Thom Craver

Over the past few weeks, Google Analytics changed how it counts visitors. Specifically, GA marks a visitor with a new session if that visitor’s tracking parameters change. On the surface, this may seem confusing. Let’s say a visitor comes to your site from one campaign, leaves your site and comes back from a different campaign. That visitor previously was part of a single visit. If you stop to think of it, that doesn’t make sense. More on that in a [...]

Google announced a new feature to help “manage what people see” when you’re searched for on Google. This new feature, called Me on the Web is really nothing more than Google Alerts in disguise. It is literally in disguise because the interface to adding alerts is different in the Me on the Web section of the Dashboard than it is in the normal Google Alerts interface. I’m not sure I understand. I already use Google Alerts to track myself with Alerts. (And [...]

It’s almost that time! Just because winter is over doesn’t mean it’s time for holiday. For every update Google continues to make to its algorithms, people have to keep moving to change with them.  Since its roll out in February, the Google Panda update has been the talk of the site owners who were affected and the rest of the SEO community. Cue Search Engine Strategies: Toronto.  Join the discussion in an open forum about the Google Panda update and how it affects small business. Moderated [...]

It used to say “Oh Snap!”  Apparently that’s not so cool anymore. But what is?  Star Trek! Google has always had a sense of humor. Previously, their blue screen error message looked like this: Is this something we should be watching? Will Google be changing this every few versions? Thoughts?

Google announced today they are allowing people to block sites they don’t want to see in the search results. Now, hold your horses, this is a personalized result, not a global block. SEO’s are getting antsy, I can see it now. Here’s how it works: When you search for something on Google, click a link and immediately hit your back button, Google will modify the result listing and give you an option to block the site. Google’s thinking is that [...]