I want to take this moment to say a big, warm thank you to all the hundreds of webmasters and clients that have helped support me over the past eight years.

Fear of Data or FoD is an affliction that can affect anyone, regardless of how intelligent you are and the symptoms include; a look of confusion, a marked state of panic or an uncontrollable shaking of the head while uttering the words “what they heck does all this even mean”.  These symptoms are universal and can begin anytime you need to look under the hood of a website and figure out where the traffic is coming from and what they are doing during their visits.

In order to understand website analytics we need to first know what we are looking for and how it can help us.  The following are the top ten most important analytics and what they mean to your success as a website owner or SEO.

Read the rest of this Google Knol titled: Website Analytic Tips for SEO

Top URL search, the well known bid web directory has reached a milestone this week – topping sales of one thousand dollars. This uniquely styled web directory was launched in 2007 at the height of the directory market. Although Google has penalized the home page by removing it’s visible page rank this web directory has remained popular because of it’s elegant but simple styling and as a unique resource containing web directory listings and articles.

Owner, Mark Russoni also commented on the achievement, “We came to market with a unique offer and the industry responded positively giving us the longevity we currently enjoy in an segment of the market that has come under a lot of pressure.

As background, the web directory industry exploded in 2007 with well over ten thousand new directories being created. Because of this boom many unscrupulous companies got involved and low quality directories began to dominate the industry. Over the past two years we have seen a huge retreat with thousands of directories going out-of-business. This consolidation is expected to continue for this year.