Data Answers All

Interesting read from Wired, The End of Theory: The Data Deluge Makes the Scientific Method Obsolete. Notable quotes:

"All models are wrong, and increasingly you can succeed without them."

'But faced with massive data, this approach to science — hypothesize, model, test — is becoming obsolete...'

'Petabytes allow us to say: "Correlation is enough." We can stop looking for models. We can analyze the data without hypotheses about what it might show. We can throw the numbers into the biggest computing clusters the world has ever seen and let statistical algorithms find patterns where science cannot.'

What Data Google Collects

This is worth a look, basically a very detailed look at all the sources Google uses to gather data on users. Pretty staggering or Why Google is the Web. Skip the top part of the article and go straight to the list.

Serving Different Content Based on User Search Query

This is an awesome question and I surprised the topic hasn't been more deeply covered by someone. A thread in HighRankings asks whether or not he is risking it with Google if he serves different content on a page based on the search term source. He switches out content by looking at the HTTP_REFERER details for the specific search query if its avaliable but serves Google the default content when GoogleBot comes crawling.

Certainly this is against Google's guidelines, however the site owner is simply trying to customize content for his user thus enhancing their experience, Google mantra 'design for the user not the search engines'. Only 2 comments but both seem to suggest that the site owner is dangerously walking the line here.

I have to believe this is going to become a big issue down the road for search engines as sites look to customize user info more and more. Consequently I would have to believe that Google will come to accept this practice. Guess it remains to be seen.

SERPs on Google.co.uk

For the last 6 months or so, I have seen a number of threads on WebmasterWorld about Google.co.uk issues. Everyone is in agreement that there have been big changes.

The latest WebmasterWorld thread, Google.co.uk SERP Changes started a long discussion with more of the same. Random theories and off tangent disscussion abounds, but the big point in all this is that there are still inconsistent results and a lot of movement, though things have settled down a bit.

It seems to me that Google is using Google.co.uk to heavily test localization. This is bourn out by experience that .com site previously hosted in the states with powerful backlinks in the US, moved to the UK has developed great search results in the UK and retained positions in the US. I suppose the tweaking will continue but it appears that Google has come a long way in the UK.

Another Reason Not to Use Google Analytics

Search Engine Land did an announcement of the new Google Trends functionality and it sounds like had RJ Pittman, Google's Director of Product Development walk them through the product. What was interesting was this bit in the article, which I am led to believe came from RJ Pittman:

'...this tool basis its data off Google search data, aggregated opt-in anonymous Google Analytics data, opt-in consumer panel data, and other third-party market research. In addition, the search volume numbers are estimates...'

Hmm, so that Google Analytics 'private' data that i have about my site is being shared with my competitors, freely?

SEOBook does a great job of covering the issue.

More Website Data in Google Trends

This is pretty cool, Google Trends in now offering more data for websites. See regions that brought traffic to the site, top search terms, and other sites that visitors to that site visited (suppose downstream traffic) and you can do comparisons of websites. Here's a few examples:

Single Site Trends

Trends Comparison

Google Webmaster Tools API

Need to look into this a bit more, but Google now has and API for Webmaster Tools. Depending on the functionality this could open up some really cool options.