The 2010 Winter Olympics are over. I know, I’m kind of bummed too.

I really didn’t think these Olympic games would draw me in… but they did. And Wow, what a finale!

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Well this has to be a first! It now appears that Google is showing their special Holiday and Event logos in their search engine result pages in a very similar manner to how Bing has been for almost a year.

Here are a few screen captures that show the new SERP’s.

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We’ve Compiled Our List & Checked it Twice…

With Christmas only a few days away, those last minute acts of kindness probably aren’t going to be enough to get your name scratched off the naughty list and penciled into the nice one.  Sure, you might hope to slip by this year on some clerical error or a loophole in the revised 2009 Naughty and Nice Code of Ethics, but remember Santa is supposedly checking them twice (which makes me wonder if he has a Naughty & Nice app for his iPhone yet, or is still doing it by hand?). 

Yet whether your stocking this year will be filled with lumps of coal or gifts of joy, you are not alone.  We have sent out a request to our colleagues, associates and some talented search elves up north to come up with our First Annual Not Quite Definitive List of Who’s Been Naughty and Who’s Been Nice in Search for 2009.   

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* THE NICE LIST *

* Google gets lots of gifts for attempting to innovate search with real-time results, social search, and more.

* StumbleUpon.com gets lots of gifts this Holiday season for leaving the hands off of eBay, listening to its community, and implementing changes around their desires.

- Jordan Kasteler

* Bing goes on this list for bringing more seriousness in competition to the search landscape. They’ve got a long way to go, but it’s the first positive step in a long, long time.

- Rand Fishkin

* Google Adwords new ad formats. This was a long-time coming in my opinion.  I am curious to see if Yahoo and MSN try to follow Google, or, wait until their platform merger.

* Google Analytics upgrades since October….specifically, more “Goals” and “Alert” system. 

* Google Webmaster Tools upgrades….specifically, their “Parameter Handling”.

- Clint Danks

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Happy Halloween! In honor of the frightful night, as has been a hallowed tradition for the past 11 years, Google created a special logo that was only displayed on October 31st.

Here are several of the past Google Halloween Logos from as far back as 1999, the year that I got my start in SEO. I can remember seeing the first one in ‘99 and thinking: “Gee, they can do better than that”. We’ll I must say that they have indeed become more creative throughout the years. Kudos to the logo design team!
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Recently, Google Analytics made an update to their Goal Conversion Tracking system that allows you to rearrange and change the position of your goals by simply selecting a different spot in a dropdown menu. At first glance earlier today, this new feature seemed to be an easy way to rearrange your goals to your preference so that you can see the goals that you want, where you them. But after testing it further I realized that is has a major flaw that you need to be wary of: Loss Corruption/Confusion of Goal History Data. 
 

Reordering your Analytic Conversion Goals became too simple…

 
Why this is significant

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The team at Google Analytics has recently made an announcement stating that “Google Analytics Now More Powerful, Flexible And Intelligent”. This system update has many new features, but the 2 that have been on my web analytics “Wish List” for some time are: 
 

• More Goals Per Profile – Now 20!
• Rearrange & Sort Goal Order

 
20 Goals instead of just 4 – That’s 500% more Useful and 1,000% Simpler!

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On September 27, 2009, Google turned 11 years old. In honor of this special day, Google.com created a special logo that was only displayed on their site on the Sunday. They even added an extra “l” the their name in the logo – Googlle.

Wow, where did the time go? Here are several of the past birthday logos.
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Ahoy, me Hearties! September 19th is International Talk Like A Pirate Day. In honor of this bloody great day I thought I would let ye landlubbers all in on how ye too can search like the pirates do. An I no just talk’n bout the 7 seas mind ye!

To find the Pirate Search ya’ll first have to follow some clues and go on a little search of your own… (more…)