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Is Google rewarding lack of usability?

After having written this as a tweet recently:

I need to write a long rant-like post on the emphasis Google has on Bounce rates when a high rate can (sometimes) be a measure of success…

See the Twitter post via @nzbase here.

I felt obliged to go ahead and describe exactly why I believe Google has issues with Read the rest of this entry »

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Press Release Marketing in New Zealand

Many businesses understand the need to bring regular press releases to the market to help gain increased coverage of their brand in main stream media. There is however a mistaken belief that a press release is required to be specifically targeted at main stream media and the coverage of a piece of PR is only successful if it is picked up by a paper or highly trafficked news website online.

Within a market such as New Zealand this is an understandable belief considering the top-heavy feel to the market where only a few large media brands cover
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301′s vs Canonical

After reading through a particularly interesting interview between Matt Cutts and Eric Enge it set me thinking about the relative preference Google places on 301′s vs rel=canonical.

Matt Cutts is clear in this interview that rel=canonical is the lesser of the two options;
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Google Analytics Accuracy

After a reasonably long conversation with a developer who spends a lot of his time taking clients through the intricacies of Google Analytics and how it can be used to improve their sites tracking and workflow, it was very interesting to hear him say that he believes Google Analytics is under-representing http server access logs but up to 50% in some cases.

This is a pretty stunning idea considering the level of decision making within the online industry that currently happens based on the statistics that are displayed in Google Analytics.

After talking to a few others about this issue, it turns out there may well be a growing question surrounding the importance that Google Analytics has in the decision making process. There’s this case study completed by Michael Martinez on SEOMOZ which, while a few years old, asks some very pertinent questions. How often have you questioned your Google Analytics package?

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Microsoft & Yahoo Deal in NZ

With Microsoft and Yahoo! finally signing a deal that wipes years of competitive development away in a single stroke the local question is what are the effects for NZ users?

In reality, very little.

While the deal has been brokered to give Microsoft and Yahoo the opportunity to tackle Google in most markets (specifically the US where Google has 70% coverage), in New Zealand Google has well over 90% coverage which leaves very little room for competitors who are looking to lift their percentage of the search market above double digits.

One interesting question for those who follow local search is if in NZ Google is #1 and #2 is about to be Bing/MSN/Yahoo/Xtra, then who is #3?

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