I recently was looking for a sony w950 in Google and the title of the first organic listing was “Oh no! 404 - Page not found”. I was puzzled! Looked at the URL - www.sonyericsson.com - seemed like a reputable URL so all I could think was they had not configured their server to return 404 error codes when an error was generated.

Using the RankQuest Server Header Checker, sure enough, the SonyEricsson site is returning code 302 (Moved Temporarily). Unfortunately I am not interested in now searching that website to find the Sony w950 so back to Google I went.

A good lesson in why your 404’s should generate 404 error codes at the server level - so you can monitor and repair broken pages/links/URLs on a daily/weekly/monthly basis!

Google Analytics is in the process of adding some fantastic new features to their web analytics software! So far I have had the opportunity to explore their new Site Search feature which provides details on the search terms people have used WITHIN your website - what are people searching for once they are already on your website?

This new report can be found under the content section of the Google Analytics dashboard once it has been configured in your profile. Some of the interesting reports that are emerging include:

• Percentage of your website visits that involved using your search function vs. visits that did not use it - the first site I have looked at has a 5% usage rate - seems good considering the search function is not located on every page of the website!
• Search Terms - For each of these search terms, you can see a number of relevant statistics that provide insight into how visitors respond to your internal search engine. For example, by checking the Total Unique Searches, you can determine which search terms visitors use most on your site. You’ll also be able to answer questions like, “Which search terms cause my visitors to search again?” by checking % Search Refinements.
• Start Pages - is your search box on every page of your website? Find out which page drives more searches
• Destination Page: Where do visitors who search on a specific term go after searching? If the answer is a press release you may want to rethink your internal search tool and the data it presents!

If you would like some assistance in setting up site search on your website or within Google Analytics, please contact us.

Do Web stats mystify you? Do you ever wonder if anyone is looking at your site or what you should measure to determine impact?

Join Yann Toledano, Internet Marketing Consultant and host of TechSoup’s Web Building forum and Malin Coleridge, Tech Soup’s Senior Web Analyst, as they explore how to use Web statistics effectively on a shoestring budget.

They’ll explain key Web metrics and why they matter for your nonprofit. In addition, they’ll discuss how to use your statistical data to improve performance through testing and optimization:

• What Web statistics should my nonprofit look at?
• Web analytics tools and best practices
• How to use statistical reports to measure impact
• What, when, and how to test your Website
• Inexpensive resources for Web Statistics
• What are the different lenses through which you could look at your Web stats?

When: Oct. 16th and 17th, all-day, asynchronous (not-live).
Where: Tech Soup Discussion Forum
No registration is needed; just show up and post your questions!

Good to see that the North American market is not superstitious and is willing to schedule events on September 11 now ;-)

Timothy Seward of ROI Revolution will be hosting a free webinar with Tom Leung, Google’s Business Product Manager for Google’s Website Optimizer.

This 60 Minute Free Webinar on Google Website Optimizer Will Cover:

• How to Overcome the Odds – continual improvements will slingshot you past your competition.
• How to Set Up a Test with Google Website Optimizer in 3 Simple Steps
• 6 Tests To Run on Your Site with Easy to Follow Example Layouts
• Key Questions To Ask Yourself In Order to Use Google Website Optimizer for Valuable Improvements

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Date: September 11th, 2007
Time: 2pm ET (1pm CT / 12pm MT / 11am PT)
Topic: Google Website Optimizer
Sign Up Today: http://roirevolution.com/gwo-webinar
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Kev from SEO Optimise listed 5 reasons to do this and I am going to add a 6th.

First, what is meant by folder structure is a URL system that involves several forward slashes more so than equal signs and question marks.

Take the Web Analytics page of the DriveTraffic website. The URL of this page is http://www.drivetraffic.ca/web_analytics/. It could have easily been http://www.drivetraffic.ca/web_analytics.php but I prefer a folder structure so that related pages or pages within the subject category of web analytics can be tucked into this folder structure - for example the Google Analytics page: http://www.drivetraffic.ca/web_analytics/google_analytics.php.

An example of a URL that does not use folder structure is the Toronto Special Events website. Visit the link and look in your address bar to see the difference - the URL was too large to paste here.

Kev’s reasons for using a folder structure include:

1) Full Domain Link Juice
- The full weight of the domain is used when using folders as opposed to sub-domains. This is because the search engines will view the folder as part of the main site rather than a sub-site.

2) More Memorable URL’s
- If your promoting the URL either online or offline it’s far easier to remember if it’s short and simple, making the user add a .html to the end makes it less likely to be remembered.

3) Looks Cleaner/More Professional
- In my opinion filename extensions can look a bit messy, I think something like www.seoptimise.com/services looks far more professional than the previous URL which was www.seoptimise.com/our-services.asp

4) Can Switch Hosting Easily
- Another factor with this change was because it’s possible the site will be moving from a Windows server to Linux in the near future. This means that the ASP file extensions would have to be changed to PHP, using the default page within a folder gets around this problem by removing the need of a file extension in the URL entirely.

5) Easy to Organise
- The root level got very messy using the previous structure, grouping this into foldernames makes the webpages far more manageable. I’ve also found some very similar webpages which are now redirected to one version instead which will help the users and search engines to find exactly what we want them to.

And my number 6 reason is for ease of obtaining data in your web analytics program. Oh and number 7 is potential SEO impact.

But #6 - it is helpful to look at a folder of your website within your web analytics rather than each page sometimes. For example, on an insurance site are the bulk of the people accessing the marine insurance section of the site, car insurance or home insurance? What keywords are used in general to reach the marine section of the site? I don’t want to look at each page within that section to obtain a list of keyword phrases.

Do you need help converting your website to folder format? Feel free to contact us. Should you prefer to do it on your own, remember to use 301 redirects since you will be “renaming” pages!