Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Yahoo recently changed how they process searches, and searches are now all done through a secure server.

This article goes into more detail: http://searchengineland.com/yahoo-search-goes-secure-182343

"By default, searches on Yahoo.com are now done through a secure server. That means more protection for searchers but less data for search marketers about how they are receiving traffic. Most visits from Yahoo done via search will appear as if someone came to a site directly. As a result, Yahoo’s apparent popularity as a traffic driving source will appear to plunge."

More traffic from Yahoo will now appear as "direct" instead of from Yahoo. Perhaps you've seen an increase in direct traffic?

Hi there - wanted to follow up with additional information about this matter.

High Level: It looks like anonymizing IP addresses may be a non-issue.

I read through the Google Analytics product forums, and read one thread where someone was having trouble with their eCommerce tracking after adding the anonymize IP code. We have an AdWords account, so I contacted AdWords Support and asked them if it would affect our eCommerce tracking and also if/how it would affect our geolocation reporting.

Their response: "...anonymization does not affect the Analytics data in any way. The anonymization in this case happens after our tracking is done, thus keeping the original data intact: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2763052?hl=en"

I also asked if there was any way to set filters to anonymize IP addresses for users in a specific country (e.g., Germany), and they said there is not: "...currently the only way to anonymize IPs in our system is either by their Geo location (which means excluding all data on German users) or by putting in individual IPs in the system (which will be an impossible task, looking at the large group you are trying to anonymize. Unfortunately there's not other way to do this in our system currently."

While there are several mentions that anonymizing IP addresses will affect geolocation reporting, I haven't found any solid examples of exactly what data is lost/inaccurate.

Bonus: A colleague pointed me to this interesting article about how you can use Google Tag Manager to exclude some traffic from getting passed into Google Analytics at all, including passing IP address information: http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2014/03/11/goodbye-to-exclude-filters-google-analytics/

For sites with a lot of traffic that are hitting GA's sampling limits, using GTM in this way can also help reduce the data set passed into GA, thus giving you more of the data you care about before hitting the sampling ceilings.

I haven't tried this yet myself, but thought it might be helpful if others are contemplating these issues.

I agree with Oleg; either option won't make a significant difference for SEO - but if you plan on fleshing out the individual restaurant content by adding other pages (e.g. /locationname/menu/, /locationname/reviews/) then I would go with the /locationname/catering/ option.

Serendipitous timing - this article was posted yesterday about using mark-up, and how Open Graph and Schema.org are used, and why to use both:

Facebook Open Graph serves its purpose well, but it doesn’t provide the detailed information search engines need to improve the user experience. A single web page may have many components, and it may talk about more than one thing. Even if you mark up your content for Facebook Open Graph, schema.org provides an additional way to provide more detail about particular entities on the page.

http://searchengineland.com/schema-org-7-things-for-seos-to-consider-post-hummingbird-172163

Our company will be expanding into Germany later this year, and we need to modify how we use Google Analytics to comply with Germany's privacy laws.

One option is to anonymize the IP addresses of our users. It looks like the only effect is that some of the Geo reports will become less accurate, but would love to hear from those who have done it. I've read through the Google Analytics forums on the topic, and the info there is sparse.

I'm curious to know if anyone else has experience with this, and if you did it, what were the effects on your GA reporting or any other tools or technologies used on your site? Is this a non-issue, or are there pitfalls we need to consider?

Thanks!

I love Screaming Frog! One use case I've used recently is using it to find internal 404 errors prior-to and immediately-after a major site redesign.

After running a crawl, go to Bulk Export > Response Code > Client error (4xx) Inlinks and download the report. It shows the offending URL and the URL referring to it, which makes it easier to update the bad link.

I also have this page bookmarked, and it's my go-to guide:

http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/screaming-frog-guide/

Anyone know of any medical or health-related sites that have widely implemented medical schema types?

For example: MedicalCode, MedicalTest, MedicalSignorSymptom, etc. and others listed here: http://schema.org/MedicalEntity

I've reviewed the examples on schema.org, but it would he helpful to see some live examples in the wild.

Thanks!

Agree with Jesse, using GA Event Tracking will help you track clicks on the mobile button. Within GA, you can slice and dice the information a few ways to see mobile users exclusively.

One option is to use the "Advanced Segments" feature to view "Mobile Traffic" and then drill down via the Content > Events > Top Events report.

Ha ha, I know! It's like giving the developers a little present all wrapped up with a bow...here's the problem, and here's where to fix it

I agree with David K. too - where are sales dropping and when did the trend begin? Check your conversion tracking to make sure it is set up and tracking properly. You an also write in to AdWords Support via the 'Help' link and ask them to confirm your conversion tracking is working correctly too.

Tip for using Sitelinks: set them at the ad group level, and use the primary keyword for that ad group as the first sitelink. You need to set the sitelinks to go to different URLs than the primary destination URL.

Example: If you ad group is structured around 'Prince George Christening Photos', make the first sitelink be the same phrase. Good CTRs.

Hi Mase,

I've managed sites with with hundreds of thousands of pages too, and in my experience a discrepancy between what's offered up via the sitemaps and what gets indexed is typical (dare I say it, a 10% discrepancy seems pretty good!). Pages deeper in the site seem to suffer this fate more frequently than those with fewer subfolders, as do those with thin content.

I agree completely with Ryan's comment about Screaming Frog: it is an invaluable tool for site audits, in addition to lots of other useful site insights. You might find this article interesting to get a sense of the many ways you can use SF: http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/screaming-frog-guide/

Personally, I close those "join my email list" pop-ups as quickly as I can, because I find them annoying. Let users see your content and decide for themselves if they want more engagement.

If you've been soliciting users with a pop-up AND with a more discreet subscribe form, are you able to do an analysis of who subscribed via which method, and calculate engagement metrics (e.g., open rate) or the un-subscription rate for each? Maybe look at this metric by time period: past year, 6 months, 3 months, last full month, etc.

If so, you might find your answer there.

I prefer to see subscription options at the bottom of blog posts (I just read something amazing, and so I'm likely to sign up for more) or as a global element in a sidebar.