3 Ways to Turn Off Google Personalization Without Logging Out

Mark Alves Google

Hallelujah, all my church’s keywords have moved to the top of Google! Oh wait, those were Google personalized results. Now I have to log out of Google, try that query again and see if the results change. Heavy sigh.Here are three ways to quickly turn off Google personalization so that you can see the default search engine results pages.

  1. Add &pws=0 (short for personal websearch equals nothing) to the end of the Google URL that reflects your search query, such as in this search for faithfulweb. You’ll need to do this each time you submit a search; this doesn’t persist across searches or sessions. (And while you’re adding parameters, you might try &num=100 to see 100 results on a page instead of the default 10.)
  2. Get the plug in from Joost de Valk, an SEO consultant and webdesigner living in The Netherlands.
  3. Use a two-browser approach where you remain logged in with your preferred browser and then keep a separate window open to perform searches in your less-preferred browser. For example, I usually browse in Firefox, but will suffer through Internet Explorer if I need to see de-personalized results from time to time.

Of course, there are also the run-away options: log out; avoid logging into Google in the first place; or turn off history (choices in upper right corner of Google).

The first one, &pws=0, got a lot of publicity after Google’s Matt Cutts discussed it at SMX Seattle, but Ionut Alex Chitu identified it back in April on Google Operating System.

On a related and not surprising note, Google’s news has a better clickthru rate when personalization is turned on.

I’d like to hear how you handle Google personalization.

Goodmail Blocked Image Seminar Presentations

Mark Alves Email

Remember the unreadable Goodmail email with the blocked images that was an invitation to a webinar about, er, avoiding blocked images? If the poorly formed invitation didn’t scare you off, the presentation is available at:
http://www.goodmailsystems.com/docs/goodmail.pdf
and an
http://www.goodmailsystems.com/about/news_events_press/audio/

Those don’t look like particularly permanent URLs, do they? I’m hesitant to link there, wondering if I’ll have broken or off-topic links down the road. Don’t make that naming mistake when posting presentations to your site. Pick a name and directory structure that’s easy to remember, provides some context and looks like it won’t suffer from linkrot. Something like /presentations/goodmail-date/ or /avoiding-blocked-images.pdf would work better. And what’s /about/news_events_press/audio/ all about — is this for users, customers, the press?

Pick the Right Address for Your Church Google Account

Mark Alves Google

If you don’t have a Google account yet, read Anna Belle’s reasons why church webmasters need to sign up. When you’re ready to get one for your web team, just don’t make the mistake of registering the account using your personal email address. Instead, use churchdomain@gmail.com (my preferred format, although it doesn’t have to be a Gmail account), webteam@yourchurchdomain.com or something along those lines that reflects your web ministry. Why? If this account is going to be your church site’s analytics gateway, back-up storage and who knows what else down the line, then eventually you’ll want to share access with other team members. Or, you might even step down some day as head web guy/diva. When that day comes, you’ll be happy that your own account remains separate.

Bonus: Having that all-purpose web team/parish email address also comes in handy if you register your parish for Web 2.0 social networking services. You’ll keep all your confirmations and notifications in one spot separate from any accounts you might register for yourself.

Omniture Advanced Implementation Certification Examination Tips

Mark Alves Analytics

Until early 2007, Omniture limited the opportunity to receive implementation certification only to its partners. Now it offers certification to customers–at an extra fee, as is the Omniture way. Only two participants in my class stayed for the certification exam, which takes place the morning after the day three class. Nearly all of the rest hadn’t heard of the offer ahead of time, for which the instructor apologized.

You’d think Omniture would encourage certification. After all, it’s in the company’s interest to establish Omniture as the standard for web analytics. The small amount of money the firm takes in administering the test pales to the revenue brought in from just one additional customer. And more new customers are likely to sign up if they can count on finding qualified implementers out there to overcome the perceived complexity and cost of implementing Omniture.

Sure, it takes some effort for Omniture to grade and administer the test, but even that is surmountable. The test is divided into a multiple-choice section followed by a sample site implementation exercise. The Q&A could be automated and those who didn’t pass a minimum threshold wouldn’t have their more labor-intensive implementation exercise evaluated.

When I’ve interviewed candidates for web analytics positions, having Omniture certification stands out. Without that designation, candidates can say they’ve worked with Omniture but the range of experience varies as much as website designs. Upon further probing, I’ve seen a candidate’s experience range from merely looking at an Omniture report that was automatically generated by someone else, to creating the reports themselves all the way up to JavaScript programming that fully integrates with a CRM.

If you’re thinking about adding Omniture certification to your resume–which is a very good idea–here are some study guide questions to help you prepare. These are gleaned from tips mentioned during the class, best guesses and a few ideas from someone who took the exam.

  • Know the variable length limits for the major variables
  • Understand when to use an evar, a prop, hierarchy and an event variable
  • Remember the sequence:
    s.products=”Category;Product;Qty;TotalPrice;Incrementor;Merchandising”
    (and remember not to use “category” but to lead with a semi-colon before “product”

For the implementation exercise, be prepared to fill out your own Solutions Design Document based on a template given to you for a fictitious ecommerce merchandise site.

  • Use traffic variables, hierarchy variables, and commerce variables and events, but not necessarily all of them all of the time.
  • Make sure to complete:
    • s.pageName
    • s.channel
    • s.pageType
    • s.prop1 and s.prop2
    • s.hier1
    • s.campaign
    • s.eVar1-3
  • Implement standard cart events (add to cart, check out, etc)
  • Add a few custom events
  • Know which functions require a call to Omniture; note these on your form
  • Know how to use the debugger

Good luck! If you’ve taken the exam and want to share any tips here, feel free to share. This is intended as a study aid not a cheat sheet to help all of us become better web statistics analysts whether or not you’re working on a church website.