But is it Fairtrade?

So caffeine is bad for you. Google Caffeine that is. Certainly if judged by the lost productivity in the SEO and Webmaster communities that I reckon has happened since the announcement of its impending roll-out.

Back in August 09, Google formally unveiled its new search infrastructure code-named ‘Caffeine’ and, since then, jungle drums have been pounding; not too loud at first but in the past few weeks they’ve reached fever pitch.
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FUD Factor 10

Sometimes I come across SEO/PPC agencies that have turned completely to the dark side, while others have business practices that make them more like Jar Jar Binks, you know, just irritating and hard to understand.

Recently, a number of these Pay-Per-Click agencies have approached some of my clients using FUD (Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt) as their sales weapon of choice – the  “We notice that your PPC campaign is being poorly managed and costing you too much…let us take over for free for 30-days’ tactic.
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Google’s roll-out of product enhancements is both exciting and frustrating in equal measure. Exciting because they offer something new to play with (aka in-depth testing) and frustrating because their product teams obviously come from the stealth-school of marketing.

A case in point: back in May ’09, they blogged about the upcoming addition of pivot tables in Google Analytics. Great stuff even if you’re not a spreadsheet geek, sorry, I mean ‘power-user’. So when can you get your hands on them? Well, they’ve been staring at you for some time now but you probably didn’t see them. No one I speak to seems to have noticed them, so if you’ve missed them, you’re not alone.
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So who owns your Google AdWords account if you have an agency or consultant that manages it on your behalf? You or them?

I’d never given this much thought until I pitched to someone looking to switch over the management of their AdWords account from their current agency. The agency had been managing the account for a couple of years but the client was concerned that the relationship and the performance of the PPC campaign had gone into decline. So time to move on.
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Are you drowning in Google Analytics data?

Sometimes you just want cut through the detail and get the big picture. Are visits up or down? How are sign-ups for the new whitepaper doing? Which countries are top of the conversion league table?

If you want to pull this data from Google Analytics for just one website it’s straighforward. But what if you have seperate websites for different parts of the business or localised ones serving each major European country?
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This is a great video and well worth the 9 mins of your time it’ll take to watch. It’s all about the Google AdWords Auction presented by Hal Varian, Google’s Chief Economist.
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Google Analytics App On iPhone

If, like me, you log into Google Analytics and check your stats for today knowing full well Google has yet to update all the data, then Google Analytics App for the iPhone might be for you. Group therapy to deal with your (my) obsession should also be sought. So is Analytics App from InBlosam worth the £3.49?
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The chaos on the rail network due to the ‘arctic’ weather conditions has taken its toll on Kizoom MyRail.  There has been so much demand by mobile users for its live feed of train-timetable updates that the strain has started to show.

The feed began struggling yesterday as the die-hards tried to make sense of the disruptions and find their way into their warm offices; it looks as if it gave up today with even higher demand resulting in some users being denied access. The ‘engineers are working on it’ (cue: mission impossible theme tune)

Not an issue in Oxford where I live: hardly enough of the white stuff to stop the runners on my sledge from sparking like an iron foundry at full tilt.

I was chatting to a colleague about Internet info I’d picked up – the usual (interesting!) stuff one gets from various web sources – and he asked me if I ever did any real work… It seems that every day (hour!) brings a slew of information about new technologies, new apps and new functionality for existing apps. The latest, cool, must-have Internet thingy appears almost as fast as the ‘old’ favourites disappear. So how can you keep your water-cooler king/queen reputation and get your work done? We only have tap water (!) but here’s how I do it: with Google Reader and Google Alerts. Shush, it’ll be our secret…
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Not only have the 1911 UK census records gone online three years earlier than expected, the fiasco that plagued the 1901 census project when the National Archives website crashed on the first day of release, not to be seen again for some months, has been avoided. According to the Guardian website, 26 servers, 5 times more than last time, are supporting the anticipated demand for the search for long-lost relatives.
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