All entries for Monday 11 June 2007

Finding the backlinks to your site using Yahoo's SiteExplorer

Writing about web page http://www.wmg.warwick.ac.uk

WMG has recently relaunched its branding and website. I was asked to help identify all of the links that other websites had made to the old site to try and repair all those that were broken. These links are often called backlinks or using Inlinks in the tool that I am to introduce.

I recommended Yahoo’s SiteExplorer as the most comprehensive and accurate on-line tool, http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

When you first enter your domain name into this tool it will show the pages that are cached on Yahoo’s databases. Click Inlinks to see the pages linking to your site.

To remove the internal links select ‘Except from this domain’ in the first option drop-down list.

On the second drop-down list you can choose ‘Only this URL’ (your home page) and ‘Entire Site’. Select both to find out the number of links to pages other than the home page.

If the links to your old home page are broken then all the link providers need to be contacted. When the links to the old home page are redirected then you need only contact those who link to the other pages.

I recomment re-using the domain and many of the old page addresses when changing websites. Indeed it is a very good idea to know the links to your website before making major changes.

Robert McGonigle : 11 Jun 2007 10:49 |  Comments (5) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Split Testing goes down to the Web–Page with Google's Website Optimiser

Writing about web page http://www.themarketingleaders.com/articles/june07/rob_mc_gonigle.html

With the six months delay to publication I have critically reviewed my article to find anything that is out-of-date.

The main development in split testing using Google’s Adwords has been the launch of their Website Optimiser. Google has already provided tools to measure conversions. You put a little code into the sale completed or ‘thank you for leaving details’ pages. This idea was extended so that Google can track your visitor statistics using Google Analytics.

Many Google Adwords professionals have been split testing landing pages. Creating more than one possible landing page and alternating traffic to it and measuring the conversions. One of these is my old student Kunle Campbell on the www.propertyfrontiers.com site.

Google has taken this to the next level. With a bit more code, Google can alternate 3 images and three different page text copy versions then optimise your page from the results.

The key to ALL these enhancements is access to your website and the ability to add these bits of code without breaking your site.

Robert McGonigle : 11 Jun 2007 10:12 |  Tags: Google Adwords Ppc Relevance Advertising Split Testing |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem