What follows is part of a email that was sent to a client this week concerning some problems we were having with Google Analytics.

“Ok, first thing is first. I can’t personally guarantee 100% that I’m going to resolve this. There’s several things outside of my control that could be causing anomalies; the visitor clicks on a link before the analytics code loads, GA hiccups, or the planets haven’t aligned properly. It’s Google Analytics and it’s free and so that means no direct support. There’s no person to contact at Google to say ‘Why isn’t this working?’. They have a support forum and it’s like panning for gold in there. Sometimes you find a nugget, but mostly it’s dirt and dead bugs. I’ll keep pounding at it, but at some point I’ve got to say that there are parts of this that are out of my hands.”

I can’t say I stated everything as eloquently as I should have. I was a little frustrated with the problem seeing as how I thought it was resolved. Some of it was my fault and the rest of it I can’t determine because I haven’t worked my search engine voodoo well enough to find the answer. But I walked away from this with some key lessons.

• Google Analytics isn’t 100% Accurate
  Don’t believe me? Here let me Google that for you. When you’re looking at those numbers, you have to realize that they’re not the gospel truth. There’s some stuff missing. It’s the nature of the beast.
• They Crowdsource Support
  Google provides this service free. If there’s a problem, the only official form of support is the Google Analytics Support Forum. There’s a lot of good infromation in there, but you have to hunt to find it & that takes time. There’s no 800 number, no email address; just a forum with a search function and the wisdom of the masses.
• Some Issues will never be resolved
  It does some cool stuff, but sometimes it goes goofy. Chances are that there is a answer to the problem somewhere out there, but there’s a smaller (but significant) chance that it isn’t. We’re not paying for it, so we don’t exactly have the backing to make ‘em fix it. Free is good, but it has it’s drawbacks.

So, like it, love it, hate it; but it is what it is.

Cool? Yes.

Free? Yes.

Accurate? Not so much.

Frustration Free? Absolutely not.

Matt Cutts on Over Optimization

via: Search Engine Land

Inspired by some horrors I’ve seen this past month. Good SEO is not:

• Stuffing the description meta tag with so many keywords that it looks like jibberish
  Really, aren’t we past the days of this? Stuffing is the reason why the keyword meta tag is pretty much useless anymore, so why are we trying to destroy the description tag? Furthermore, this actually shows up in the search results for people to see. Do you really want to look like you have no command of the English language?
• Having two meta description tags
  Sloppy… Just sloppy.
• Building hidden link pages that are only linked to from other hidden link pages on other url’s
  It doesn’t technically violate Google’s guidelines, but it certainly isn’t in the spirit of keeping them. If you have a hidden link page on your site that looks like a mini link farm, I’d be expecting the Google Police to be taking away privileges or putting you in a time out.
• Pointless internal linking designed to influence page rank & not help visitors
  Multiple links at the bottom of pages that all point to the same pages… that’s a no-no.
• And here’s the big one: Targeting key-phrases that no human being will ever type into a search engine
  There are several keyphrase research tools out there, so there’s no excuse for this one except for someone to say, “Hey, look! You’re ranked #1 for ‘Wilmington, NC repair of Motor Vehicles” when most people are searching for, “Mechanic in Wilmington, NC”.

Here is a quote from Google’s Webmaster Guidelines:

Quality guidelines – basic principles

• Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as “cloaking.”
  
• Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”
  
• Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
• Don’t use unauthorized computer programs to submit pages, check rankings, etc. Such programs consume computing resources and violate our Terms of Service. Google does not recommend the use of products such as WebPosition Gold™ that send automatic or programmatic queries to Google.
  

Now, all this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t build without search engines in mind. Man, that would be just goofy. However, it also doesn’t mean that you should be building your site for search engines at the expense of your visitors. Remember the rule of thumb above, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”