Archive for September, 2009

In the previous two videos from the API team, tech lead Jacob Matthews discussed What Is the Google Analytics API and Steps To Using the Google Analytics API.

In our third video, we turn to Ruth Doane, another Tech Lead, to take a step back and look under the hood of Google Analytics itself. Did you ever wonder how data is collected and organized in Google Analytics? See what happens to traffic data after it is sent to Google Analytics and learn how it gets processed and stored, and then ends up in the Web Interface and Custom Reporting.

Earlier this year, we mentioned our plans to improve the measurement of conversions for display advertising campaigns on the Google Content Network. Today, to help you better measure the value of your display advertising campaigns, we're announcing a new feature called View-through conversion reporting on the Google Content Network.

Display ads are influential in increasing brand awareness and driving purchase consideration, and with View-through conversion reporting, you can better measure the impact of your display ad campaign for those instances where your ad is seen, but not immediately clicked on. More specifically, View-through conversion reporting measures the number of conversions that occurred within 30 days of your display ad appearing for which there was no ad click generated.

By using View-through conversion reporting, you can more easily compare the performance of your Google Content Network campaign with the performance of your other display advertising campaigns. This feature can also help you determine the best ways and places to advertise, how best to optimize your display ad campaigns, and, ultimately, how to spend your advertising dollars more effectively.

Here is an example of how View-through conversion reporting works: Let's say you're selling pet food online and you're measuring conversions on your site's email newsletter sign-up and your shopping cart "Thank You" pages. If a user sees your display ad, does not click on it but then visits your site within the next 30 days to sign-up to receive your email newsletter and to purchase a couple dozen cans of organic cat food, you'll see two View-through conversions reported on your Campaigns tab in AdWords.

Starting today, you can also visit the Campaigns tab in AdWords and activate the optional View-through conversion reporting column. You'll need to have AdWords Conversion Tracking installed for View-through conversion reporting to work for your campaigns.

To learn more about View-through conversion reporting on the Google Content Network, you can visit the Help Center. We hope this feature will provide you with better information about your campaigns and help you get the most out of your display advertising campaigns.

Posted by Amanda Kelly, Inside AdWords crew

Today, we introduced a new search feature that makes it easier for you to find forum posts or discussions related to what you're searching for. This new addition to Google search results applies to sites that tend to have a large number of posts on a specific topic. When several different discussions on a site are relevant to your query, we indent them under the primary result and include the date of each post.

So for instance, if you search for [getting from rome to florence] you will see, below the third result, a list of relevant discussions on various ways to get between these cities.


It's always nice to know what others are saying about the best ways to get around (by boat or train) and how recent those comments are — especially if it's your first time traveling to Italy.

We hope this feature gives you a deeper view into the relevant content available on sites throughout the web — even when that content spans multiple pages or discussions.
At the same time, the main search results are diverse as always — so if you can't pinpoint a useful comment there's a list of relevant sites there to help.

Posted by Johanna Wright, Director of Product Management and Devin Mullins, Software Engineer

Today our colleagues down under began inviting the first 100,000 users to preview Google Wave. We are very proud of the work that they have done and are quite pleased that GWT has helped make Google Wave a reality. You can read more in yesterday's Google Wave Backstage - Q&A with Dhanji Prasanna at InfoQ.

In fact the Wave team has told us that they would have not been able to build the user interface you see today without GWT. That's a great testament to our mission statement which reflects our focus on developer productivity and user performance, delivering a great AJAX experience across all major browsers. Also, with only 10-15% additional effort GWT allowed the team to build a user interface dedicated for mobile devices browsers.

Of course there's still much to do before Google Wave rolls out for everyone. If you weren't one of the developers who participated in the developer preview or helped build one of the many samples perhaps there's an extension you would like to build. Check out the Google Wave API Documentation to find out how you can get started with GWT and Google Wave.

Congratulations to the Google Wave team on achieving this milestone and we look forward to continuing  to work together.

Posted by Austin Rachlin, Inside AdWords crew

by Vera H-C Chan

Holidays both holy (Ramadan and Yom Kippur) and secular (Labor Day) dominated September, but the autumnal change of pace didn't always mean peace. Interruptions and protests testified to high anxieties. Those were dwarfed by an unrelenting series of natural disasters. Below, the events that bestirred the Buzz.

The disaster roll
Some took mere seconds, others lasted for days, but all left a wracked landscape. In the state of Georgia, five days of rain dumped as much as 20 inches, left at least nine dead, and flooded more than 1,000 homes. Typhoon Ketsana left a crueler mark through Southeast Asia, wiping away villages and killing more than 300. Quakes shattered Samoa, American Samoa, and the Sumatra island of Indonesia. Help has been at the ready: Federal aid has come to Georgia and the Samoa, the international community—already helping the hard-hit Philippines—are also reaching out to the tiny Pacific islands, and charities worldwide are heading to West Sumatra.

Outbursts, tantrums, and protests 
Lots of angst was unleashed in September. Thousands converged to protest big government in a tea-party style gathering fueled by Glenn Beck and organized by FreedomWorks. Talk-show host Beck was awarded a ceremonial key to his hometown, but he may not want to use it. And while President Obama made some UN headway at the general assembly, his follow-up act Moammar Khadafy caused walkouts and his translator to collapse. Would have been a good time for Kanye West to pop up.

In memoriam
"Nobody puts baby in a corner" became the online eulogy for Patrick Swayze, who died of pancreatic cancer this month. Other passings noted: journalist William Safire who famously penned "nattering nabobs of of negativism" for Nixon's vice president Spiro Agnew; neoconservative architect Irving Kristol; and the "father of the green revolution" Norman Borlaug.

Search Terms with the Biggest Percentage Changes VMA 2009 (+65,719%). Kanye West's protest gave a new meaning to Swift-boating, and helped lift the awards show's buzz. Dr. Oz Show (+48,331%). Just what daytime ratings ordered: Oprah's protege debuted as a solo practitioner. Frank Lloyd Wright Fallingwater (40,699%). $1,195 will get an over-nighter near the architect's creation. College Football Scores (+27,381%). The games have begun. San Francisco Bay Bridge (+31,412%). The bridge connecting the SF peninsula to the Bay Area closed Labor Day weekend for an eastern span replacement. Cullinan Diamond (+30,112%). The world's largest diamond, found in 1905, may have a challenger for the title. Samantha Geimer (+25,913%). Director Roman Polanski's arrest refocused attention to his victim, now 45, who wants the whole matter to go away. Julian Lennon (+25,239%). His nursery school classmate, Lucy, who inspired the song "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," died of lupus. Jaycee Dugard Photo (+23,077%). The incredible case of a kidnapped girl who has returned to her family continues to rivet the Buzz. Jason David Frank (+17,909%). The green Power Ranger will now use his powers in the MMA ring.

Biggest Search Terms Megan Fox Michael Jackson Halloween Costumes Taylor Swift Erin Andrews Britney Spears Miley Cyrus Lady GaGa Beyonce New Moon

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With the Merchant Risk Council Semi-Annual Meeting taking place this week, we wanted to tell you more about the fraud detection and protection that goes on behind the scenes at Google Checkout. Every Checkout merchant benefits from our industry-leading fraud detection systems, which allow merchants to increase sales and reduce some of the costs and risks of running an online business. Overall, Google Checkout merchants experience significantly less fraud than industry averages reported in CyberSource's 2009 Fraud Report.*

Before orders are even charged, Google proactively filters out fraudulent orders using our proprietary fraud detection technology. We supplement this technology by performing manual reviews and examining buyer information across multiple merchants.

For orders covered by our Payment Guarantee Policy (98% of all Checkout orders on average), you won't waste any time or money in performing fraud checks or identity verification, even if the AVS or CVV information doesn't match or you aren't familiar with the customer. With Payment Guarantee information available at a glance in your account, you can quickly review what you need to decide if an order is safe to fulfill. And rest assured that, if you meet the conditions, Google will be responsible for any unwarranted chargebacks on all orders covered by the Payment Guarantee.

Google even provides useful tools for the small percentage of orders that aren't protected by the Payment Guarantee. We'll provide you with valuable customer information and chargeback representment services on all orders. Because you know your business best, this buyer verification information lets you run your own fraud checks and decide which orders to ultimately accept. We'll evaluate all chargebacks received and fight them on your behalf whenever possible.

To learn more about Google Checkout's fraud protection, please read the details in our Help Center. And be sure to come talk to us at the MRC Semi-Annual Meeting today and tomorrow. We'll have representatives from Checkout and AdWords at the event on both days.

*Comparison made in reference to the following statement in CyberSource's 2009 Fraud Report: "Merchants have consistently reported an average loss of 1.4% of revenues to payment fraud."

Posted by Jessica Smallman, Checkout Risk Operations

How long would it take to translate all the world's web content into 50 languages? Even if all of the translators in the world worked around the clock, with the current growth rate of content being created online and the sheer amount of data on the web, it would take hundreds of years to make even a small dent.

Today, we're happy to announce a new website translator gadget powered by Google Translate that enables you to make your site's content available in 51 languages. Now, when people visit your page, if their language (as determined by their browser settings) is different than the language of your page, they'll be prompted to automatically translate the page into their own language. If the visitor's language is the same as the language of your page, no translation banner will appear.


After clicking the Translate button, the automatic translations are shown directly on your page.


It's easy to install — all you have to do is cut and paste a short snippet into your webpage to increase the global reach of your blog or website.


Automatic translation is convenient and helps people get a quick gist of the page. However, it's not a perfect substitute for the art of professional translation. Today happens to be International Translation Day, and we'd like to take the opportunity to celebrate the contributions of translators all over the world. These translators play an essential role in enabling global communication, and with the rapid growth and ease of access to digital content, the need for them is greater than ever. We hope that professional translators, along with translation tools such as Google Translator Toolkit and this Translate gadget, will continue to help make the world's content more accessible to everyone.

Posted by Jeff Chin, Product Manager

Betsy mugs with ijustine (Justine Ezarik) first day of the 140 twitter conference.

Perez Hilton, eat your heart out. The Twitterati Glitterati are out and in force (and they should never really have let me in)!

My first big conference after Techcrunch50 was 140 Twitter Conference. Because it was in Los Angeles, it had a totally different flavor that perhaps only Stefan has experienced previously, during the Bing-a-thon. (Bing-a-thon star Olivia Munn was supposed to be on a celeb panel, but last minute shooting schedule issues prevented her. The Bing team sent her a small gift via her handlers; hopefully she got it. :) ).

You don’t have to take my word on how much celebrities can rule a conference. The “twitter footprint” of the conference by Cheddr Media shows the impact of celebrities on a conference twitter stream.

According to Cheddr, 2,911 people on Twitter tweeted 11,280 times with the hashtag #140tc, an average of nearly 4 tweets per person during the two day conference.

Me, I just tried to perfect that “I’m-in-marketing-now” grin, which I almost get right here, but you can see my companions (Jade Bailey-Assam of Wynn Las Vegas and Mr. Pr 2.0 himself, Brian Solis) are just way better at it. I did my part to give Spawn Labs ( the remote console enablers featured on my TechCrunch50 t-shirt) some Bing love – pretty much everyone asked if I was from Bing and what the t-shirt was about.

Marcus Schmidt from Windows was on a panel around the theme of Social CRM along with @briansolis, @misswinnie from @wholefoods, and moderated by @jerrymichalski. Folks asked a lot of questions and I think valued the insight on how people do customer service on on twitter directly. Those folks were invited by @cotweet.

One of my other favorite panels - outside of the comedian one which is pretty much unprintable on any blog my mom reads – was the one about branding. In it, though they were too polite to put it this way, two very different approaches to twitter marketing emerged in the advice of Guy Kawasaki (moderator) and Brad Nelson, who is the solo twitterer for @starbucks.

What astounded me was Guy’s frequency to promote Alltop, his new venture, and especially a feature or area that he considers pivotal, he will tweet once every 8 hours, round the clock, for 30 days. You contrast this with @starbucks who Nelson says has only had 5 pre-loaded tweets, and generally reflects him hand-checking what people are saying to him and adjusting his outbound tweets to reflect the circumstances of the day. Bing pretty much ad-hocs it, just like Brad.

Guy of course has his photo on his twitter profile. Brad won’t do it – he only wants the Starbucks logo on there as a tribute to his service to the brand. Bing of course – we believe in you knowing EXACTLY who to blame for our tweets – so we fall into the Guy Kawasaki camp here. Considering how much of a fan club TI, The Intern, got from just one photo up for 3 months, we feel Guy has it right.

Other panels made a compelling case for responsiveness, whether planned/scheduled or ad hoc. We were told that E3, the gaming conference, has been known to change programming based on twitter sentiment, and one UStream panelist noted that by asking fans to submit questions ahead of their webcast the Jonas Brothers enjoyed much more reach before, during and after the Webcast than their 1 million twitter followers.

And for actors supporting their fans and their latest projects, Twitter is indispensable. Here, we see a moment of history being made.

Pee Wee Herman’s first tweet ever.

Who won? Gnomedex Seattle volunteer @tinythoughts (Jodi Church)

One thing that gave me food for thought from a search perspective was said in the future of Twitter panel by oneforty.com founder Laura Fitton (@pistachio). She wondered aloud about the volume of words typed into Google per day vs. how many were typed into Twitter, and how much more could be learned about a user’s intent by studying words of their tweets. As we look ahead to the future of search, and the future of twitter, it’s important to think about how much work we ask customers to do, and whether (as with twitter) they feel they get enough of a fun payoff that the effort is worthwhile to them.

Betsy Aoki, Bing Senior Program Manager

by Mike Krumboltz

The recent natural disasters in Samoa, Indonesia, and the Philippines have killed hundreds of people and left many homeless or missing. As emergency crews respond and the damage continues to be assessed, we've noticed huge Web searches from the curious and concerned. Below, a rundown of the most popular questions and answers.

What happened in Samoa?
At 6:47 a.m. on Tuesday, a tremendous earthquake struck about 120 miles south of the Pacific islands of Samoa and American Samoa. The quake, an 8.0 on the Richter scale, caused a tsunami. Giant waves quickly crashed down on the islands. According to federal disaster officials, "tens of thousands of people" are in desperate need of help. President Obama has declared it a "major disaster" for American Samoa, and says the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is "working with emergency responders in the region." There have been a slew of searches for "samoa earthquake" and "samoa map."

What happened in Indonesia?
On Wednesday morning, a 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck western Indonesia. According to the AP, at least 75 people have died and thousands have been trapped by falling buildings and landslides. Vice President Jusuf Kalla told reporters that it is hard to tell just how many people have perished because of the "heavy rain and blackout," but he expects the death toll to rise sharply. In the aftermath of the quake, searches soared on "indonesian earthquake," "jakarta" (the country's capital), and "Sumatra Island," where many Indonesians have perished.

What happened in the Philippines?
This past weekend, Typhoon Ketsana hit Southeast Asia, causing massive flooding and hundreds of deaths. The death toll has passed 300, according to a recently updated article from AFP. In the aftermath, we noticed a surge of lookups on "typhoons vs. hurricanes." According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Organization, a hurricane applies to storms that form over the Atlantic Ocean. A typhoon refers to storms in the Pacific. Additional searches included "philippines floods" and "typhoon ketsana." Related queries on "who names typhoons" spiked, as well. The answer to that, according to USA Today, is surprisingly complex.

How does a tsunami work?
When an earthquake strikes in the middle of the ocean, a tsunami often follows. The ocean's floor rumbles, water surges, and deadly waves can travel for hundreds of miles until they find land to crash into. LiveScience explains the specifics in layman's terms: An earthquake causes the earth's crust to lift suddenly and "act as a giant paddle." The Daily Telegraph writes that predicting a tsunami is "near impossible." That energy is transferred to the water, and a tsunami is born. One of the deadliest tsunamis in history struck on December 26, 2004 off the coast of Indonesia. Over 130,000 people died and thousands more went missing.

What's the difference between Samoa and American Samoa?
American Samoa and Samoa are geographic neighbors with different governments. As you can guess by its name, American Samoa is governed by the United States. It has about 65,000 citizens. Samoa, on the other hand, is an independent nation with a population of around 178,000. According to official site of the United Nations, it became independent of New Zealand in 1962. Samoa was admitted into the UN in 1976.

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