More and more people are surfing the Internet from their phones these days. Take a look at the following graph. It shows the number of monthly visits to googlestore.com from Android, iPhone, and BlackBerry devices over the past 2 years. There were 277 visits in Sep, 2008. But in July of 2010, there were over 13,000 visits! Given this kind of growth, it makes sense for many businesses to set up a mobile device-friendly site. If you’ve been considering whether to create a mobile site, you may want to check out the Mobile Devices report in the Visitors section. You can see how many visits you received from each mobile operating system, how many pages they visit on average, how much time they spend on your site, as well as see conversion and ecommerce information. In next week’s Back to Basics, I’ll show you how to create your own trend graph like the one in this article, so you can really dig into the numbers for your own site. Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team

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Back-to-Basics: How much mobile traffic do you get?

This is one of a regular series of posts on search experience updates. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed. Searches come in many flavors, but it’s our job to determine what type of search you’re doing once you’ve clicked your way out of the search box. Whether you’re looking for a blog or a business, our goal is to get you the most relevant type of result back to you—fast. Ultimately, it’s that combination of relevance and speed that we think will give you the best experience. Here are some of our newest search enhancements: Improved Blog Search With the proliferation of specialized blogs all across the web, you’ll often find great content on blogs—whether you’re planning a trip to Florida, looking to bring home a new golden retriever or learning how to make a delicious Italian dinner. Recently, our blog search team made it much easier to find full blogs about your query, rather than single posts on the topic. This is especially useful if you’re looking for bloggers that post on an ongoing basis about the subject of your query. Try it with one of your search queries by clicking “Blogs,” then “Homepages,” in the left-hand panel of your search results. Example searches: [ tesla car ], [ google ], [ android ] A new home for Realtime Search When we think about relevancy, often what you’re looking for may have just happened. It’s been more than nine months since we first announced our real-time search features, and this week we gave it a new home at www.google.com/realtime as well as some great new tools to you refine and understand your results. You can use geographic refinements to find updates and news that’s happening right near you or in the area of your choice. We also added conversations view, so you can follow a discussion more easily by browsing a full timeline of tweets and seeing how the conversation evolved. And in Google Alerts, you can now create an alert specifically for “updates” to get an email the moment a topic of interest shows up on Twitter or other short-form services. Realtime Search and updates in Google Alerts are available globally in 40 languages, and the geographic refinements and conversations views are available in English, Japanese, Russian and Spanish. Example search: [ egg recall ] More local results in maps and clickable markers We made some changes to local results in web search that will help you learn more about the results and save you time by saving you clicks. Starting this week, when you search for places we’ll show you all of the results that match your query on the map. Results after the first seven will be shown with small circle markers. This can be very useful in identifying the density of stores and helping you find the right neighborhood to visit. For example, when you search for [fabric stores nyc], you can now easily identify the Garment District: When you see a result on the map that you like, you can now click directly on the marker (the pin or the circle) and go to Google Maps with that place selected and the “Info” window open. The other results will still be there if you want to explore more places. Example searches: [ fabric stores nyc ], [ coffee in seattle ], [ resort near ko samui, thailand ] We hope you find these updates useful. Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks. Posted by Johanna Wright, Director, Search Product Management

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This week in search 8/27/10

This is part of our summer series of new Search Stories. Look for the label Search Stories and subscribe to the series. -Ed. Recently, a group of Google product managers challenged one another to run 100 miles over 30 days in the interest of encouraging summer fitness. I grew up in Huntsville, AL, where I always loved exercising and experiencing the great outdoors, so I took to the challenge immediately. One hundred and thirty-three miles and a few pairs of new running shoes later, it was an incredible opportunity to push myself further than I’d ever imagined. But, I must admit—it wasn’t easy. I’m delighted to help introduce our latest Search Story, Healthy Habits. This is a story of one woman’s journey to get back into shape. It shows the difficulties of sticking to a workout routine, and the empowerment that comes with reaching—and even exceeding your goals. It highlights the many tools and tricks that make Google a great workout companion, and I hope it inspires you to incorporate new healthy habits into your own lifestyle. Enjoy this week’s video, and don’t forget to check out the other videos if you haven’t already. Search (and run) on! Posted by Avni Shah, Group Product Manager, Geo

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Our latest search story: run on

This is part of our summer series of new Search Stories. Look for the label Search Stories and subscribe to the series. -Ed. Recently, a group of Google product managers challenged one another to run 100 miles over 30 days in the interest of encouraging summer fitness. I grew up in Huntsville, AL, where I always loved exercising and experiencing the great outdoors, so I took to the challenge immediately. One hundred and thirty-three miles and a few pairs of new running shoes later, it was an incredible opportunity to push myself further than I’d ever imagined. But, I must admit—it wasn’t easy. I’m delighted to help introduce our latest Search Story, Healthy Habits. This is a story of one woman’s journey to get back into shape. It shows the difficulties of sticking to a workout routine, and the empowerment that comes with reaching—and even exceeding your goals. It highlights the many tools and tricks that make Google a great workout companion, and I hope it inspires you to incorporate new healthy habits into your own lifestyle. Enjoy this week’s video, and don’t forget to check out the other videos if you haven’t already. Search (and run) on! Posted by Avni Shah, Group Product Manager, Geo

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Our latest search story: run on

This is part of a series of stories from people who have shared how Google has helped them in their lives. Check back the rest of this week for more, and if you have a Google story, tell us about it . -Ed. I work on several projects at Google with the goal of helping people improve their health and that of their loved ones. It’s humbling to read the feedback we receive from people who have used Google to find health information. These stories make us proud of what we do and encourage us to work harder to make our products even better. Joe from Northern Ireland sent this story about how information he found with Google helped him welcome a new member to his family—firsthand: Received: 12/23/2009 From: Joe All I can say is thanks to google search engine. Why? My daughter went into labour in the early hours of Wednesday morning … my wife phoned [emergency services] and my daughter got on her laptop and googled how to deliver a baby in an emergency … I delivered my grandson just in time for the ambulance to arrive. The ambulance staff were gobsmacked to say the least. It hasn’t quite sunk in yet but thanks to google and the emergency services I have a beautiful grandson. So there you have it first there was Google Earth now we have Google Birth. Many thanks. Michael found resources to help him and his mother cope with the challenges of cancer treatment: Received: 2/6/2010 From: Michael I am … a Sergeant in the Marine Corps. I just wanted to say thank you for your search [engine] and the work it does to make information readily available to the world. I recently found out my mother has cancer in the esophagus. She has been undergoing chemo treatment … and the last few days I’ve been on Google reading stories about other cancer survivors, side effects they’ve had from the treatments and even articles on foods she can eat to help heal her cancer. I get emotional writing this but I think google.com has been a blessing from God in facilitating people like myself to get connected to resources that are helpful, especially in difficult circumstances. Google has saved me countless hours of research that I could be spending in and out of libraries [to] find the information we need to help us get through this … Thank you and God bless you. Bettie used Google to find a surgeon who helped save her husband’s kidney: Received: 11/6/2009 From: Bettie My husband and I have an amazing story to share about a surgeon I found easily through Google. Everyone that hears our story tells us we should write a book. Not sure we’ll ever get around to that, but we do want to thank Google for directing us to the best possible surgeon to save my husband’s one remaining kidney. He had been to many local, well-respected doctors and nationally recognized hospitals for months. None seemed to have the expertise needed to perform the challenging surgery on four malignant kidney tumors. Not only did Google direct us quickly to an expert in the field, but the site had a place to “Talk to the Doctor”. On a Sunday afternoon, the doctor himself responded by email in four minutes … Thank you for saving my husband’s only kidney and possibly his life! Thanks to Joe, Michael, Bettie and the many others who share their deeply personal stories with us. It’s the people behind every search—and our ability to help them—that make my team feel so committed to providing the best services we can. Posted by Roni Zeiger, MD, Chief Health Strategist

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Your Google stories: finding health information when you need it

Yay! It’s another episode of Web Analytics TV! In this exciting series, with Avinash Kaushik and Nick Mihailovski, you ask, and vote on your favorite, web analytics questions via the Google Analytics Google Moderator site and we answer them. This episode was particularly awesome since there were some fantastic questions . Tough questions that made us think hard. But also questions that made us proud of how sophisticated Google Analytics users are. In this action packed episode we discuss: Google Website Optimizer and the ga.js async tracking code issue What is considered Personally Identifiable Information (PII)? Teaching Google Analytics the location of your local __utm.gif image Implementing ecommerce tracking with multiple currencies Goal names in Google Analytics Similarities and differences between Visitors and Unique Visitors metrics Lovely opportunities for developers to build products using our API Reasons why utm_content values show up as (not set) Best practices for applying segments to specific pages (cool answer!) Implementing ecommerce tracking if you don’t have an order id Using advanced filters in the connection speed report Why the value “other” shows up in your reports Tracking how a visitor finds a site the first time for attribution Correlating business data with Google Analytics data Here are the links to the topics we discuss: Setting the __utm.gif path using _setLocalGifPath How Mikael T. built a business using the Google Analytics API Troubleshooting the tracking code As always, if you need help setting up Google Analytics or leveraging the advanced configuration options, we recommend hiring a Google Analytics Certified Partners . If you found this post or video helpful, we’d love to hear your comments. Please share them via the comment form below. If you have a question you would like us to answer, please submit a question and vote for your favorite question in our public Google Moderator site . Avinash and I will answer your latest questions in a couple of weeks with yet another entertaining video. Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Google Analytics Team

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Web Analytics TV #11 with Avinash and Nick

Today, Eric Schmidt and Ivan Seidenberg, Chairman and CEO of Verizon, will announce a joint proposal for an open Internet. We’ve been working with Verizon to find common ground on the issue of net neutrality for nearly a year—last October we released a shared statement of principles , and in January, we made a joint filing to the FCC . We hope today’s proposal, a suggested legislative framework for consideration by lawmakers, helps to advance the debate over open Internet rules in Washington. We also believe that it is best for users and for the web. For more information, read the full post on our Public Policy blog . Posted by Karen Wickre, Editor, Google Blog team

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A joint policy proposal for an open Internet

We’re excited to announce we’ve acquired Slide , a social technology company with an extensive history of building new ways for people to connect with others across numerous platforms online. For Google, the web is about people, and we’re working to develop open, transparent and interesting (and fun!) ways to allow our users to take full advantage of how technology can bring them closer to friends and family and provide useful information just for them . Slide has already created compelling social experiences for tens of millions of people across many platforms, and we’ve already built strong social elements into products like Gmail, Docs, Blogger, Picasa and YouTube. As the Slide team joins Google, we’ll be investing even more to make Google services socially aware and expand these capabilities for our users across the web. While we don’t have any detailed product plans to share right now, we’re thrilled to welcome Max and his very talented team to Google, and we can’t wait to work together to give people more and better tools to communicate and connect. Posted by David Glazer, Engineering Director

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Google and Slide: building a more social web

We have always pursued innovative projects because we want to drive breakthroughs in computer science that dramatically improve our users’ lives. Last year at Google I/O , when we launched our developer preview of Google Wave, a web app for real time communication and collaboration, it set a high bar for what was possible in a web browser. We showed character-by-character live typing, and the ability to drag-and-drop files from the desktop, even “playback” the history of changes—all within a browser. Developers in the audience stood and cheered. Some even waved their laptops . We were equally jazzed about Google Wave internally, even though we weren’t quite sure how users would respond to this radically different kind of communication. The use cases we’ve seen show the power of this technology: sharing images and other media in real time; improving spell-checking by understanding not just an individual word, but also the context of each word; and enabling third-party developers to build new tools like consumer gadgets for travel, or robots to check code. But despite these wins, and numerous loyal fans, Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects. The central parts of the code, as well as the protocols that have driven many of Wave’s innovations, like drag-and-drop and character-by-character live typing, are already available as open source, so customers and partners can continue the innovation we began. In addition, we will work on tools so that users can easily “liberate” their content from Wave. Wave has taught us a lot, and we are proud of the team for the ways in which they have pushed the boundaries of computer science. We are excited about what they will develop next as we continue to create innovations with the potential to advance technology and the wider web. Posted by Urs Hölzle, Senior Vice President, Operations & Google Fellow

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Update on Google Wave

Starting today, we’re reinstating the Back To Basics series. Each Wednesday, we’ll share a Google Analytics tip, usually something that you can try right away with your own data to gain new insights. This week, we’ll illustrate a quick way to see how many visits you get from different keyword/landing page combinations. A friend of mine recently created several new landing pages that she hoped would attract traffic. She wanted to see at a glance whether people who searched on her top keywords were seeing the new pages. While she knew that she could use the Top Landing Pages report to analyze each individual landing page, she wanted to see keyword/landing page combinations in a single report. There’s an easy way to do this. Go to the Keywords report under Traffic Sources. Look over to the right above the table and you’ll see Views : followed by a set of buttons. Click the Pivot view (5th button from the left). Now, look to the left, above the table, and you’ll see a Pivot by dropdown menu. Select Landing Page from this menu. Voilà! The keywords will be listed down the side and landing pages will be listed across the top. You can now see how many visits you received for each keyword/landing page combination. You can see up to five landing pages listed across the top of the report. You can scroll horizontally (across the landing pages) using the arrow buttons at the top right of the table. The pivot view is also really useful for seeing at a glance how many visits you get from each keyword and search engine combination. To do this, you’d use the same Keywords report and pivot by Source. That’s this week’s tip. We’ll be back next Wednesday for another Back to Basics post. Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team

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Back to Basics: Keyword/Landing Page Combinations