Archive for the ‘Corporate America’ Category

Not Provided Keyword Moves to Top Referral Position

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011

It has finally happened. I was reviewing traffic for a website today and noticed that the top referring keyword from Organic Search is “not provided”.

Google has been obscuring organic referral data for several weeks now. And, contrary to the initial assessment of having an impact on a “very low percentage” of users, it looks to be a quite sizable chunk of data that has evaporated into the depths of the interwebs.

Not Provided is Top Organic Keyword

Thanks Google, I will now guess how people got to my site.

Google says that they are hiding this data for privacy reasons. Right, I get it. Removing referral data for 8-15% of Google queries keeps some potentially vulnerable keywords safe from the targeting and exposure practices of marketing teams. Privacy is privacy.

Since the advancement of this keyword safety drive, I have looked for other ways to uncover the not-provided referral data. I would still like to understand the behavior of site visitors, regardless of their logged-in status. But how?

Tea leaves, of course.

Tea leaves render keywords

Use advanced tea leaves to understand organic keywords

Personally, I prefer the Special Gunpowder brand of tea. I discovered this tea while spending time in West Africa and it holds a dear place in my heart.

The Special Gunpowder tea leaves are delicately rolled up into little balls. When hot water is added, the leaves unravel to deliver an intense flavor and, if you’re lucky, the secret to your organic keyword referral data.

In the Senegalese tradition, I love 3 good rounds of carefully prepared tea. Even more, I love myself some safe Internet!

Special Gunpowder tea

Special Gunpowder Tea has a variety of uses

Tropical Storm Lee Hits Atlanta (kinda)

Saturday, September 3rd, 2011

Lee is on the left – full on Friday afternoon ninja fruit slicer – a true tropical storm.

How Google Makes Algorithm Changes

Friday, August 26th, 2011

I thought this was an interesting look into how Google makes adjustments to their algorithm. The most interesting piece to me was the comment about how important “raters” are.

Raters are people who actually qualify changes so that the algorithm can be tweaked effectively. There are rumors that there are some 10,000 raters worldwide that help Google aggregate data and test search results, but I haven’t confirmed that number.

I recently noticed the change Google made to how they render results around misspellings. This video gives some insight into the thought processes that took place for making the change to the “did you mean” link.

Commissioner Elaine Boyer Ignores Concerns of Tucker Residents

Saturday, May 7th, 2011

The persistent vocalization by Tucker, GA residents regarding Henderson Park renovations must seem like a lullaby of chirping crickets on a warm summer evening to Commissioner Boyer. I can only imagine that all that sweet sweet background noise makes her sleepy as it certainly does not prompt her to change course.

I recently visited Commisioner Boyer’s website where she boasts of being a “crusader”, “fiscal conservative” and “one who seeks to get government out of the way of the consumer, the businessman, the entrepreneur.” Good enough. From those statements it would seem reasonable for her to take up the cause to save money by getting out of the way of residents who want to conserve the beauty of the green space of Henderson Park. Problem solved.

Hold on, residents weren’t in that list, just businessmen and entrepreneurs. Dang.

Maybe I should go back and read some more…

Ok, I’m back. That was refreshing! Further reading of her website states “Commissioner Boyer believes county government should be run like a business.” Ok, crap. Well, that’s certainly one approach. But let’s take it at face value.

If Dekalb County is a “business”, then who are the customers? The residents must be the customers, right? If Dekalb County is the business and the residents are customers, should there not be accountability? When hundreds of people petition her office and beg to be heard, should they not be, what’s the word here…acknowledged?

Ignoring customers is just bad business. Where, exactly, is Donald Trump when we need him?

So if businessmen are Commissioner Boyer’s main interest, are there businesses that are vying for the rights to lay concrete over the wishes of Tucker residents? Does Elaine Boyer see her role as one to make it easier for businesses to make money from the master plan? Has the reworking of the Henderson Park master plan been developed to benefit the businessmen and the entrepreneur only? It certainly seems to be the case.

Most sarcasm aside, I do want to point out that I am particularly peeved because I attended several meetings with Dekalb County (along with dozens, if not hundreds, of other residents) where we got to vote, make changes, prioritize projects and otherwise be led to believe that our opinions, and our votes, actually mattered. To now be told that these meetings and our input was “conceptual” in nature is just insulting.

It should be abundantly clear that Tucker residents love their community and wish for it to grow responsibly. And the last time I checked, the “customer is always right.” If Commissioner Boyer wants to run a business here, then It’s time for her to start listening and honor her commitment to the residents of Tucker, and not just a few select businesses.

Hotel Floyd – Floyd VA – Beware of Management

Tuesday, October 12th, 2010

Back in January of 2010, 9 months ago, I went to the Hotel Floyd website and made a room request. Call it a reservation. A very dear friend of mine was getting married and I wanted to reserve my space.

When I submitted the room request, I did not submit a credit card as there was no place to do so. I was sent an auto-generated email that said that my room was “not guaranteed” and would not be honored unless I called and put a credit card on file. So when my life plans changed and I could not honor the reservation, I never worried because I wasn’t officially registered anyway.

I received lots of calls from my friends this weekend, “We miss you!”, “We wish you were here!”, etc. It was great to hear from them and I was a bit bummed that I could not make the trip and attend the wedding.

And then today (Monday), I got a call from the hotel management. Derek Wall, the hotel manager called me on my cell phone and asked me why I did not honor my reservation. I couldn’t even answer him. He went on and on about how rude it was for me to not show up and that I should have common courtesy, yadda yadda. I finally broke in and let him know that if he was calling me for money – that wasn’t going to happen.

That’s when he really flipped out. Derek told me he didn’t like my attitude and that I needed to understand that when I make a commitment that I needed to honor that commitment….click.

I hung up. Shocked. A hotel manager from Floyd Virginia is going to call me up and chew me out first thing Monday morning? Really? And over what?

Derek called right back and I didn’t answer so he left me a long voice mail:
“John, this is Derek Wall calling from Hotel Floyd. I don’t appreciate you calling and hanging up the phone on me (he called me)….but I do like to discuss these issues because you know, not showing up to a reservation, you can sit here and put the blame on the hotel but you made the reservation that should have sent you a conservation email….I will search for that confirmation email and show you what it says at the very top of that email, uh, leaving a credit card is customary, ah, if I had to call every person that forgot to leave a credit card (I didn’t forget, not website functionality) it, it’s hard for me to do that…I have a limited staff here, I’m not a corporation, ah, so you can sit here and lecture me and put the blame on us but it was you at fault because you did not show up….you did make a reservation, you are obligated to show up….”

He went on for a good while about how I should have called him and that it is my fault, not the hotel’s fault, that he is all worked up and angry.

My question is this: Why did they not have time to call me before the event to confirm my registration but they had lots of time after the event to call and chew me out? I don’t get it. And who calls to complain that someone did not honor a reservation? Do restaurants to this? Do other hotels do this? Is this just Hotel Floyd?

Also, why did Hotel Floyd have all the bandwidth to send me advertisements over the last few months but didn’t have the bandwidth to confirm a reservation?

So, thinking about staying in Floyd, VA for Floyd Fest or some other cool festival? I understand Hotel Floyd is a decent place to stay. But think long and hard before you make a reservation. I have never met the management personally but from the hostile emails and phone calls, they seem a little unstable.