I often hear people give reasons for cloaking links, but the reasons they give are frequently incomplete, suggesting they are cloaking links purely because they have been told by someone else they should do it.

I posted this on a couple of forums recently because I kept seeing questions related to it and very incomplete answers being given, so I did a brain dump of as many reasons as I could think of to cloak links or use some kind of affiliate redirect / tracking script / URL shortener…

According to sources Webtrends has purchased Transpond, an application publishing tool for Facebook, iPhone and Android Apps, as well as mobile-friendly web pages. They have rebranded Transpond as Webtrends Aps, a suite of products which includes Analytics, Visitor Profiling, Social Media Monitoring, and Landing Page Optimization.

David Kaplan of PaidContent.org says: Transpond’s platform is marketed as an easy way for non-programmers to create, publish, manage and track “experiences” across social and mobile sites…

The Nexus One might be Google’s most extraordinary flop yet.

The phone itself was great, with excellent hardware and functionality, but the e-commerce strategy Google attempted to employ failed miserably, with their online store closing less than eight months after opening.

But as with any great success or failure, a lot can be learned by studying what they did. There’s plenty to study too, given the intense media coverage the Nexus One got from the time it was announced until after the store closed last month…

If you’ve been following GARE since the beginning, you know that the very first thing GARE ever did was add additional dimensions to the segment (now dimension) drop-down and make these available for nearly every report. As time moved on, more and more segments were added, and the list began to get rather long and unwieldy.

Well, a few weeks back, the dimensions drop-down in Google Analytics underwent a fairly major overhaul…

If you’ve been following GARE since the beginning, you know that the very first thing GARE ever did was add additional dimensions to the segment (now dimension) drop-down and make these available for nearly every report. As time moved on, more and more segments were added, and the list began to get rather long and unwieldy.

Well, a few weeks back, the dimensions drop-down in Google Analytics underwent a fairly major overhaul…

The hardest nut to crack in any type of analytics is getting our decision makers (bosses, leaders, marketers) to take action based on data.

The hard nut is not that we all are doing basic reporting about Visits and Bounces. Ok doing just that is lame. But still that's not all of it.

It might shock you that the hard nut is not even that we, the people who "play" with data, the Analysis Ninjas if you will, are not leveraging custom reports and advanced segmentation and activity alerts and all that cool stuff…

In their weekly back to the basics tip, the Google Analytics blog highlights how to measure landing page effectiveness across multiple keywords using the built in pivot-table feature.Go to the Keywords report under Traffic Sources. Look over to the right above the table and you’ll see Views: followed by a set of buttons. Click the Pivotview. Now, look to the left, above the table, and you’ll see a Pivot by dropdown menu…

Navigational elements on a blog or any website are an important feature, but you should be careful not to take things to extremes which can hurt the progress of your site, both from a SEO perspective and for website conversion.

This post was originally posted Nov 7, 2006 – I have added a screenshot as the original subject site is no longer online – it is still just as relevant today as it was over 3 years ago…

The personalized homepage and password manager markets are becoming crowded scenes. Services like iGoogle, My Yahoo and RoboForm may be popular but there are a number of newcomers vying to topple the bigger names. I caught up with one recently to talk about their product and why they might be different from the competition.Please could you give a brief introduction to what myhomepage is and its background?Myhomepage is a one stop shop to start browsing the internet…

 This week on Whiteboard Friday we pull a secret out of the SEO secrets vault. This handy strategy helps you take advantage of the specific types of results that Google chooses for people and company based searches and helps you dominate your brand search engine result page.

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 This week on Whiteboard Friday we pull a secret out of the SEO secrets vault. This handy strategy helps you take advantage of the specific types of results that Google chooses for people and company based searches and helps you dominate your brand search engine result page.

View statistics for this video Embed video <object width="640" height="360" id="wistia_156841" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000"><param name="movie" value="http://seomoz-cdn…

Before the release of our new eBook, I new it was very important for me to find a solution that would allow me to capture leads and do it with some finesse. Enter Unbounce – a do it yourself landing page solution which I got up and running in about 30 minutes. Below I highlight 5 reasons worth checking Unbounce out for your next lead generation project.

1. I love their landing page editor, it’s extremely slick and the ability to configure page elements / content is quite intuitive…

Say your website has a check out lead generation process and you want to understand funnel abandonment by new vs. return visitors. You can do this through the Web Interface using many segments, filters and exporting data. But who has time for that?

Enter the free, shiny, new Conversion Tracking Application from PadiTrack. Built on the Google Analytics API, it’s all about insights and action…

Starting today, we’re reinstating the Back To Basics series. Each Wednesday, we’ll share a Google Analytics tip, usually something that you can try right away with your own data to gain new insights. This week, we’ll illustrate a quick way to see how many visits you get from different keyword/landing page combinations.A friend of mine recently created several new landing pages that she hoped would attract traffic…

If you’ve used Google Image Search at all recently, you’ve probably noticed that things are looking a bit different thanks to a redesign launched by Google last week. The images are grouped closely together, which allows more results to be displayed on the page. If you mouse over a specific image, the image expands out to a larger size with its source displayed below it. After you click an image, you are sent directly to the destination page with the image overlaid at full size…

If you’ve used Google Image Search at all recently, you’ve probably noticed that things are looking a bit different thanks to a redesign launched by Google last week. The images are grouped closely together, which allows more results to be displayed on the page. If you mouse over a specific image, the image expands out to a larger size with its source displayed below it. After you click an image, you are sent directly to the destination page with the image overlaid at full size…

Though site testing can have many benefits, these common A/B and multivariate testing “gotchas” can lead you down the wrong path. Don’t make these mistakes!

1. Leaving Web Analytics Un-Optimized

Before you get started testing, you want to make sure your web analytics are set up properly, not only so you can do proper analysis before designing your test, but so you are tracking the right things during and after the test…

This post was originally in YOUmoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it provides great value and interest to our community. The author’s views are entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is the newest darling of Internet Marketers, after all what good is traffic if it doesn’t convert. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending how you look at it), unlike Pay Per click (PPC) marketing, CRO isn’t a game of how much money you can throw…

I often receive emails from new web analysts/strategists who are fresh out of University or a year into their careers asking what they can do enhance their career and how they can fine-tune their skills. Below are 5 tips definitely worth looking into:

1. Use iGoogle: Using iGoogle will allow you to stay on top of industry trends/tips all in one central place – and the interface rocks! It’s a great way to read what thought leaders have to say across multiple industries…

We’re back to dispel a few more of the myths you may have heard about AdWords. If you missed the first AdWords myths post last week, check it out to learn about common misconceptions around AdWords billing and spending.Today we’ll cover three myths related to keywords and click-through-rate:Myth # 3: Your conversion rate can impact your quality scoreFact: The conversion rate of your ads does not affect your quality score…

Sounds too good to be true, right?

After all, what could you possibly do in five minutes that has the potential to double your conversion rate?

It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Because you see, there is one part of your website that has more impact on conversion than anything else:

The sign-up form.

Here’s why: if you’re asking for too much information upfront, visitors will decide to do it later and forget about it, or they’ll just give up entirely…

The concept of community has always been huge in the online marketing and especially analytics space. From Eric Peterson’s Yahoo group to the creation of the web analytics association by Jim Sterne, there has always been a place you could go and learn/discuss strategies with other professionals.Community played a large part in my decision to create this eBook. I could have very easily come up with numerous tips & tricks from my own experience, however by extending the offer to other professionals I thought readers could gain insight from a broader range of experiences/backgrounds…

…

In early June, we announced the Conversion Champion Challenge, a contest challenging you to use free AdWords conversion products to increase your ROI, then submit a mini-case study telling us about your experience. The grand prize winner will receive an AdWords voucher as well as an all-expenses paid trip to Google Mountain View or Google Zurich, where the Google Conversions team will meet with you to review your account and provide customized recommendations…

Pixels, white space, focal points and sans-serif. Designers have their own language, and it’s baffling if you’re not used to it.

It’s almost like we have a “secret code,” and we reserve our best work for the clients who know it. When you speak with us, you might feel like you need a translator to communicate what you want and get marketing materials that stand out.

But the good news is it’s simpler than it sounds…

Google’s latest targeting feature is the release of the new modified broad match. This new match type gives targeting results that are in between phrase match and the original broad match, but is more closely related to phrase match.

As many advertisers know, broad match can be quite risky, and sometimes not produce the most desirable ROI’s. Modified broad match can help advertisers get more impressions and show for more variations than phrase match; however, reduce the number of unwanted irrelevant impressions associated with standard broad match…

Google’s latest targeting feature is the release of the new modified broad match. This new match type gives targeting results that are in between phrase match and the original broad match, but is more closely related to phrase match.

As many advertisers know, broad match can be quite risky, and sometimes not produce the most desirable ROI’s. Modified broad match can help advertisers get more impressions and show for more variations than phrase match; however, reduce the number of unwanted irrelevant impressions associated with standard broad match…

This is a guest post from Alex Cohen, Senior Marketing Manager at ClickEquations.People tend to think of paid search through the lens of keywords: You pick keywords, bid on keywords and figure out which keywords are good and bad.Searchers, the people you’re trying to reach, don’t type in keywords. They type in search queries. The keywords you purchase and match types you choose, along with your bids and Quality Score, determine how many search queries you get exposed to…

Day 1 of Connected Marketing Week in San Francisco starts with BlogWorkz including a session called: Inspiring an Army of Bloggers. Here users will learn What it takes to inspire an army of corporate bloggers under the banner of one brand. And how businesses are reaching out to customers and enthusiasts as blogging brand ambassadors. I had a chance to catch up with one of the panelists, Lee Sherman Editor-in-Chief, Personal Finance Group (Intuit) to get his insight on the session…

Could it really be possible that some freelance writers would lie to you, saying whatever it takes to snag your business, justify their exorbitant fees, and turn you into a submissive client who does whatever they tell you?

Well… yeah.

It’s sad, but in the years I’ve been in the business, I’ve seen companies burned, stung, robbed, and strung out by unethical copywriters who couldn’t care less about them…