Sorry I have to rant on work (to those that aren’t in the search industry). Michael Martinez is unhappy with Google Analytics new site/internal search functionality because Google still doesn’t properly index supplemental results. I won’t bore you with the details other than to say supplemental results...
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6 Comments
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Sorry, I have to disagree with this post. I think Michael Martinez makes a very good point, which he has discussed in greater detail previously. For a site search to work it should be able to find all of the pages in said site, not just those with enough Page Rank to be in the main index. Put another way, say I have a page that discusses white buttons that is supplemental and another that discusses white badges with a lot of page rank. If someone comes to my site and runs a site search for white buttons they will not get the great page on that subject. Instead they will see the page on white badges. This is bad for the user because they did not find what they were looking for and bad for me because although my site as the right page it did not show up because it does not have enough links. I lost a potential customer and the user will walk away from the site unfulfilled. Of course good navigational structure with links to the white buttons page would be the way to go but the idea that a user has to make an extra step instead of being fed the proper results that are right there is not the optimal result. A search engine (and site search) is only as good as its results and if it does not display the most relevant result based on your query it is not providing good results.
I would agree with you, if the issue at hand was Google trumping an internal search engine, but that’s not what they were talking about at all. The crux of the article he had his beef with was from the Analytics blog talking about how GA now reports on internal search (report being the operative word in that sentence). Sure they get a chance to plug their own internal search engine (which you are wont to do when you’re the 900lb gorilla), but go on to say: "If you already have a site search solution, it is highly likely that our new Site Search reports will already work with it (including Google’s GSA and Mini products)."To say that data on internal search queries, regardless of the engine being deployed to mine the searches isn’t valuable makes zero sense to me. Nobody is arguing the entire solution is without flaws, but the differences in internal vs. initial search tell us a lot about purchase intent, navigation, behavior and a ton of other things. And when a guy like Martinez throws out something like: "Google, do us all a favor: FIX YOUR SEARCH RESULTS BEFORE DOING US ANY MORE FAVORS."Well I applaud him for ’standing up to the man’ or whatever, but to write the whole exercise off is silly.
Not that I’m defending MM mind you, but his data is just actually out of date from what I can tell. I understand what he’s saying, and the author of this post would actually be wrong in assuming that the SEO community understands that supplemental results and internal search are two entirely separate issuessince, well, they’re not, not really. It just looks like when I tested that Google actually did fix it so you can now search on supp pages using the site: command. At least, worked on the dc I was hitting, on the sites I tested.I mean, the pages still do have to be at least indexed, which can still be a function of how much PageRank they have... but if they’re there then they’ll show from what I can tell.
"the self-proclaimed #1 resource on the web for Xena the Warrior Princess."I didn’t realize xenite.org is a Xena site. I love Xena :)I haven’t been following this analytics issue closely so I don’t have anything clever to add, but couldn’t you at least come up with a better post title? In fact, Michael Martinez knows more than 90% of the SEO chatterboxes out there. There’s no such thing as an SEO Expert: only effective and incompetent SEOs.
I think we should look at this in context in order to better understand the issue. 1. Google built into their free Analytics software a feature that allows marketers to better understand who they’re trying to market to by letting them see internal search queries as well as pages visited and products bought after performing the query. This data is valuable to natural search and paid search marketers because it can help us find keywords that we might not be in the first 30 listings for in any of the major search engines, but that users of our site are interested in. This can be used for buzz analysis or keyword targeting to generate more profit for our sites. 2. MM noticed this announcement and said nothing about the value to marketers, but instead called it an advertisement for Google’s Custom Search Engine. He then said that he likes the Google CSE but had confused site search with the "site:" search operator and was disappointed. He then added hyperbole to his disappointment, saying "the fact that Google won’t properly index and rank Supplemental Results Pages makes the whole process a waste of time." 3. Dave noticed the absurdity of this statement and someone sphunn it. 4. A few people commented, also confusing the "site:" search operator with internal search engines on web sites in the term "site search" or making an argument from authority. 5. I stood up for other thinking people, washed my hands of this and got back to work. Thank you, Dave, for your insight. Why you still subscribe to SEO Theory I’ll never know.
I agree with mpilatow.--Somewhat insignificant, but I found some of what you wrote a little rude. For example, what does the subject matter (Xena & Sci Fi) or the basic design (no graphics, "dated", etc) have to do with the subject at hand? It seems like throwaway insults to me, which come across has petty.