New Google Webmaster Tools Report

It looks like Google pushed out an enhancement to their queries report in their Webmaster Tools. It now gives the ability to enter a date range, and it shows the number of impressions along with the click throughs (and click through rate). And each query has a dropdown link to see the positions the term showed up in. There is also a graph that trends query volume and click through volume over time.

If you use Google Webmaster Tools, definitely check out this new feature. It’s great for SEO!

I think I finally figured out how to tie all my social media profiles together

The challenge was to find a way to easily and selectively share to all of my top social media networks while avoiding duplication. It’s a pain in the neck when I find something interesting, and have to post it multiple times to get it out to all of my friends/followers. It’s also annoying to link accounts together, and have meaningless posts shared across profiles (e.g. Twitter in Buzz or Facebook).

Also, I don’t want to be one of those who simply have everything on autopilot–creating noise everywhere.

The answer, I think, is ping.fm. I tested it a bit, and it seems to do the trick.

From Ping.fm I can post the same thing directly to:

  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Buzz

I can post to those services separately too (without using ping.fm), to avoid noise in my streams.

I also wanted to push Google Reader shared items to those services as well, which can be done through RSS. Now the items are truly shared.

There is only one workaround–which I hope is fixed soon. To post to Buzz, you must have ping.fm post to Google Chat status, which then can be added as a connected site to Buzz. I hope ping.fm will allow direct posing to Buzz soon for a cleaner connection.

Also, to avoid duplication, I now have only one connected site to Buzz–which is the Chat Status.

Lets see how this holds up.

How I’d Fix Buzz, Which is a Mess

Wednesday I posted that it was a mess. It still is. Very messy. Today they released a feature that auto collapses comments on posts that have a lot of comments based on some kind of logic. There was a consensus in the comments of Buzz’s official post–that’s not what people wanted.

It stinks.

Someone made a great suggestion to make it more like Reader. Spot on.

Buzz should follow Reader’s interface. Only have a count of what’s new, what’s updated, and what’s read. And be able to:

  • Show New (count)
  • Show New  (count) and Updated (count)
  • Show All

Like Reader, don’t assume I read something if it’s at the bottom of my screen. Mark it read if I read it, or if I choose to mark it read. Today, if something is buried below the fold, Buzz assumes you’ve read it.

Like Reader, have everything collapsed unless I tell you open each (by navigating or otherwise). If I’m in the mood, let me just mark everything as read.

Basically, copy Reader.

Also, have @reply hotlinks next to everyone’s comments for easy referencing other’s. I still don’t understand how it’s done if you don’t know someone’s gmail address.

And finally, add a +follow link too next to everyone’s comments for easy adding. I choose to follow people based on their commenting. So that would save me (and I bet a lot of others) a lot of wasted clicks.