Sean Walther's Blog

Google Search includes Google+ by Default

Sorry for all the posts today, I keep seeing things I think people would want to hear.

Google announced today that search will now include “Your World”.  It’s a good idea to watch that Google Blog, always good stuff.

Google needs to push Google+ somehow, and this will sure help.  Including “Personal results” in search results is both good and bad in my opinion.

You’ll start to see (as this rolls out over the next few days to everyone) Google+ posts and shared photos showing up in search results.  These are posts of people who you are following.

Also in the Google search box, Google+ profiles will start showing up there.

If you don’t like it, you can opt-out (although it is opt-in by default).

This change means for SEO experts, having those Google+ profiles, and relevant Google Pages is important.

Tags: Google, Google Pages, search, SEO

Why you should add Facebook like buttons

I still think at some point, Facebook will fade into our memories.  It’s a safe bet.. given enough time.

For now it’s time to embrace it.  Until this past summer, I hadn’t added Facebook like buttons to my site.  This was done because I was opposed to having those irritating social media icons all over my site.  I thought maybe I was missing out on a few percentage points of hits.

Today, and for the past few days, I’ve gotten more page views on my site from Facebook than from Google search.  This is according to the WordPress Jetpack by the way, Google Analytics still says I get more from Google (but I’m inclined to have suspicions).

There are about 50 pages / articles on my site that people have “liked” on Facebook (go ahead and try it… ).  A few of my posts have hundreds of likes.

This is currently generating about 500-1000 page views a day for me.  I would have never though adding a stupid Facebook Like button could do that for my site.

Add them to your site, you won’t regret it.

Tags: Facebook, Google, SEO, Social Netoworking

Chrome beats Firefox in Global Usage

According to statcounter, Chrome overtook Firefox globally for the first time.

My traffic still has Firefox at 25%, Chrome at 22.6% and Safari at 28% for overall traffic (most likely due to the high number of iPhone visitors, 25% of seangw.com traffic is mobile).

Good to hear folks around the world are abandoning Internet Explorer.

Tags: Chrome, Firefox, Google, Internet Explorer

YouTube’s New Design

You haven’t seen YouTube’s new design yet?

It’s not your fault, it’s hidden from the public.

If you want to see YouTube’s new design, open up Google Chrome:

1. Launch YouTube.com
2. Make sure you’re logged in (most people are by default)
3. Copy the following line:
   document.cookie=”VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=ST1Ti53r4fU”;
4. On the YouTube window, hit Ctrl+Shift+J (Developer Tools)
5. Put your cursor in the console (at the bottom)
6. Paste that line in, hit enter.
7. Refresh the page, and you’ll see it!

Tags: Chrome, Design, Google, Youtube

Google Analytics: Get Your Profile ID

I was setting up a WordPress plugin, and it was asking me for my Google Analytics Profile ID.

This shouldn’t be hard.

Well, it is.  Your GA Profile ID is NOT your “UA-xxxxxx-xx” number.  Actually it is a 9 digit number unique to your site profile.

To get it you need to:

1. Log into Google Analytics
2. Access your site’s profile (get to the dashboard)
3. Your URL should look like:

   https://www.google.com/analytics/web/#report/visitors-overview/a1234b23478970p987654/

4. That last part, after the “p” is your Google Analytics Profile ID, in this case (this is a fake account) it is “987654″

A lot of search results will tell you the old method (copy the “id” value from the URL) but that isn’t valid anymore.

Tags: Google, Google Analytics, Google Analytics Profile ID, Profile ID

Google+: Google Apps users Finally Welcome

Saw a “+You” link in the top left corner of my Google Apps mail, and clicked on it.

Google finally added Google Profiles to Google Apps users.

Please check out my Google+ profile – Sean Walther.

Tags: Google, Google Apps, Google Plus, Google Profile

jQuery 1.7 Released

jQuery 1.7 was released today, November 3rd, 2011.

Check out the post on blog.jquery.com for details on the update.

Some highlights:

• New Event APIs: .on and .off
• Better performance on delegated events (almost a 50% improvement)
• Better support for HTML5 in IE (blech, IE)
• AMD (Asynchronous Module Definition, this guy describes AMD well) support (it will work with AMD compliant loaders)
• Added jQuery.isNumeric()

I would love to thank the jQuery team for the regular updates to a platform we all love (don’t we?  leave comments yes or no)

You can use the following CDNs to link / get the code:

• Google CDN:
  Not Live Yet - https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7/jquery.min.js
• Microsoft CDN (Go Microsoft for getting it up so fast!):
  http://ajax.aspnetcdn.com/ajax/jQuery/jquery-1.7.min.js
• Official jQuery CDN:
  http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.7.js
  http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.7.min.js

Tags: AMD, Google, jQuery, Microsoft

Google Analytics: Real Time analytics Support

As of this morning, Google Analytics has been updated to provide FREE real time analytics.  This is the biggest thing that has happened to Google Analytics since it was released.

To access the new feature, you must be using the “New Version”:

1. Click “New Version” in the top right corner (if it says “Old Version” as a link, you are using the new version)

Then, once you log out, and log back in to the New Version:

1. Access your profile
2. Click on “Home” in the top nav
3. Click “Real-Time (BETA)” in the top left nav
4. Real time reporting!

› Continue reading

Tags: Analytics, Google, Google Analytics

Google Chrome 15

Google released Google Chrome version 15.

The only real change, is the addition of a New Tab page.

At the bottom of your New Tab page you’ll see some “bars” (not sure what the official name is yet).  By default it’s split into two options, “Most Visited” and “Apps”.

You can drag apps / websites to create new tabs.  If you want to rename a new tab you double click on the tab and you can give it a name.

The release coincides with an update to the Google App Store.

Here’s a video showing the new features:

Tags: Browsers, Chrome, Google, Google App Store

SEO: Black vs White Techniques

An excellent write up over at Matt Legend Gemmell’s blog, SEO for Non-dicks, got me thinking again about the concept of “black/white” hat SEO.  His blog post is in reference to an SEO speech given at BrightonSEO 2011.

I need to get this out, and I don’t think it’s what you may be expecting…

› Continue reading

Tags: Black hat SEO, BrightonSEO, Google, Matt Legend Gemmell, SEM, SEO, White hat SEO