.  But from all the reviews, screenshots, and videos of Google Wave that I’ve seen, I think that I will either totally love it or really hate it.  There are some really cool things in it, like integration of email, chat, and rich-text which is almost as rich as an application.  But on the other hand, some of the integrated tools are those that I depend upon on a daily basis, and which I am very sensitive to changes at.  Until now, from those other people, I can’t figure out if that integration and all those improvements are something that will fit my personal use pattern.

The time will tell.  Hopefully it will go into public better sooner than later…

P.S.: does anyone else think that the default view looks very much like MS Outlook?  Weird.

A glimpse into Google Analytics power

For a few years now I always recommend Google Analytics to anyone who is looking for a statistical / analytical package for their web site.  While there are a few alternatives, I think that almost none of them can match Google Analytics in both ease of use and analytical power.

Easy installation (a copy-paste of provided JavaScript snippet), web-based reports available from anywhere, multi-user access, schedule reports, exports to several formats such as CSV and PDF, schedule reports, customizable dashboards, multiple site and profile management, A/B testing, goal conversion tracking, and much more – and all of it for free.  That’s hard to compete with.

Google Analytics help

And if you want to see how much you can get out of it and how easy that would be to configure, consider a recent example posted in Google Analytics blog – “Advanced: Structure Your Account With Roll Up Reporting And More“.