The Big Wave Blog

Being Matt Cutts
December 4, 2007

Being Matt Cutts is a little bit like being Elvis (without the fringe and sideburns).  As Google’s best-known representative at search marketing functions, Matt finds himself surrounded by fans and inundated by questions.

 I thought it would be nice to say hello, but I didn’t have the stamina to reach him.

Don’t worry, Matt.  I’m not giving up.  I’ll get in line early at SMX! 

Evision was invited to the Expedia party in Las Vegas. The location was the Pure nightclub at Caesar’s.

Excellent party with an open bar and awesome food.

It was great to catch up with past colleagues and a lot of current clients!

Thanks, Expedia!

PS: The Las Vegas Pussycat Dolls were performing. Here is a naughty link.

Analytics Vendors and Package Implementation
December 5, 2007

This session covered something that is as ever-evolving as search itself.

Analytics have come a long way since being just log files. This panel had a few bright spots, and Google Analytics Senior Product Manager, Brett Crosby (formerly of Urchin), was the star of the panel. He gave an outline of the new update to the analytics program.

Internal site search tracking was introduced in June 2007 this year, and it is an excellent source of qualitative data. The “Ga.Js” update was outlined as well. The new capabilities of Google Analytics now take you beyond the world of Pageviews and into the world of event tracking and outbound link tracking.

Sadly, the representative from Yahoo was missing from the panel. Of course, the other panelists had a field day, amusing the crowd with jokes about the absence of the speaker.

Brett Crosby closed his presentation by saying, “Up next is Bill Schmarzo from Yahoo.” Ouch!

Guy Kawasaki’s TOP 6 Funny Quotes
December 4, 2007

1.  “I am not your typical moderator.” – when asked why he was asking the tough questions. 
2. “You have to make love to the microphone.” – to Rahul Lahiri of Ask when he could not be heard clearly on the microphone. 
3. “Janitors in Google are millionaires so, Matt, you go first.” – to Matt Cutts of Google. (He wanted to set the order of asking questions based on the net worth of the individuals on the panel.) 
4. “It’s a Microsoft microphone!” – to Eytan Seidman of MSN Search when he complained about his microphone malfunctioning. 
5. “You are full of shit.” – to Matt Cutts on his lame definition of how Page Rank works. 
6. “Finally, something worth writing down.” – to the panel when they clarified that using – is better than using _  when naming URLs. 

Thanks, Guy, for the much needed comedy!