Paul Fleming » tech tips

Checking up on Competitors Online

flemo — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 05:38:59 +0000

We’re all curious. We’re all also a bit competitive by nature. We all have our business nemesis, that guy that keeps turning up at networking events, whose website keeps appearing under search terms you’re targeting, whose name keeps cropping up during prospective client discussions. Even though we may highly respect them, a bit of healthy competition never goes astray so it’s also a good idea to keep a close eye on them (and maybe grab a few good ideas along the way). Fortunately online, there are plenty of tools to allow you to do that. Here are a couple of my favorites

Social Mention – There are several monitoring tools out there but I like this the best (though I find Trackur to be slightly more comprehensive, just more expensive for a cheap bastard like myself). It’s also more comprehensive than Google Alerts and also sends you alerts via email and rss depending on your preference. Pop in your competitor domain name and see if there’s any chatter.

Twitter – mainstream adoption of Twitter has given rise to an increased ability to snoop. If your competitor has a twitter handle, following them may be very handy otherwise creating a couple of columns in your favorite twitter client (tweetdeck is mine but there are plenty of others). Pop in their domain or a persons name or business name and see what they’re up to.

Compete, Quantcast, Alexa and Google Insights – I’m lumping these all together because quite often, by themselves, they may be a little short on data. Out of these compete.com probably has the most data available and you can put your competitor’s website alongside your own. Keep in mind that accuracy may be questionable and this should not be taken as lore.

Open Site Explorer – one of my favorite SEO tools can also give you an overview at how you stack up against your competition. In addition to the overall stats you can also take a peek at who is linking to them and maybe some additional reasons why.

There are some additional ‘geekier’ options if you’re interested in delving a little deeper like checking their website server environment, domain age or to compare search engine rankings but now you’re starting to get a little obsessive so time to get back to concentrating on your own business. Any other useful tools?

Whereisdudescars.com WordPress Hack

flemo — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 17:40:34 +0000

We manage a number of WordPress websites and the immense popularity of the platform can certainly open it up to malicious coders. I recently noticed that a couple of older websites had become fodder for malware infections. These blogs were both hosted on Dreamhost and I have since discovered that the issue seems limited to Bluehost and Dreamhost at the moment. Many of the files contained the eval(base64_decode code and manually removing the code (or overwrite these files) may provide a temporary fix but the issue is most likely lurking elsewhere.

So after some prodding and poking and browsing online, I came across this post from Sucuri that solved the problem in about 2 minutes.

Google Instant Taps into our Short Attention Spans

flemo — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 20:28:26 +0000

Today Google rolled out their Google Instant Search results which, in a nutshell, reveals more search results based on every letter you type into their search box. This realtime stream of results yields a flurry of activity on the page below while you busily type your search term. Users have to be logged in to get this so it’s most likely based on your search history as much as their data. I thought I would hate it but I don’t. In fact I like it enough to switch regularly from using my toolbar to search when appropriate. With significant adoption, it’s going to affect client search data but as a user, it’s a nicer way to search.

What does this mean for searchers? As you type and scan it becomes more and more obvious that you have found what you are looking for, saving 2-5 seconds per search according to Google research. No longer will you have to stop at “Philadelphia Cafe” which gives you results from all over Philly:

but may want to continue on to “Philadelphia Cafe South St” to find a potential destination without having to leave the comfort of your search box.

What does this mean for SEO’s? Essentially the technology remains the same so we’re planning to continue doing what we do. With increased adoption, it does seem like there may be some interesting analytics data to crunch and I’m wondering if this will impact the long-tail rather than the head phrases but I’m leaning towards the latter in this case. There are some that are going in the other direction.

It’s really this sort of innovation that keeps Google forging ahead in their space and something that Yahoo could have utlized when they had the chance (although they never did really improve their poor search relevancy). It certainly won’t kill the SEO and it’s uncertain as to whether or not users will accept it across the board but for those who use search a lot, there’s no doubt that Instant will bring about significant productivity improvements.

Tracking Outgoing Clicks via Google Analytics

flemo — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:13:21 +0000

There may be an occasion where you have text or a logo or hotbutton on your website or a client website and you’re curious as to how many folks are clicking on it before leaving your website. Normally it’s not going to show up on your analytics and you possibly don’t want to go and add more complexity to your setup by installing a script or additional software but by modifying your links you can add some additional data for a campaign or simply assuage your curiosity.

OnClick Google Analytics Link Adjustment

Let’s have a look at our website Dinkum Interactive which offers an image link back to our Twitter account. We are limited in tracking the number of folks who sign up to our twitter account but where they come from remains a mystery. At the very least, we would like to see who is heading to twitter from our website via a button on our home page. Not very interesting but for the sake of an example, right now the code looks something like:

So the first part of that link is the destination, the second part is the source of the image file. We are mostly concerned with the first part which we will adjust to accommodate for the onclick and will look something like this:

Then we would combine that with the image source code to give you your final link.

I use ‘outgoing’ but I know others use different names for that, plus I believe you can pretty much use anything to tag the outgoing URL landing page, you just need to be able to remember it when you’re checking your data which is why I like to keep consistent with it.

Checking Your Data

Now you’re going to have to head over to your Google Analytics account and make your way to the Content Section:

You will then go to Top Content which will display a list of your most popular pages.

Below this list will be a Filter option. Type in the relevant word here. I’ll use “outgoing” but I could also do www.twitter.com if i wanted.

This will reveal the details of visitors who have clicked on our link or logo or a hotbutton…or for you, whatever you have decided to track.

There may be occasions where something like this will come in handy, particularly if you are working with other websites who don’t have any form of analytics installed. You may need to let them know how generous you are and there’s nothing like hard and fast data to back you up.

Restaurant.com – Apparently Sometimes a Concept is Good Enough

flemo — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 03:07:27 +0000

I recently started using and checking out restaurant.com after hearing about them from a friend. I was amazed that I had not heard about them before as it seems like they’ve been around for several years so I went and checked out their website which may help to explain why I hadn’t heard about them. Quite frankly from basic SEO perspective it’s a mess. Their popularity however astounded me but it looked as though they relied heavily on affiliate marketing which makes sense and encourages other people to do the work for you. But boy are they doing a lot of things wrong with their website.

Let’s just have a gander a their search visibility. They have a great domain name so I assume that they would do well for “restaurants” and variations on the phrase. A quick search reveals #1 Google ranking for “restaurants” as anticipated.

That’s a strong keyword phrase with some 68 million broad global searches per month which should in itself yield some good traffic. Let’s have a look at what they do. Coupons would be the obvious selection here so “restaurant coupons” would be a no brainer.

I see a paid search result there and the top spot again which is great and a 450,000 search volume which should also yield some good traffic.

So let’s move to local searches which one would anticipate to be higher conversion phrases. Someone in my local area looking to dine out would go for “Philadelphia restaurants” for example. One would anticipate that with a valuable keyword phrase as their domain and obvious popularity that they would do well but I don’t see them for some reason.

So I’m seeing menupages.com and yelp.com and zagat.com but interestingly not restaurant.com. So I wonder why that is.

If I go to restaurant.com and drill down to the Philadelphia section i see this URL http://www.restaurant.com/rdc_site2.net/listings.aspx?PageSize=0&Page=1&sorting=Relevance&Zip=19146&SearchRadius=5&&attribute_value_string%7cCity=Philadelphia
Ok so that explains a lot. Why not http://www.restaurant.com/philadelphia/ for their URL? Sorry couldn’t tell you. Let’s have a look at their title tag then. “Restaurant.com – Dine out for less! $25 Restaurant Certificates for only $10″. Right, pretty useless there.

It’s pretty obvious that we’re now looking at a poorly coded web structure that’s going to impact their search results and little thought to SEO so they are without a doubt missing out on some low hanging fruit. Then again, it looks like a popular website with a strong affiliate marketing campaign and a search marketing campaign which I’m sure is costing them a pretty penny. One wonders at how much value an SEO consultant could be to them particularly for what appears to be a predominately online business. Maybe if they go their act together they would piss off their affiliates. Still, for someone who bases online businesses in SEO, it’s a good opportunity to demonstrate what not to do.

Annie Ling Has a Thing for Me

flemo — Fri, 21 May 2010 14:14:09 +0000

The old Chinese domain name scam seems to have morphed recently with a new intellectual property rights angle:

Dear Manager
We are a professional intellectual property rights consultant organization, mainly deal with the global domain name registration and internet intellectual property rights protection.
On May. 21st, 2010, we formally received an application from KangShen Technology Limited, they applied to register the internet brand ( ourcompanyname ) and some in China and Asia’s domain name.

During our preliminary investigation, we found that these domain names’ keyword is fully identical with your trademark. Therefore, we need to confirm with you, whether you consigned KangShen Technology Limited to register these domain names with us or not? Or, is KangShen Technology Limited your business partner or distributor?

If you have no relationship with this company, we assume that they have other purposes to obtain these domain names.

Currently, we have already suspended this company’s application temporarily due to the seriousness of this isuue. In order to avoid the vicious domain name grabbing, please let the relevant person make a confirmation with me via email as soon as possible. Thank you for your support to our work!

Best Regards!
Anne Ling

Registration Department Manager
Hong Kong NewName Net Service Limited
Tel:+852-3069 6940
Fax:+852-3071 7730

Email:anne@trademarkdns.com
Internet:www.trademarkdns.com

I’ve actually received a few of these recently, so they seem to be on the go a bit more lately. I’s be curious to learn stats about how effective something like this is. Always search for something like this before you pursue any further.

What is an NRL fan in the U.S to do?

flemo — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 00:45:31 +0000

Having been a Sea Eagles fan all my life (I was born in Manly hospital), now being located in Philadelphia makes it a little tough to get to the games. Realistically, it’s just as tough getting to watch them as well which still amazes me, even when paying extra for the privilege. I’ve really been digging the coverage for IPL cricket games on Youtube and DirecTV (for free no less) and still find it quite unbelievable that I can’t get the same coverage for my NRL.

Currently, these are my options. www.AussieSport.TV (and it only works if you use the www….weird) show replays of the games (and highlights) a few hours after the game. The quality is poor and of course you can’t watch on a Mac and it’s around $10/month.

I recently discovered Omnisport.tv which looks a little more promising. I haven’t given it a go yet, mainly because it looks like they only offer live games which, when you take the time difference into consideration, isn’t always favorable so not sure why I would fork out the extra cash for games that I could potentially miss.

Can anyone help me out here? I’d be happy with high quality games that I can play through my computer (perferably mac) and view on my TV like I do with hulu. Anyone? I’d also be curious to learn why it’s so difficult (my guess is licensing).

Jimojo Internet Review – Spotty at Best

flemo — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:54:42 +0000

Recently been using Jimojo Hotspot Internet at a hotel in Byron Bay and gotta say, it’s pretty painful stuff. To start with, we’re talking about 0.43 Mbs download speeds and 0.03 Mbs upload speed so not much faster than dialup and all for the princely sum of just over $10/day. It’s frustrating, and any attempt to contact them seems to go unnoticed. Amazingly, for how important Internet Connections are these days, these guys get a big FAIL from Flemo for their poor connection and their even worse handling of the situation. This would certainly make me think twice about which hotel to stay at in the future.

The Geek Break

flemo — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:50:09 +0000

Working in the online world does offer its benefits, mostly that you are not necessarily tethered to a location or a time. In my former life as a teacher, this was a very welcome adjustment. What proves to be the most difficult is the ‘always on’ mentality. Clients expect it, friends expect it, hell even I expect it. So when I come home to Sydney, I rarely get an extended period of time off as I’m still logging fairly extensive hours at night. I’ve tried to force myself to simply step away from all my connections but aside from a 1 week trip to Spain last year with only minimal activity, it’s mostly been pretty tough. Having your own business certainly doesn’t help but I have a feeling it’s becoming pretty common around all industries. So I read blogs and get opinions on how to do it and most people i talk with haven’t seemed to be able to make that adjustment either. Some online articles seem to provide answers but it’s always difficult to tell how genuine they are. Still, I try and have achieved only partial success at this but a couple of positive steps I’ve learned, have had a pretty good impact.

Step away from the machine – instead of taking my lunch at the computer, I started going to the gym. Sure some weeks I have several meetings that go through the lunch hour but at least 3 days a week have helped my cause during working hours.
On vacation I still haven’t been able to leave the Bberry at home. It’s on my list of to-do’s.
Cull that information – it took me a long time to refine my list of RSS feeds as well as certain twitter and facebook activities but in doing so, I think I’ve cut a significant amount of time from my day.

Only a couple of small steps but they can have a decent impact. While it’s far from the answer, every little step seems to help.

Five Tech Gifts under $100

flemo — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:32:13 +0000

With the crazy gift-giving season coming up and most of us short on funds, E-Verse is sharing your concerns by offering up a Top 5 Tech Gifts (that may or may not be useful or worth the money) for less than $100.

5. Logitech Portable Lapdesk – It may be called a laptop but that doesn’t mean that you have to have OK with it scalding your goodies. Prevent those sweat marks or thigh burns with this handy little table. $30

4. WikiReader – The poor persons Kindle, this $99 bad boy may look like a waste of money for yet another thing to carry around but it gives you a direct line to information contained in Wikipedia! How amazing is that? I mean it’s Wikipedia people! Browse 3 million topics! That’s awesome! Oh c’mon, fork out the extra dough for the Kindle at $259.

3. Target Remote Control Gift Card – So Target has a knack for rolling out pretty interesting Gift Certificates (anyone remember the Camera/Gift Card that flew off the shelves last year?) Well they’ve got a new gizmo so you can satisfy your friends’ gadget needs as well as giving you the added bonus of not have to decide what to actually get them. Surely a win-win. $100

2. Dream Cheeky USB Fridge – Need to keep a coldie handy at all times to help either quench the thirst or settle the nerves after tweeting all day, check out the Dream Cheeky USB fridge. Simply plug in to your USB port and within 5 minutes it’s apparently cold enough to keep that coldie, cold. $25.

1. Swissflash Army Knife – File your nails, jot down a haiku, shine a light in other people’s eyes and then illegally transfer secure data from your mates computer with this awesome all-in-one device. From $39.99

BONUS
Drum T-Shirt – Impress the ladies by banging on your chest! Off to play a gig but forgot your kit? This t-shirt is for you. Or if banging on your chest causes bruising, maybe the finger drums.

Hot air Balloon – Start your own media wild goose chase for the sake of publicity with this Experimental Hot Air Balloon. Kid with strange name not included.