Benchmarking now live in Google Analytics

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About two weeks ago, Google added an option to include your Analytics data into their beta benchmarking program. Today, that data is now available for use for those that opted in.

From analytics, you simply go to [Visitors] –> [Benchmarking (Beta)] and the data will appear. By default it compares your site to “All sites of similar size”, which is of little value. You can click the [Open category list] to choose a category for your site, after which it will compare you to sites of a similar size within that category. Much better!

Most categories have a handful of subcategories, and look something like this:

  • Entertainment
    • Music
      • Lyrics and tabs
      • Musical Instruments
      • Music Streams and Downloads
    • Movies
    • TV
      • TV Programs
  • Home and Garden
    • Home Furnishings
    • Home Improvement
    • Gardening
    • Home Appliances
    • Homemaking and Interior Decor

All told, there are 28 top-level categories and untold numbers of sub-categories.  I wondered how Analytics would determine what sites to benchmark mine against, and there is the answer.

For an example of the data you get, here is a screen from our church website, showing data similar to our weekly trends (high on Monday, slow decline through the week):

Google Analytics Benchmark - Church Website

The data goes back as far as February 8. It’s kind of a shame, as I was curious how other NFL sites looked around the Super Bowl when compared to mine.

How do you think a webmaster could best use this data to improve their own site?

March Madness in Google Earth

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NCAA Team Locations in Google Earth

The Google LatLong blog has just released a KML that maps the location of all 65 teams in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.

It’s a pretty simple file, but it’s interesting to see them all placed on the map.

You can download the file here

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Google Chart API now does maps

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The Google Chart API has just released a new version. Among the new features:

  • No limit on the number of requests.
  • Support for maps! USA state maps, other country maps, world maps, etc.

It’s quite slick. Click on the image on the right to see a chart of the states I’ve lived in (the lighter the color, the longer ago I lived there). The chart was built by simply crafting this URL.

There are some neat possibilities with this, especially since you don’t need to worry much about usage. More information can be found on the Mapperz blog

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or by reading the official Google Chart API documentation.

Trilogy Easter Brunch

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I saw this sign on the side of the road. It’s near where I work, and I drive past this location almost day. However, I have no idea what “Trilogy” is. I guess it’s a church, but I have no clue where it might be.

Even if I was interested in attending a random Easter brunch, this sign won’t do anything to lead me to theirs.

MapQuest keeps trying, but still can’t get it quite right

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I’ve been quick to give MapQuest credit for effort, as they’re really trying to catch up the big boys now that their lead is quickly shrinking.

Yesterday they introduced live traffic. It looks very similar to the traffic info on Google Maps, but with more detailed information. The screenshots look pretty nice:

MapQuest Traffic: MiamiMapQuest Traffic: Miami

Here’s the problem — it didn’t work right away. I refreshed and reloaded and zoomed around for a while before I could make the “Traffic” checkbox appear. I later found another page on their site that gives more information about this feature. I thought I might find the answer there, but instead I found this:

Traffic List to Come

Fortunately, they mark the traffic-enabled cities with a traffic light, in a virtually identical manner as Google. A quick glance seems to show that they have more cities than Google, but not by a wide margin.

The real test, of course, is who gives better data? Here is a side-by-side shot of Atlanta using Google Maps and MapQuest:

Google Maps vs. MapQuest for Atlanta traffic

Assuming their data is accurate, the clear winner appears to be MapQuest. Google has much of the highway in gray (“no data”), while MapQuest is showing data for everything. In addition, MapQuest has the clickable icons so you know exactly what the problem is.

For me, however, 95% of my Google Maps traffic usage is from my cell phone while I’m on the road — Google Maps Mobile is very useful. As far as I know, MapQuest has nothing to compare to that. With that in mind, Google Maps will still be the winner by default for when I’m on the road, but I might give MapQuest a try next time I check traffic info from the house.

Edit 10:08pm, 3/18/08 – MapQuest does have a mobile product to compare to Google Maps Mobile, and it’s called MapQuest Navigator.  It appears to be a little better than GMM, but it costs $50/year and works on a rather small selection of phones.

Add new locations to Google Maps

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A while back, Google Maps gave people the ability to edit the locations of businesses

.  If you know of a local business that has moved or closed, you can edit it on the map.  These screens show me removing a local Dairy Queen that recently closed:

Find Dairy Queen listingDairy Queen information bubbleEdit Dairy Queen listingRemoving Dairy Queen

Now they’ve enhanced the user editing feature of Google Maps and now allow you to add new items to the map.  I wanted to add one, but the few new places near us were already in there.  However, adding a new location is very easy:

  • Search the listings.
  • Click the “Add a place to the map” link at the bottom of the left column
  • Drag the marker to the location of the business, fill in the details, and submit it.
  • That’s it!

Here are a few screens of how that would be done:

Click the Add button in the lower left cornerDrag the marker to the proper location and fill in the info

With any of those editing features, Google still keeps a copy of the original listing, along with a record of each change that is made.  All of this will only serve to make the data in Google Maps even more accurate for everyone to use.

SearchMe.com beta review

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I’ve recently been accepted into the SearchMe beta and thought I’d share some of my thoughts.  For those that haven’t seen it yet, SearchMe is a visual search engine — the results are shown as screenshots of each site, built in an iTunes coverflow sort of way (see the photos at the bottom).

In terms of performance, I was pretty impressed.  It’s all done via flash, so there aren’t any special plug-ins required.  The results loaded rather quickly, and I was able to scroll forever.

The results themselves were pretty shaky.  SearchMe makes it clear that they’re in beta and still working on the results, so we’ll have to give them that. I’ll send them my feedback on some of that, and hopefully they’ll get things firmed up.  I kind of wonder why they didn’t partner with Google to drive the queries, then let their technology add the flash.  Seems like it might have worked a little better.

I probably won’t ever use this as my primary search engine, but I could see it being quite useful for certain kinds of queries, such as trying to find the “best looking sites” in a particular genre.

Here are a few screens to give you flavor for it.  Sign-up for the beta and give it a shot when they let you in.

SearchMe main pageSearchMe settingsSearching SearchMe for “seo”

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SearchMe “seo” resultsSearchMe result for SEO Book

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Read an entire magazine in Google Maps

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ZkimmerThis is a very creative use of Google Maps — all of the pages of a magazine tiled onto the surface of the map, to let you zoom and skim through the entire thing.

The site is Zkimmer.  It’s certainly a unique concept, though I have to question the usefulness of it.  I think there are a lot of interfaces for reading a magazine that are superior to this.  However, I think that this site was probably going for more “unique” than “useful”, which I’d tend to agree with.

One thing that would help is if they enabled the scroll wheel on my mouse.  In Google Maps (and many Google Map applications), I can use the scroll wheel to zoom in and out. On this site, it doesn’t work.   A concept like this involves a lot of zooming, so this would make it much easier for me to use.

Google Maps Mania has more information.

Embeddable blog posts?

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Anil Dash has a unique idea (via Steve Rubel

), though I’m not sure if it’ll take off or not — embedded blog posts.

Anil figures that if people are always embeddeding photos and videos, why not let them embed the text of blog posts too?  It seems like it might be a good idea.

The main problem I see is this:

  • A lot of bloggers prefer to link and comment about other posts (like I do) and wouldn’t want to embed the full post.
  • A lot of other bloggers have a hard time embedding code due to WYSIWYG editors and their lack of HTML knowledge.

There’s still a lot of bloggers left in the middle, so this idea still might find a big audience.  Even if it doesn’t end up becoming popular, you’ve gotta give Anil some credit for a very creative idea.

Another potential problem stems from the fact that the blog content you embed is still live.  If the author updates it on their end, it automatically updates on your site.  For many things, that’d be great!  However, if the author decides to put up a XXX image instead, you’ve got problems.

As a blogger, is this something you could see yourself using — either offering embedded code of your posts, or embedding other posts in your site?

StreetView Easter Egg – Leprechaun

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Google has put a fun little Easter egg into Google Maps

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StreetView. The little StreetView man has been replaced by a little green leprechaun, sitting on a clover. When you drag him around, he’s trailed by a rainbow.

It’s a few days early, but it’s a fun little change.  Thanks to Googling Google for the link.

StreetView Leprechaun: Full ViewStreetView Leprechaun: Zoomed InStreetView Leprechaun: Rainbow