Conversations with your Customers
Blog Archive
- June 11, 2009: Brand Websites Must Die
- How do you apply web analytics to design & prove ROI when you don't sell anything? Brand & most company websites are the perfect examples of sites where 'gut feelings' or the attitude 'we're not selling anything', so we don't...
- June 11, 2009: Site search analytics at The Guardian
- Martin Belam, who's always doing neat things with site search analytics, briefly discusses how he analyzed The Guardian's query data as part of a recent redesign....
- June 8, 2009: My struggle with metrics-driven analysis
- As Marko and I triangulate on site search analytics from the bottom-up (exploratory analysis) and top-down (metrics-driven analysis), I've really struggled with the latter. Not surprising, as a designer of sorts, I'm much more of a bottom-up guy. I'm just...
- June 5, 2009: Keynote: Search Analytics - eMetrics Madrid Spain 2009
- Marko's keynote presentation on Site Search @ eMetrics Madrid Spain 2009
- May 7, 2009: Integrating web analytics and user experience
- Earlier today I gave a talk on the need to integrate web analytics and user experience at Janus Boye's Philadelphia conference. I discussed the differences in perspectives, methods, and use of data among these two communities, as well as an...
- April 24, 2009: What and Why, and How they Fit
- One of the hardest parts of working on this book has been trying to reconcile WA and UX practices and perspectives. I'm convinced that their sum is far greater than their parts. But how do they fit together? I'll be...
- April 13, 2009: Great set of site search metrics
- These (scroll down to the "SIX MetricsTM Framework") come from Earley.com's Jeannine Bartlett, and are really quite good. A nice complement to Lee Romero's excellent work (here, here, and here) in this area....
- March 8, 2009: Brown and Wilfert's Information Archaeology workshop
- Must say, this looks both relevant and fascinating for folks interested in site search analytics: Lorelei Brown and Hallie Wilfert's pre-conference workshop the morning of March 18 at next week's IA Summit in Memphis. Information Archaeology: How to discover the...
- March 1, 2009: SMX Search Analytics (Toronto, March 31-April 1)
- Wish I could make it to SMX Search Analytics later this month. Any event with this much Danny Sullivan on the agenda is well worth considering attending....
- January 27, 2009: Lee Romero blogging on search analytics metrics
- Lee Romero is posting an excellent series of articles on search metrics, starting with this one on what he calls basic metrics. For me, these are mostly longitudinal metrics useful for establishing benchmarks and monitoring overall trends over time, rather...
- January 16, 2009: Hallie Wilfert on Web Analytics and Information Architecture
- Very nice article by Hallie Wilfert in the December '08 FUMSI. (FUMSI. I like to say FUMSI. FUMSI.) Key quotes: "...because web analytics data tells what people do on a web site, analytics data should be used to inform and...
- December 16, 2008: 39 articles (and growing)
- Avi Rappoport is maintaining a library of (mostly academic) articles on site search analytics. If you want to see what the field's research minds are thinking about, this is definitely the place to start....
- November 22, 2008: Integrating web analysis in the UX design process
- That's quite a mouthful, but it's also the title of a very useful presentation given by Erik Verdeyen and David De Block at last September's EuroIA Conference. Wish I could have been there; looks like this was one of many...
- October 30, 2008: Setting up Site Search in Google Analytics
- Here's a very nice, brief tutorial from Techblissonline.com. It's nice to have this handy; I could have definitely used it when I tried setting up GA on both louisrosenfeld.com and rosenfeldmedia.com. Getting the queries to parse correctly was far more...
- October 14, 2008: Yahoo! Analytics On The Horizon
- I assume many of you out there aren't familiar with too many if any analytics tools, but you've at least heard of Google Analytics. If you are totally new to analytics or would like to see or learn a little...
- October 13, 2008: Tweaking around
- A few basic SSA-inspired tweaks, from FutureNow's Daniel McGuigan. Always nice to see SSA getting coverage; seems progressively more over the past couple years....
- October 7, 2008: Conversations or Confessions?
- Search Analytics: Conversations With Your Customers. But is it really a conversation? I mean we'd like it to be, but is it? I asked Lou the other day about the title of the book and it went a little something...
- October 7, 2008: Vanguard's John Ferrara on site search analytics
- If you attended John Ferrara's webinar on site search analytics last month (sponsored by Earley & Associates), you were exposed to the cutting edge of SSA. John worked both qualitative and quantitative wonders to save his employer, Vanguard, a lot...
- October 3, 2008: Hello. My Name Is...
- Hi everyone, I'm Marko Hurst. As Lou mentioned, I'm the new co-author of the book Site Search Analytics. Currently I work at Roundarch as a UX Lead and lead the Web Insights Group, (analytics). As I'm sure most authors would...
- October 3, 2008: E-consultancy interview on site search analytics
- E-consultancy's Richard Maven was kind enough to interview me. No comments there yet, but it seems to be getting lined to by a variety of UK marketing-related sites, if my Google Alerts are any guide. That's nice, but I wish...
- October 3, 2008: Changing of the guard
- It's no secret that this book has been stalled. For a while. Well, that's being generous; we've been stalling on and off for years. And an unfinished book is one huge, pointy Damocles' Sword to have hanging over one's head....
- September 30, 2008: Search analytics as sign of the times
- Here are last Sunday's top queries from the US House of Representatives' web site (courtesy Matthew Marco): 1347 bailout 419 bailout bill 282 bail out 208 bailout plan 184 financial services 132 Search Other Sites 130 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act...
- May 22, 2008: Avi Rappoport's taxonomy of search log junk
- Great posting by Avi. The types she's come up with are: Empty queries Repeat queries Robot crawlers Server hacks Search form "guestbook" spam Internal testing queries Learn more here....
- April 28, 2008: Site search analytics in the NY TImes
- From yesterday's New York Times article on nude vacationing: SpaFinder.com, an online spa search engine, recently created a separate category for “nudist spa vacations” after noticing an increase in searches for the term. Since November, searches on SpaFinder.com for such...
- April 10, 2008: What kinds of data to log?
- Alex, a college student, writes: ...I'm building a web based library catalog for a special collection of books as part of a group software engineering project. My group has been really interested in UX methods related to conceptual models and...
- March 27, 2008: Site search analytics workshop slides
- Just posted my presentation (via the wonderful SlideShare) for my Boston/Sunnyvale/Chicago workshops; enjoy! | View | Upload your own...
- March 25, 2008: Site search analytics talks in Philadelphia, Urbana-Champaign
- I'll be giving a short talk on site search analytics the evening of April 2, graciously sponsored by PhillyCHI and hosted by MessageFirst. Here are the details: Time: 6 - 8PM (social time from 6 - 6:30PM) Location: Messagefirst 230...
- March 10, 2008: Five reasons UX people need site search analtyics
- Balance: UX methodologies/practitioners are often quantitatively weak Legitimacy: Data-driven analyses make an impression on people hard to impress Cost: The data is available; the analysis scales well with available time Fidelity: The data is behavioral, real, and voluminous Comprehensiveness:...
- March 8, 2008: Video on site search analytics
- Nice 10 minute video (albeit blurry) on how to set up site search analytics for Google Analytics:...
- February 29, 2008: Some general questions (and answers) about site search analytics
- What are some of the common questions you hear about site search analytics? More importantly, how do you answer them? We've begun a list of general questions and answers below. What would you add? How would you answer them differently?...
- February 21, 2008: More site search analytics seminars: Silicon Valley, Boston, Chicago
- I'll be headed to Sunnyvale, California March 18 to teach my first workshop on site search analytics, a day-long affair hosted by my friends at Involution Studios' Master Academy. The class will be intimate, as we're limiting attendance to nine...
- December 20, 2007: Rich Wiggins to teach search analytics in Sydney, March 2008
- Fresh from the Nielsen Norman Group's speaking tour, Rich Wiggins will be headed to Sydney in March to teach his day-long class for the wonderful people at Key Forums. I taught a Key Forums class two years ago; the production...
- December 19, 2007: Search analytics slides from An Event Apart
- Better late than never! I totally forgot to post my slides from my presentation at the most excellent An Event Apart in Chicago (last August; guess it's been a busy fall!). Here they are (don't let the goofy typeface scare...
- December 6, 2007: Completing the book (and how you can help)
- If you've been waiting for this book to be available, we appreciate your patience and feel your pain. Rich and I began writing over two years ago, and, a la Damocles, it's been a sword hanging over our heads ever...
- November 8, 2007: Mondosoft quotes Mark Twain
- Recently we grieved the passing of Mondosoft. But according to Mondosoft's Martin Vikkelsø Madsen, "the rumors of my death are greatly exaggerated". Here's the hopeful news, verbatim from Martin: "It’s true that Mondosoft went through a bankruptcy, but cmswatch really...
- November 5, 2007: Hello Google Analytics, Goodbye Mondosoft
- Well, unless you've been vacationing somewhere warm, tropical, and without connectivity, you probably know by now that Google Analytics has finally released its site search analytics functionality. Frankly, I found it pretty difficult to figure out how to turn it...
- October 5, 2007: Changing your content creation strategy
- I'm working on a chapter on using search analytics to improve a site's content. It'll cover some of the stuff you'd expect, like using top null results queries to tune your content offerings. But I'm also hoping to dig a...
- October 1, 2007: Sample chapter: search analytics and metadata
- We're publishing a fairly complete version of our chapter on how you can use internal search analytics to develop and improve metadata (318Kb PDF file). We'd naturally love to hear what you think, especially if we're missing anything obvious, or...
- September 27, 2007: A world of queries
- What the world wants, by query; a fascinating visualization of the planet's information needs: This incredible work comes from the Incom Project (link courtesy of the Information Aesthetics blog)....
- August 17, 2007: Using search analytics to improve navigation
- That will be the title of one of our chapters, and I'm digging into it now. And I'm finding it a bit surprising. Unlike other topics we're covering in the book—using search analytics to improve content development, metadata, search results,...
- July 24, 2007: Series on internal search analytics
- Excellent five-part series (starting here) from Semphonic's CEO, Gary Angel, on internal search analytics. Too much to get into detail here, but nice to see a take on the topic from the analytics side, and Gary's done a great job...
- May 23, 2007: Springtime is a good time to write a book...
- ...or, better yet, finish it. Yes, it's been quiet around here for a while. But Rich and I have been busy. We've given well-received talks on search analytics at the IA Summit, the Emetrics Summit, and Computers In Libraries. We...
- April 12, 2007: Presenting at Computers in Libraries, April 18
- I'll be at Computers in Libraries 2007, Wednesday April 18, to give a talk on search analytics titled "Improving Content with Customer Conversations". Hope to see you there! —Rich Wiggins...
- March 30, 2007: IA Summit talk on search analytics
- Rich Wiggins and I presented on search analytics at the recent IA Summit in Las Vegas. The talk was quite popular; it was one of five that attendees asked to have repeated. And in the week or so since we...
- March 29, 2007: Best bets in 5 minutes
- Improving Search to High Demand Resources with "Best Bets" is an excellent five-minute video introduction to best bets. Presented by Tito Sierra at Code4Lib 2007. —Lou Rosenfeld...
- March 23, 2007: Search analytics talk at IA Summit 2007
- Perhaps a tad bit too late to let you know, but Rich Wiggins and I will be presenting a search analytics talk at the IA Summit in Las Vegas tomorrow. It's apparently a popular topic, as it's one of six...
- January 16, 2007: Digital Web: 2007 will be a big year for search analytics
- Nice to see this prediction in Digital Web magazine. Tiff Fehr's brief posting also includes a useful list of SA tools for competitive intelligence....
- January 5, 2007: Where does the Long Tail begin?
- And, for that matter, what constitutes the middle torso? We've been wondering if there is an accepted, standard way to slice up the friendly Zipf Distribution into a fat head, a middle torso, and a long tail. By percentiles? By...
- January 4, 2007: (Sort of) new list for discussing search analytics
- We're dusting off the SearchLogger Yahoo! group, a moribund list that we helped start back in 2002. Of course we're biased, but Rich and I sense that interest in search analytics will grow rapidly in the next year or two....
- January 3, 2007: Advice on search suggestions
- Eight great pieces of advice on managing suggestions (AKA best bets AKA recommended links) from Avi Rappoport. More than anything, Avi reminds us that suggestions "need active management and investment to keep them fresh and useful," including the obvious (e.g.,...
- December 12, 2006: Free MS Excel template for analyzing queries
- Updated December 19, 2006 (originally posted 12/12/06; added summary spreadsheet, much more functionality) If you're lucky, you're using Mondosoft, WebSideStory, or some other commercial application to generate reports from your query data. If not, we've developed a pair of simple...
- November 1, 2006: We're giving a quick free talk on search analytics
- Rich and I will be making a very brief presentation on search analytics as part of Seth Earley's "Search Solutions Jumpstart Conference Call Series". It's the fourth of four webinars, it takes place this Friday (November 3), 1:30-3pm ET, and...
- October 13, 2006: More on query clustering
- Maxine Armitage of Find It Information Management recently analyzed two years' of search queries from a government agency's intranet. She published her findings in a brief case study (80Kb PDF). We were especially impressed by how Maxine normalized the queries,...
- October 11, 2006: The seasonality of search demonstrated
- I spent some time on Saturday reviewing the past year of search queries performed at MSU.edu, the web site of my employer, Michigan State University. It proved a useful way to distract myself while my co-author's alma mater destroyed my...
- October 1, 2006: Presentation on search analytics
- Last week co-author Lou Rosenfeld gave a talk on seach analytics at the US government's Web Manager University. The Powerpoint file (2.1 Mb) is available here. You might also enjoy Avi Rappoport's excellent presentation at last spring's Enterprise Search Summit....
- September 12, 2006: Search Analytics survey results
- To help us (Lou Rosenfeld and Rich Wiggins) gather information for our forthcoming book on local site search analytics, we invited 206 people to complete a brief survey. The survey ran from June 12 to July 24, 2006, and received...
- September 8, 2006: Search log sample: Mondosoft
- Mondosoft's Robert Piddocke and Martin Vikkelsø Madsen have made available sample queries from the MondoSearch search engine. (This is as good an opportunity as any to acknowledge the wonderful information Mondosoft makes available through its Behavior Tracking subsite. Here's the...
- August 31, 2006: Needed: policies on retention and use of search logs
- The premise of our book is that search analytics, or search log analysis, yields tremendous benefits. We think just about everyone ought to analyze searches their customers perform. If we succeed in our mission, then a lot more organizations will...
- August 7, 2006: AOL: We're sorry
- AOL just issued a press release apologizing for its release of customers' query data: "This was a screw-up, and we're angry and upset about it. It was an innocent enough attempt to reach out to the academic community with new...
- August 7, 2006: AOL releases data on 20M user queries
- Ed Costello tipped us off to AOL Research's recent release of about 20 million web queries from 500,000 AOL customers. Wow. First, the good news: this could be a boon to researchers and, ultimately, anyone who designs information systems. Search...
- July 31, 2006: Search log sample: htdig
- The Direct Marketing Association's Rob Blakeley has kindly provided sample queries from htdig, a free search engine. DMA uses htdig to make their public site searchable. Here's the legend: XXX.XXX.X.23: Searcher's IP address (partially masked to protect privacy) [19/Jul/2006:04:04:14 -0400]:...
- July 31, 2006: SearchTrack generates reports from multiple search engines
- This looks interesting: New Idea Engineering's SearchTracks uses Javascript to grab and analyze search queries executed through a variety of search tools, including: Verity K2 Verity Ultraseek Hummingbird/Fulcrum Google Appliance The queries are parsed, and the following tidbits are captured...
- July 20, 2006: Avi on search analytics
- We don't know anyone who's more knowledgable about search analytics than SearchTools.com's Avi Rappoport. We weren't able to attend, but it looks like Avi gave an excellent presentation on the topic at last spring's Enterprise Search Summit. You can read...
- July 19, 2006: Search log sample: Google Appliance
- Jeremy Bertrand, Interactive Communications Specialist at the Washington State Department of Transportation, has kindly provided a sample of a search log generated by Google Appliance. These queries were searched from this search interface at the Washington State DoT site. The...
- July 17, 2006: Just in case you were wondering...
- ...Rosenfeld Media is indeed the publisher of our book, not O'Reilly and Associates. There's been some confusion, and the result is that many booksellers' catalogs list O'Reilly as the publisher (and the book as available!). No on both accounts: Rosenfeld...
- July 10, 2006: Search log potluck
- We (Lou and Rich) have been able to poke into a few sample logs from a variety of organizations. But for privacy reasons it's been difficult to come by samples that could be publicly shared. It's a pity, as some...
- June 28, 2006: The Middle Torso
- Search queries, when counted and sorted by frequency, fall into a hockey stick-shaped Zipf Distribution (you can see an example from Michigan State University in our Chapter One draft). A handful of the most common queries generally account for a...
- June 27, 2006: A web analytics take on search analytics
- We've recently been in touch with Intuit's Avinash Kaushik, who runs the popular web metrics blog Occam's Razor. Yesterday's excellent posting, Are You Into Internal Site Search Analysis? You Should Be, has already received 18 thoughtful comments. Wow. Needless to...
- June 19, 2006: Why do search analytics continue to be so rarely used?
- We're wondering: at a time when both user experience design and web analytics are taking off, why do so few people analyze their local site's searches? This doesn't really make sense, does it? Or does it? Have a theory? Please...
- June 16, 2006: How del.icio.us is this site?
- It's always interesting to pop into del.icio.us and see how many users are bookmarking a site (say, this one), and how they're tagging it. As of right now, 16 people have tagged this site. Good? Bad? Hard to say at...
- June 8, 2006: A brief welcome
- Rich and I have been working on our book on and off for many months now. We're about halfway done, and plan to finish our writing this summer. We've still got lots to do, and this "book in progress" site...
