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	<title>Stilgherrian &#187; google</title>
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	<link>http://stilgherrian.com</link>
	<description>All publication is a political act. All communication is propaganda. All art is pornography. All business is personal. All hail Eris.</description>
	<pubDate>Fri, 04 Jul 2008 22:07:38 +0000</pubDate>
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		<managingEditor>stil@stilgherrian.com ()</managingEditor>
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		<ttl>1440</ttl>
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		<itunes:summary>Live Internet broadcasts from Stilgherrian. All publication is a political act. All communication is propaganda. All art is pornography. All business is personal. All hail Eris.</itunes:summary>
		<itunes:author></itunes:author>
		<itunes:category text="Society &amp; Culture"/>
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			<itunes:name></itunes:name>
			<itunes:email>stil@stilgherrian.com</itunes:email>
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		<image>
			<url>http://stilgherrian.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/sla_144w.jpg</url>
			<title>Stilgherrian</title>
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		<item>
		<title>Aussie mobile providers &#8220;like deer in the iPhone headlights&#8221;</title>
		<link>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/aussie-mobile-providers-like-deer-in-the-iphone-headlights/</link>
		<comments>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/aussie-mobile-providers-like-deer-in-the-iphone-headlights/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 Jun 2008 05:22:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stilgherrian</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[apple]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[iphone]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[kylie minogue]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[mobile content world]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[oliver weidlich]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[rand leeb-du toit]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[steve jobs]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://stilgherrian.com/?p=1656</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Dropping into Day 2 of the Mobile Content World conference last week was a step back in time. And not in a healthy Kyliesque mirror ball way. The hyper-connected Twitter rumour mill had told me something was wrong: they didn&#8217;t seem to understand what was happening. The rumours were right.
When user experience expert Oliver Weidlich [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Dropping into Day 2 of the <a href="http://www.terrapinn.com/2008/mcw_au/">Mobile Content World</a> conference last week was a step back in time. And not in a healthy Kyliesque mirror ball way. The <a href="http://www.viddler.com/explore/mpesce/videos/1/">hyper-connected</a> Twitter rumour mill had told me something was wrong: they didn&#8217;t seem to understand what was happening. The rumours were right.</strong></p>
<p>When user experience expert Oliver Weidlich of <a href="http://www.idealinterfaces.com.au/">Ideal Interfaces</a> showed them screenshots of the iPhone on the big screen, around 80% of the 150-odd audience sat up, alert, seeing it for the first time.</p>
<p>Huh?</p>
<p>Sure, Apple&#8217;s groundbreaking product isn&#8217;t <em>officially</em> available here until the (rumoured) 19 June opening of slick new Apple stores in Sydney and Melbourne. You don&#8217;t <em>have</em> to have bought into the whole Steve Jobs personality cult, bought one overseas and hacked it for Aussie networks. But if you claim to be professional and haven&#8217;t at least <em>read</em> about the iPhone <em>a year after its release</em> you should be shot.</p>
<p>Serial entrepreneur Randal (Rand) Leeb-du Toit thinks the industry has got it very wrong. The iPhone changes everything. &#8220;They were deer in the iPhone’s headlights,&#8221; he <a href="http://metarand.com/2008/05/28/mobile-content-world-deer-in-the-iphone-headlights/">wrote</a>. &#8220;The full browser experience is going to shake their businesses to their foundations.&#8221;</p>
<p>And the iPhone <em>is</em> completely different. &#8220;When you take it out of its box, it feels like they&#8217;ve built this product with you in mind,&#8221; says Leeb-du Toit, who&#8217;s been using an iPhone for a couple of months. &#8220;A mobile phone feels like it was designed by an engineer with engineers in mind, by the people who put the content on there, the telcos&#8217; walled gardens.&#8221;</p>
<p>A lot of the conference was about getting users watch the content from big TV, movie and games houses. Twice the guy pimping one content management system said, &#8220;It&#8217;s all about creating a more addictive experience for young people.&#8221; What sort of ethic is <em>that</em>?</p>
<p>One session talked about &#8220;bringing the lounge room experience to the small screen&#8221;, which seems as sensible as bringing the tennis experience to the swimming pool. Meanwhile, iPhone users download stuff that&#8217;s meaningful for <em>them</em>, connect to their own computers to access their own data and, according to Google, generate ten times the search traffic as non-iPhone mobile users.</p>
<p>&#8220;The carriers see they&#8217;re about to be hit by the truck, so they&#8217;re over-analysing and over-complicating the situation with all their business models about content,&#8221; Leeb-du Toit told me. &#8220;They should be going open and simple.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>It&#8217;s appropriate that the conference was held at Sydney&#8217;s Star City Casino. Anyone ignoring the iPhone is gambling big. The dice are rolled 19 June.</strong></p>

	<h4>5 Random Semi-Related Posts</h4>
	<ul class="st-related-posts">
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/oops_there_goes_privacy/" title="Oops, there goes privacy! So now what? (21 July 2007)">Oops, there goes privacy! So now what?</a> (1 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/spamming_google_maps/" title="Spamming Google Maps &#8212; or not? (29 January 2007)">Spamming Google Maps &#8212; or not?</a> (1 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/notes_users_suicide_watch/" title="Notes users on suicide watch (28 January 2008)">Notes users on suicide watch</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/mac_pc_spoofs/" title="Mac vs PC spoof ads (18 July 2007)">Mac vs PC spoof ads</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/daily_links/daily_links_20080616/" title="Links for 16 June 2008 (18 June 2008)">Links for 16 June 2008</a> (1 comments)</li>
</ul>

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		<title>In Finland, they go buses good!</title>
		<link>http://stilgherrian.com/engineering/finland_buses_good/</link>
		<comments>http://stilgherrian.com/engineering/finland_buses_good/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 29 Feb 2008 04:44:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stilgherrian</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Engineering]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Notes]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[finland]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[gps]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[linux]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[public transport]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://stilgherrian.com/engineering/finland_buses_good/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Finland makes our buses look crap, as well as our phones. &#8220;Every bus and tram in Helsinki and the surrounding cities of Vaanta and Espoo are being fitted with Linux servers and GPS units. Every bus and tram in the conurbation will not only become a wireless hotspot serving broadband internet throughout the vehicle &#8212; [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Finland makes our buses look crap, as well as our phones.</strong> &#8220;Every bus and tram in Helsinki and the surrounding cities of Vaanta and Espoo are being fitted with Linux servers and GPS units. Every bus and tram in the conurbation will not only become a wireless hotspot serving broadband internet throughout the vehicle &#8212; for free &#8212; but <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/feb/28/research.transport">every bus and tram is visible on a Google map</a> (the beta version is at <a href="http://tinyurl.com/2gftso">tinyurl.com/2gftso</a>) that uses the same real-time passenger information as the controllers in their command centre.&#8221; Hat-tip to <a href="http://guyberes.com/2008/02/28/buses-from-the-future/">Guy Beres</a>.</p>

	<h4>5 Random Semi-Related Posts</h4>
	<ul class="st-related-posts">
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_8/" title="Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 8 (31 January 2008)">Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 8</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_7/" title="Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 7 (30 January 2008)">Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 7</a> (1 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/human-nature/tiskotansi/" title="Tiskotansi! (28 January 2008)">Tiskotansi!</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_4/" title="Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 4 (27 January 2008)">Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 4</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/lessons_from_heath_ledger_final/" title="Lessons from tacky Heath Ledger jokes, final edition (19 February 2008)">Lessons from tacky Heath Ledger jokes, final edition</a> (4 comments)</li>
</ul>

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		<item>
		<title>Lessons from tacky Heath Ledger jokes, final edition</title>
		<link>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/lessons_from_heath_ledger_final/</link>
		<comments>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/lessons_from_heath_ledger_final/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:05:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stilgherrian</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[heath ledger]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://stilgherrian.com/internet/lessons_from_heath_ledger_final/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It&#8217;s nearly a month since I posted my tacky Heath Ledger joke page. What have we learned? Truth be told, not a lot more than I wrote in the Day 1 lessons and the items tagged &#8220;heath ledger&#8221;.
But let&#8217;s look at the total traffic anyway, this time using a graph from Google Analytics which shows [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>It&#8217;s nearly a month since I posted my <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_dead_jokes/">tacky Heath Ledger joke page</a>. What have we learned? Truth be told, not a lot more than I wrote in the <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_lessons_1/">Day 1 lessons</a> and the <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/tag/heath-ledger/">items tagged &#8220;heath ledger&#8221;</a>.</strong></p>
<p>But let&#8217;s look at the total traffic anyway, this time using a graph from <a href="http://www.google.com/analytics/">Google Analytics</a> which shows visits <em>only</em> visitors to the jokes page.</p>
<p><img src='http://stilgherrian.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/heath_graph_20080219_600w.jpg' alt='Graph of one month of Heath Ledger-related traffic' class="imagecentre" /></p>
<p>As of just now, there&#8217;s been 11,717 page views in total, representing 8,798 unique visitors who stayed on average for 3 mins 44 secs per visit &#8212; quite respectable!</p>
<p>Traffic took a couple of days to peak &#8212; the first day being fuelled by Google Adwords &#8212; with a secondary peak the following week when Ledger&#8217;s funeral arrangements hit the news. Google rates the peaks as about 1000 visits a day and even now, a month later, we&#8217;re still seeing 60 to 80 visits a day.</p>
<p><strong>As for the jokes themselves, well&#8230; to be honest I really don&#8217;t want to read them again. Most of them were crap. If you&#8217;ve got any astounding sociological observations, feel free to post a comment.</strong></p>

	<h4>5 Random Semi-Related Posts</h4>
	<ul class="st-related-posts">
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_9/" title="Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 9 (01 February 2008)">Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 9</a> (2 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/human-nature/tale_of_two_cults/" title="A Tale of Two Cults (14 October 2007)">A Tale of Two Cults</a> (1 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/google_doubleclick_merge/" title="Google and DoubleClick to merge (13 January 2008)">Google and DoubleClick to merge</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/engineering/finland_buses_good/" title="In Finland, they go buses good! (29 February 2008)">In Finland, they go buses good!</a> (5 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_7/" title="Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 7 (30 January 2008)">Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 7</a> (1 comments)</li>
</ul>

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		<item>
		<title>Who owns what on the Internet</title>
		<link>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/who_owns_internet/</link>
		<comments>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/who_owns_internet/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 08 Feb 2008 23:02:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stilgherrian</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[amy webb]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[aol]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[iac]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[microsoft]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[news corporation]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[web 2.0]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[yahoo]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://stilgherrian.com/internet/who_owns_internet/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[
Amy Webb (now there&#8217;s an aptonym!) has updated her diagram of who owns the new media landscape. It&#8217;s also available as a PDF file.
Coming soon, a widget and RSS feed to help you track acquisitions and mergers in media.
I must admit, I&#8217;d much rather see this sort of data presented as a directed graph of [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://www.mydigimedia.com/WhoOwns.html" class="imagelink"><img src='http://stilgherrian.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/who_owns_350w.jpg' alt='Thumbnail of Who Owns What diagram' class="imageright" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Amy Webb (now there&#8217;s an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism">aptonym</a>!) has updated her diagram of <a href="http://www.mydigimedia.com/WhoOwns.html">who owns the new media landscape</a>. It&#8217;s also available as <a href="http://www.mydigimedia.com/tipsheets/WhoOwns2708.pdf">a PDF file</a>.</strong></p>
<p>Coming soon, a widget and RSS feed to help you track acquisitions and mergers in media.</p>
<p>I must admit, I&#8217;d much rather see this sort of data presented as a directed graph of ownership relationships, rather than simple lists &#8212; something like <a href="http://www.orgnet.com/email.html">this diagram</a>. The size of the nodes could represent the companies&#8217; market capitalisation, and width of the lines the percentage ownership or something.</p>
<p>Still, it&#8217;s a handy-enough reference.</p>
<p>Hat-Tip to <a href="http://leehopkins.net/2008/02/08/web20-who-owns-what/">Lee Hopkins</a>.</p>

	<h4>5 Random Semi-Related Posts</h4>
	<ul class="st-related-posts">
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/google_earth_1844/" title="Google Earth, 1844 (20 November 2006)">Google Earth, 1844</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/engineering/finland_buses_good/" title="In Finland, they go buses good! (29 February 2008)">In Finland, they go buses good!</a> (5 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/4_stages_internet_of_things/" title="The Four Stages of the Internet of Things (09 February 2008)">The Four Stages of the Internet of Things</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/acs_on_web_2/" title="ACS Web 2.0 presentation (01 February 2008)">ACS Web 2.0 presentation</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/media/the_world_according_to_pravda/" title="The World According to Pravda, 2007 (13 May 2007)">The World According to Pravda, 2007</a> (0 comments)</li>
</ul>

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		<title>Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 9</title>
		<link>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_9/</link>
		<comments>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_9/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 31 Jan 2008 22:08:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stilgherrian</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[heath ledger]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_9/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[
Well unless Heath Ledger is in the news again for some reason, apart from the routine news about his funeral etc, I think the steady decline seen in the traffic over the last three days will continue.
As with the Steve Irwin jokes, though, the traffic will never fade away completely. There&#8217;ll always be some level [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img src='http://stilgherrian.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/heath_ledger_traffic_20080201.gif' alt='Traffic Graph for 2008-02-01 showing traffic starting to steadily decline' class="imagecentre" /></p>
<p><strong>Well unless Heath Ledger is in the news again for some reason, apart from the routine news about his funeral etc, I think the steady decline seen in the traffic over the last three days will continue.</strong></p>
<p>As with the Steve Irwin jokes, though, the traffic will never fade away completely. There&#8217;ll always be <em>some</em> level of searching for &#8220;heath ledger jokes&#8221;, and occasional surges as he enters the news.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s today&#8217;s graph for now. More detailed analysis and reflection later.</p>

	<h4>5 Random Semi-Related Posts</h4>
	<ul class="st-related-posts">
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_7/" title="Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 7 (30 January 2008)">Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 7</a> (1 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/is_google_a_spammer/" title="Is Google a spammmer? (18 December 2006)">Is Google a spammmer?</a> (3 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/google_doubleclick_merge/" title="Google and DoubleClick to merge (13 January 2008)">Google and DoubleClick to merge</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/spamming_google_maps/" title="Spamming Google Maps &#8212; or not? (29 January 2007)">Spamming Google Maps &#8212; or not?</a> (1 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/human-nature/tale_of_two_cults/" title="A Tale of Two Cults (14 October 2007)">A Tale of Two Cults</a> (1 comments)</li>
</ul>

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		<title>Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 8</title>
		<link>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_8/</link>
		<comments>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_8/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 31 Jan 2008 01:02:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stilgherrian</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[heath ledger]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_8/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[
Given that there&#8217;s quite a bit of fluctuation in web traffic from day to day anyway &#8212; for all manner of reasons &#8212; I&#8217;m going to say that it&#8217;s been relatively steady through the week so far.
As I mentioned yesterday, the Heath Ledger jokes page is now sustaining itself on Google search results. I think [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img src='http://stilgherrian.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/heath_ledger_traffic_20080131.gif' alt='Traffic Graph for 2008-01-31 showing traffic relatively steady' class="imagecentre" /></p>
<p><strong>Given that there&#8217;s quite a bit of fluctuation in web traffic from day to day anyway &#8212; for all manner of reasons &#8212; I&#8217;m going to say that it&#8217;s been relatively steady through the week so far.</strong></p>
<p>As I mentioned <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_7/">yesterday</a>, the <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_dead_jokes/">Heath Ledger jokes</a> page is now sustaining itself on Google search results. I think I&#8217;ll do a more detailed end-of week analysis tomorrow. I just wanted to publish <em>something</em> about this Experiment today because I know every single reader is awaiting my every word on this important global issue.</p>

	<h4>5 Random Semi-Related Posts</h4>
	<ul class="st-related-posts">
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/lessons_from_heath_ledger_final/" title="Lessons from tacky Heath Ledger jokes, final edition (19 February 2008)">Lessons from tacky Heath Ledger jokes, final edition</a> (4 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/notes/odd_heath_ledger_obituary/" title="Odd obituary for Heath Ledger (29 February 2008)">Odd obituary for Heath Ledger</a> (4 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/notes/heath_ledger_typo/" title="What sort of weird psychology is this? (24 January 2008)">What sort of weird psychology is this?</a> (2 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/human_googleads/" title="Human relationships in GoogleAds (08 July 2007)">Human relationships in GoogleAds</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/even_simpler_than_google/" title="Even simpler than Google (16 May 2007)">Even simpler than Google</a> (0 comments)</li>
</ul>

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		<title>Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 7</title>
		<link>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_7/</link>
		<comments>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_7/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 29 Jan 2008 21:43:18 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stilgherrian</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[heath ledger]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_7/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[
Another day, another traffic graph for The Heath Ledger Experiment. And once more, contrary to my expectations, there&#8217;s another gentle increase in traffic.
Could this be because the Heath Ledger jokes page is now the top result when you do a Google search for &#8220;heath ledger jokes&#8221;?
Today is about other things for me, not Mr Ledger, [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img src='http://stilgherrian.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/heath_ledger_traffic_20080130.gif' alt='Traffic Graph for 2008-01-30 showing traffic continuing to gently rise again' class="imagecentre" /></p>
<p><strong>Another day, another traffic graph for The Heath Ledger Experiment. And once more, contrary to my expectations, there&#8217;s another gentle increase in traffic.</strong></p>
<p>Could this be because the <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_dead_jokes/">Heath Ledger jokes</a> page is now the top result when you do a <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=heath+ledger+jokes">Google search for &#8220;heath ledger jokes&#8221;</a>?</p>
<p>Today is about other things for me, not Mr Ledger, so I&#8217;ll return to these thoughts tomorrow. But do feel free to add your own comments.</p>

	<h4>5 Random Semi-Related Posts</h4>
	<ul class="st-related-posts">
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_dead_jokes/" title="Heath Ledger dead: jokes here please (23 January 2008)">Heath Ledger dead: jokes here please</a> (176 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_6/" title="Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 6 (29 January 2008)">Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 6</a> (3 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/google_doubleclick_merge/" title="Google and DoubleClick to merge (13 January 2008)">Google and DoubleClick to merge</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_4/" title="Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 4 (27 January 2008)">Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 4</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/oops_there_goes_privacy/" title="Oops, there goes privacy! So now what? (21 July 2007)">Oops, there goes privacy! So now what?</a> (1 comments)</li>
</ul>

]]></content:encoded>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 6</title>
		<link>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_6/</link>
		<comments>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_6/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 Jan 2008 22:14:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stilgherrian</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[heath ledger]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_6/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[
Yesterday I reported that traffic for The Heath Ledger Experiment had declined across the weekend. Today I can tell you that the decline has been reversed and we&#8217;re slightly up again. Across 6 days, we&#8217;ve seen a total of 6,407 unique human visitors to the jokes page.
I have no real explanation for this yet, and [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img src='http://stilgherrian.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/heath_ledger_traffic_20080129.gif' alt='Traffic Graph for 2008-01-29 showing traffic decline slightly reversed yesterday' class="imagecentre" /></p>
<p><strong>Yesterday I <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_5/">reported</a> that traffic for The Heath Ledger Experiment had declined across the weekend. Today I can tell you that the decline has been reversed and we&#8217;re slightly up again. Across 6 days, we&#8217;ve seen a total of 6,407 unique human visitors to the <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_dead_jokes/">jokes page</a>.</strong></p>
<p>I have no real explanation for this yet, and it may just be statistical noise. Still, my gut feeling is that we&#8217;re moving past the initial feeding-frenzy. Perhaps the early visitors are people who actively seek out a forum for this sort of thing, because that&#8217;s how they gain the attention they seek. Later, others stumble across the site once those early visitors have seeded it with content.</p>
<p>One old friend, who I hadn&#8217;t heard from in <em>years</em>, emailed me across the weekend to say:</p>
<blockquote><p>I stumbled across your site after someone sent me a Heath Ledger joke and I couldn&#8217;t think of a witty comeback, so decided to resort to a websearch and let the internet do my thinking for me. I never did find one good enough to send, but I did enjoy a productive half hour rooting around in your website.</p></blockquote>
<p>I&#8217;m also starting to see inbound links from forums where people are discussing whether what I&#8217;m doing is tasteless or not, or reflecting on the way we feed on celebrity news in general. Is this perhaps the natural cycle of such things?</p>
<p><strong>What I <em>have</em> learned is that it&#8217;s very easy to generate a few thousand inbound visitors. But why you&#8217;d <em>want</em> to do that, and what you <em>do</em> with those visitors, are completely different questions.</strong></p>
<p>More soon&#8230;</p>

	<h4>5 Random Semi-Related Posts</h4>
	<ul class="st-related-posts">
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_8/" title="Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 8 (31 January 2008)">Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 8</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/human_googleads/" title="Human relationships in GoogleAds (08 July 2007)">Human relationships in GoogleAds</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_9/" title="Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 9 (01 February 2008)">Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 9</a> (2 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/human-nature/recreational_outrage_annoying/" title="&#8220;Recreational outrage&#8221; is annoying (05 February 2008)">&#8220;Recreational outrage&#8221; is annoying</a> (5 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_5/" title="Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 5 (28 January 2008)">Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 5</a> (2 comments)</li>
</ul>

]]></content:encoded>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Heath Ledger dominates Top 100 search phrases</title>
		<link>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_dominates_searches/</link>
		<comments>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_dominates_searches/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 27 Jan 2008 21:11:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stilgherrian</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[corey delaney]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[corey worthington]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[heath ledger]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[steve irwin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_dominates_searches/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Further to my last post about The Heath Ledger Experiment, it&#8217;s interesting to note that of the Top 100 search terms which brought traffic here, 27 are Heath Ledger-related. 28 if you count &#8220;drug overdose joke&#8221;.
That compares with 33 related to Corey Worthington Delaney and 2 to Steve Irwin.
In total there are 1773 different search [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Further to <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_5/">my last post</a> about The Heath Ledger Experiment, it&#8217;s interesting to note that of the Top 100 search terms which brought traffic here, 27 are Heath Ledger-related. 28 if you count &#8220;drug overdose joke&#8221;.</strong></p>
<p>That compares with 33 related to Corey Worthington Delaney and 2 to Steve Irwin.</p>
<p>In total there are 1773 different search phrases so far this month. Here&#8217;s the full Top 100. </p>
<blockquote>
<table>
<tr>
<th>search phrase</th>
<th>views</th>
<th>% of searches</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger jokes</td>
<td>2286</td>
<td>30.8 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey delaney</td>
<td>544</td>
<td>7.3 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger dead jokes</td>
<td>335</td>
<td>4.5 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger joke</td>
<td>219</td>
<td>2.9 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger</td>
<td>175</td>
<td>2.3 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger death jokes</td>
<td>142</td>
<td>1.9 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>jokes about heath ledger</td>
<td>140</td>
<td>1.8 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>steve irwin jokes</td>
<td>98</td>
<td>1.3 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>stilgherrian</td>
<td>98</td>
<td>1.3 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey worthington delaney</td>
<td>94</td>
<td>1.2 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey delaney naked</td>
<td>79</td>
<td>1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey delaney child porn</td>
<td>55</td>
<td>0.7 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger dead joke</td>
<td>55</td>
<td>0.7 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>www.vodaphone.com.au</td>
<td>45</td>
<td>0.6 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>ledger jokes</td>
<td>34</td>
<td>0.4 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath leger jokes</td>
<td>28</td>
<td>0.3 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey worthington</td>
<td>28</td>
<td>0.3 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey delaney myspace</td>
<td>28</td>
<td>0.3 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>personal</td>
<td>23</td>
<td>0.3 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>vodaphone.com.au</td>
<td>22</td>
<td>0.2 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey delaney pornography</td>
<td>22</td>
<td>0.2 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>jokes heath ledger</td>
<td>22</td>
<td>0.2 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey worthington child porn</td>
<td>21</td>
<td>0.2 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger jokes death</td>
<td>19</td>
<td>0.2 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>dead heath ledger jokes</td>
<td>18</td>
<td>0.2 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey delaney t-shirts</td>
<td>18</td>
<td>0.2 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey delaney child pornography</td>
<td>17</td>
<td>0.2 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger jokes dead</td>
<td>16</td>
<td>0.2 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>used knickers</td>
<td>16</td>
<td>0.2 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>jokes about the death of heath ledger</td>
<td>16</td>
<td>0.2 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey delaney quotes</td>
<td>15</td>
<td>0.2 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>business</td>
<td>15</td>
<td>0.2 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger tasteless jokes</td>
<td>13</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey delaney worthington</td>
<td>13</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>child porn</td>
<td>12</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey delaney porn</td>
<td>12</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>tasteless heath ledger jokes</td>
<td>12</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey delaney website</td>
<td>12</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey worthington porn</td>
<td>12</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey delaney shirt</td>
<td>11</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey worthington child pornography</td>
<td>10</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey delaney party</td>
<td>10</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger death joke</td>
<td>10</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>jokes about heath ledger s death</td>
<td>10</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>howard</td>
<td>10</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger joke dead</td>
<td>10</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger is dead jokes</td>
<td>10</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>steve irwin joke</td>
<td>9</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>cory delaney</td>
<td>9</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>drug overdose jokes</td>
<td>9</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger and jokes</td>
<td>9</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>false</td>
<td>9</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>jokes on heath ledger</td>
<td>9</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heather ledger</td>
<td>8</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>paul neil milne johnstone</td>
<td>8</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey delaney jokes</td>
<td>8</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey worthington shirts</td>
<td>8</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>stilgherrian.com</td>
<td>8</td>
<td>0.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey delaney shirts</td>
<td>7</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>enmore</td>
<td>7</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey worthington naked</td>
<td>7</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>daylight</td>
<td>7</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>supernaut</td>
<td>7</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey delaney video</td>
<td>7</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>space</td>
<td>7</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>samanta fox</td>
<td>7</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey delaney photo</td>
<td>7</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>leila mckinnon corey</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey delaney cartoon</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heather ledger jokes</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>natasha</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>fruit carving</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey worthington arrested</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey t shirts</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>sam connell</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>steve</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>flickr</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>steve irwin death jokes</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey t-shirts</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>lolcat</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>bernadette mcmenamin</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>thai brothel</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger jokes tasteless</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>ledger joke</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>samantha fox</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>gay navy sex</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heather ledge</td>
<td>6</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>www.vodaphone.com</td>
<td>5</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>stilgherrian.com/personal/prussia_net_vs_skank_media/ new prussia</td>
<td>5</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger overdose jokes</td>
<td>5</td>
<td>0 %</td>
</tr>
</table>
</blockquote>
<p>Some of other entries in the list are a worry&#8230;</p>

	<h4>5 Random Semi-Related Posts</h4>
	<ul class="st-related-posts">
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/human-nature/corey_toon/" title="A Corey Delaney cartoon for your pleasure (18 January 2008)">A Corey Delaney cartoon for your pleasure</a> (2 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/lessons_from_heath_ledger_final/" title="Lessons from tacky Heath Ledger jokes, final edition (19 February 2008)">Lessons from tacky Heath Ledger jokes, final edition</a> (4 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/engineering/finland_buses_good/" title="In Finland, they go buses good! (29 February 2008)">In Finland, they go buses good!</a> (5 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_5/" title="Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 5 (28 January 2008)">Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 5</a> (2 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/politics/teen_arrest_highlights_law_stupidity/" title="Arrest of &#8220;teen party host&#8221; highlights stupidity of law (17 January 2008)">Arrest of &#8220;teen party host&#8221; highlights stupidity of law</a> (15 comments)</li>
</ul>

]]></content:encoded>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 5</title>
		<link>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_5/</link>
		<comments>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_5/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 27 Jan 2008 20:53:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stilgherrian</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[heath ledger]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://stilgherrian.com/uncategorized/heath_ledger_spikes_website_5/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[
Traffic related to The Heath Ledger Experiment continues to decline across the long weekend, the exact opposite of my admittedly ill-informed speculation. From a peak of 1,970 unique human visitors daily, it&#8217;s dropped to 1,227.
However that&#8217;s still well above the typical figure of around 500 unique humans daily which prevailed before this Experiment and The [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img src='http://stilgherrian.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/heath_ledger_traffic_20080128.gif' alt='Traffic Graph for 2008-01-28 showing traffic continuing to decline' class="imagecentre" /></p>
<p><strong>Traffic related to <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_dead_jokes/#comment-10123">The Heath Ledger Experiment</a> continues to decline across the long weekend, the exact opposite of my admittedly ill-informed speculation. From a peak of 1,970 unique human visitors daily, it&#8217;s dropped to 1,227.</strong></p>
<p>However that&#8217;s still well above the typical figure of around 500 unique humans daily which prevailed before this Experiment and <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/tag/corey-worthington/">The Madness of Corey Worthington Delaney</a>.</p>
<p>Searches for Ledger-related terms now dominate the search-generated traffic to the website. Here&#8217;s the current Top 10 search terms which brought visitors here.</p>
<blockquote>
<table>
<tr>
<th>search phrase</th>
<th>views</th>
<th>% of searches</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger jokes</td>
<td>2286</td>
<td>30.8%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey delaney</td>
<td>544</td>
<td>7.3%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger dead jokes</td>
<td>335</td>
<td>4.5%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger joke</td>
<td>219</td>
<td>2.9%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger</td>
<td>175</td>
<td>2.3%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger death jokes</td>
<td>142</td>
<td>1.9%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>jokes about heath ledger</td>
<td>140</td>
<td>1.8%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>steve irwin jokes</td>
<td>98</td>
<td>1.3%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>stilgherrian</td>
<td>98</td>
<td>1.3%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey worthington delaney</td>
<td>94</td>
<td>1.2%</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>other phrases</td>
<td>3289</td>
<td>44.3%</td>
</tr>
</table>
</blockquote>
<p>Bear in mind, this is a report for the entire calendar month, and we only started this experiment on 23 January. If we&#8217;re looking at current traffic, Heath Ledger is clearly what people are looking for.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ll continue poking at the numbers&#8230; more soon!</p>

	<h4>5 Random Semi-Related Posts</h4>
	<ul class="st-related-posts">
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/human-nature/tale_of_two_cults/" title="A Tale of Two Cults (14 October 2007)">A Tale of Two Cults</a> (1 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_4/" title="Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 4 (27 January 2008)">Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 4</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_dead_jokes/" title="Heath Ledger dead: jokes here please (23 January 2008)">Heath Ledger dead: jokes here please</a> (176 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_lessons_1/" title="Lessons from tacky Heath Ledger jokes, Day 1 (24 January 2008)">Lessons from tacky Heath Ledger jokes, Day 1</a> (6 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/wikipedia_not_me/" title="No, this wasn&#8217;t me, but close (21 February 2008)">No, this wasn&#8217;t me, but close</a> (0 comments)</li>
</ul>

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		<title>Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 4</title>
		<link>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_4/</link>
		<comments>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_4/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 27 Jan 2008 01:44:02 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stilgherrian</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[heath ledger]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_4/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[
Hmmm&#8230; I predicted yesterday that traffic would increase again across the weekend, but it hasn&#8217;t so far. Saturday&#8217;s traffic was actually the lowest of the four days since I started The Heath Ledger Experiment.
No theories yet. Let&#8217;s look again tomorrow and see what happens with the Sunday traffic (which will include hits from Saturday in [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img src='http://stilgherrian.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/heath_ledger_traffic_20080127.gif' alt='Traffic Graph for 2008-01-27 showing traffic continuing to decline' class="imagecentre" /></p>
<p><strong>Hmmm&#8230; I <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_3/">predicted yesterday</a> that traffic would increase again across the weekend, but it hasn&#8217;t so far. Saturday&#8217;s traffic was actually the lowest of the four days since I started <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_dead_jokes/">The Heath Ledger Experiment</a>.</strong></p>
<p>No theories yet. Let&#8217;s look again tomorrow and see what happens with the Sunday traffic (which will include hits from Saturday in the US, thanks to the Earth being round). A sunny Sunday isn&#8217;t right for numerical analysis.</p>
<p>As before, the figure for the last day only includes traffic from midnight to about 4am. And the number in the top-left corner of the graph isn&#8217;t relevant, as it&#8217;s &#8220;hits&#8221; &#8212; which includes all the pieces on a page as well as the page itself.</p>

	<h4>5 Random Semi-Related Posts</h4>
	<ul class="st-related-posts">
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_7/" title="Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 7 (30 January 2008)">Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 7</a> (1 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/google_earth_1844/" title="Google Earth, 1844 (20 November 2006)">Google Earth, 1844</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/even_simpler_than_google/" title="Even simpler than Google (16 May 2007)">Even simpler than Google</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/notes/heath_ledger_typo/" title="What sort of weird psychology is this? (24 January 2008)">What sort of weird psychology is this?</a> (2 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_2/" title="Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 2 (25 January 2008)">Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 2</a> (4 comments)</li>
</ul>

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		<title>Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 3</title>
		<link>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_3/</link>
		<comments>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_3/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jan 2008 23:01:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stilgherrian</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[heath ledger]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_3/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Website traffic is starting to decline again although, as the graph shows, yesterday&#8217;s traffic was still the second-highest this month and the decline was relatively small.

Two things this morning. One, a look back at how much time this has taken so far, in response to a less-than-polite comment from Todd and a sensible question from [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Website traffic is starting to decline again although, as the graph shows, yesterday&#8217;s traffic was still the second-highest this month and the decline was relatively small.</strong></p>
<p><img src='http://stilgherrian.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/heath_ledger_traffic_20080126.gif' alt='Traffic Graph for 2008-01-26 showing traffic starting to decline again' class="imagecentre" /></p>
<p>Two things this morning. One, a look back at how much time this has taken so far, in response to a less-than-polite comment from <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_dead_jokes/#comment-10017">Todd</a> and a sensible question from <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_dead_jokes/#comment-10021">Crispin</a>. Two, some speculation about how the traffic might go from here.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_dead_jokes">The Heath Ledger Experiment</a> is generating tons of interesting data for very little investment in time or money.</strong></p>
<p>Once I&#8217;d heard via <a href="http://twitter.com">Twitter</a> that Ledger was dead, the idea congealed in my mind while running an errand to the shops. After that, Day One went something like this:</p>
<blockquote><table>
<tr>
<th>task</th>
<th>time</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Write web page</td>
<td>5 mins</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Source &#038; prep photo</td>
<td>5 mins</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Figure out Google AdWords</td>
<td>30 mins</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Run initial AdWords campaign</td>
<td>30 mins</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Deal with 1st batch of comments</td>
<td>15 mins</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Run second AdWords campaign</td>
<td>30 mins</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Deal with 2nd batch of comments</td>
<td>15 mins</td>
</tr>
</table>
</blockquote>
<p>The set-up was incredibly fast because, well, it&#8217;s just a matter of writing words and pressing &#8220;Publish&#8221;. Google&#8217;s indexing robots hit my RSS feed hourly or so, so it&#8217;s not long before I&#8217;m indexed.</p>
<p>The most time-consuming part was setting up a Google AdWords account and figuring out how it all worked. Now that I know, next time will be quicker.</p>
<p>That table says it took 2+ hours, but that time was scattered across the working day. I was concentrating on other things, but came back to poke The Experiment &#8212; 5 minutes here, 5 minutes there. With a &#8220;real&#8221; campaign I&#8217;d set it up, let it run for a day, and then come back and analyse it.</p>
<p>You can probably add in another 2 hours&#8217; worth of me talking at people and saying &#8220;Wow! This is so cool!&#8221; about 374 times.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve probably spent 2 hours a day since then poring over the numbers and writing up the analysis. Again, in a &#8220;real&#8221; campaign I&#8217;d have a much more focussed process for evaluating the campaign&#8217;s effectiveness &#8212; and of course acting on the results. As I&#8217;ve said before, my sole aim here was to see how it works, not to specifically generate traffic or produce sales leads.</p>
<p>The potential research papers here, if that&#8217;s not too grand a description, are:</p>
<ol>
<li>Lessons for small businesses wanting to try this for themselves.</li>
<li>How the rise in traffic to the jokes page unfolded, compared with when the story was covered in the media.</li>
<li>How the price of the search terms changed over time.</li>
<li>A linguistic analysis of the jokes and comments themselves.</li>
</ol>
<p>&#8220;Research notes&#8221;, really. Any preferences for what you&#8217;d like to see first?</p>
<p>Now, the future.</p>
<p><strong>I suspect that Friday&#8217;s drop in traffic was a weekly cycle thing, and that traffic will increase again across the weekend.</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Traffic was down on Friday generally across some other high-traffic sites we host.</li>
<li>The younger people who are more likely to look for these jokes will have more time on their hands &#8212; both for word-of-mouth referrals and looking for amusements. This is especially true in Australia, where it&#8217;s a long weekend for Australia Day.</li>
</ul>
<p>Any predictions from the floor?</p>

	<h4>5 Random Semi-Related Posts</h4>
	<ul class="st-related-posts">
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/human_googleads/" title="Human relationships in GoogleAds (08 July 2007)">Human relationships in GoogleAds</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/notes/odd_heath_ledger_obituary/" title="Odd obituary for Heath Ledger (29 February 2008)">Odd obituary for Heath Ledger</a> (4 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_7/" title="Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 7 (30 January 2008)">Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 7</a> (1 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_dead_jokes/" title="Heath Ledger dead: jokes here please (23 January 2008)">Heath Ledger dead: jokes here please</a> (176 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/oops_there_goes_privacy/" title="Oops, there goes privacy! So now what? (21 July 2007)">Oops, there goes privacy! So now what?</a> (1 comments)</li>
</ul>

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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 2</title>
		<link>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_2/</link>
		<comments>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 24 Jan 2008 22:40:21 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stilgherrian</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[heath ledger]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_2/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[OK, I clearly know nothing about the Internet. Website traffic has actually gone up since yesterday!

Don&#8217;t worry about that number in the corner of the graph. That&#8217;s &#8220;hits&#8221; which includes all the images and little bits of JavaScript in each page.
Using another analysis tool, the number of unique visitors to the site each day (once [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>OK, I clearly know nothing about the Internet. Website traffic has actually gone <em>up</em> since <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_1/">yesterday</a>!</strong></p>
<p><img src='http://stilgherrian.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/heath_ledger_traffic_20080125.gif' alt='Traffic Graph for 2008-01-25 showing continuing rise in traffic yesterday' class="imagecentre" /></p>
<p>Don&#8217;t worry about that number in the corner of the graph. That&#8217;s &#8220;hits&#8221; which includes all the images and little bits of JavaScript in each page.</p>
<p>Using another analysis tool, the number of unique visitors to the site each day (once search robots and hack attempts are filtered out) has risen from around 500 a day before Corey Worthington Delaney to more than 900 after Mr Socialite graced the world with his presence, to 1402 on Heath Ledger Day 1, to 1807 yesterday.</p>
<p>So what&#8217;s going on here?</p>
<p><strong>Well, it&#8217;s certainly all about Heath Ledger.</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_dead_jokes/">The Heath Ledger jokes page</a> has received 2618 human visitors in total, which roughly matches the increase in traffic. Originally that traffic was generated by <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_lessons_1/">advertising on Google</a>. But now it&#8217;s all from what&#8217;s called &#8220;organic search&#8221; &#8212; that is, we&#8217;re turning up naturally in search results rather than paying for it.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s the top 10 searches which have brought people here so far this month, showing the number of human visitors and the percentage of search-generated traffic that represents.</p>
<blockquote><table>
<tr>
<th>search phrase</th>
<th>views</th>
<th>% of searches</th>
</tr>
<td>heath ledger jokes</td>
<td>598</td>
<td>12.2 %</td>
<tr>
<td>corey delaney</td>
<td>525</td>
<td>10.7 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger dead jokes</td>
<td>271</td>
<td>5.5 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger</td>
<td>171</td>
<td>3.5 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>jokes about heath ledger</td>
<td>106</td>
<td>2.1 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger death jokes</td>
<td>99</td>
<td>2 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>heath ledger joke</td>
<td>94</td>
<td>1.9 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>corey worthington delaney</td>
<td>91</td>
<td>1.8 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>stilgherrian</td>
<td>85</td>
<td>1.7 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>steve irwin jokes</td>
<td>79</td>
<td>1.6 %</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Other phrases</td>
<td>2749</td>
<td>56.4 %</td>
</tr>
</table>
</blockquote>
<p>Now I know that for a few hours I was Google&#8217;s number 4 result for &#8220;heath ledger dead joke&#8221;, but that soon passed as mainstream media mentions of The Joker built up. Just now, I&#8217;ve looked at Google&#8217;s results for &#8220;heath ledger jokes&#8221; and I&#8217;m nowhere in the first 35 pages of results. So I&#8217;m guessing those hits all came from the paid advertising.</p>
<p>[Yes, I should right-justify the numbers in those columns, but you're all smart enough to figure it out for yourselves, I'm sure. I'll do the rest of the tables the same way.]</p>
<p>Looking specifically at the jokes page, here&#8217;s how Google Analytics reckons the visitors found us.</p>
<blockquote><table>
<tr>
<th>source</th>
<th>views</th>
<th>uniques</th>
<th>time on page</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>google</td>
<td>947</td>
<td>449</td>
<td>0:04:01</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>(direct)</td>
<td>105</td>
<td>78</td>
<td>0:04:43</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>facebook.com</td>
<td>31</td>
<td>26</td>
<td>0:01:16</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>google.com.au</td>
<td>7</td>
<td>7</td>
<td>0:02:55</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>messaging.myspace.com</td>
<td>4</td>
<td>3</td>
<td>0:13:59</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>twitter.com</td>
<td>4</td>
<td>4</td>
<td>0:03:01</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>google.com</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>2</td>
<td>0:00:00</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>aol</td>
<td>1</td>
<td>1</td>
<td>0:00:00</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>tailrank.com</td>
<td>1</td>
<td>1</td>
<td>0:00:00</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>technorati.com</td>
<td>1</td>
<td>1</td>
<td>0:00:00</td>
</tr>
</table>
</blockquote>
<p>The numbers don&#8217;t match the other charts, so I suspect some people arrived at the home page first, rather than directly to the jokes page.</p>
<p>Some observations about these numbers:</p>
<ul>
<li>People spending 3 or 4 minutes on a web page is pretty respectable. Most websites have people flit in and out much faster. These visitors were engaging with the content!</li>
<li>Posting a link on Facebook was worth it. About a third of my friends clicked through. Are they desperate, or losers?</li>
<li>The 3 unique visitors that arrived via messaging.myspace.com intrigue me, since they spent <em>much</em> longer on site. I wonder if they&#8217;re the same three guys who all came from the same Internet domain, a business in the US, and posted lots and lots of comments? Didn&#8217;t they have any work to do?</li>
</ul>
<p>I&#8217;ll continue poking at the numbers&#8230; more soon.</p>

	<h4>5 Random Semi-Related Posts</h4>
	<ul class="st-related-posts">
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_4/" title="Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 4 (27 January 2008)">Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 4</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/even_simpler_than_google/" title="Even simpler than Google (16 May 2007)">Even simpler than Google</a> (0 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/notes/odd_heath_ledger_obituary/" title="Odd obituary for Heath Ledger (29 February 2008)">Odd obituary for Heath Ledger</a> (4 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_dead_jokes/" title="Heath Ledger dead: jokes here please (23 January 2008)">Heath Ledger dead: jokes here please</a> (176 comments)</li>
	<li><a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/is_google_a_spammer/" title="Is Google a spammmer? (18 December 2006)">Is Google a spammmer?</a> (3 comments)</li>
</ul>

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		<item>
		<title>Heath Ledger spikes my website, Day 1</title>
		<link>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_1/</link>
		<comments>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_1/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 24 Jan 2008 05:18:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stilgherrian</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[corey delaney]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[corey worthington]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[heath ledger]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_spikes_website_1/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Further to this morning&#8217;s post about The Heath Ledger Experiment, here&#8217;s a graph of my website traffic so far this month.

As you can see, traffic roughly tripled yesterday after my little game. The data for today is only for midnight to roughly 4am, so that&#8217;s why it&#8217;s so low.
The increase in traffic from 15 January [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Further to this morning&#8217;s post about <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_lessons_1/">The Heath Ledger Experiment</a>, here&#8217;s a graph of my website traffic so far this month.</strong></p>
<p><img src='http://stilgherrian.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/heath_ledger_traffic_20080124.gif' alt='Traffic Graph for 2008-01-24 showing spike 3x in traffic yesterday' class="imagecentre"  /></p>
<p>As you can see, traffic roughly tripled yesterday after my little game. The data for today is only for midnight to roughly 4am, so that&#8217;s why it&#8217;s so low.</p>
<p>The increase in traffic from 15 January is due to Corey Worthington Delaney. Most of that is to the page <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/human-nature/corey_delaney_freedom_fighter/">Corey Delaney, freedom fighter (for the right to party)</a>, even though I&#8217;m much happier with <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/politics/teen_arrest_highlights_law_stupidity/">Arrest of “teen party host” highlights stupidity of law</a>.</p>
<p>The Corey traffic was sustained for several days thanks to continual news updates. Will Ledger traffic decline more quickly because the news will pass and I&#8217;ve stopped Google-fuelling it? Or will people get over the initial mourning phase and start looking for the jokes?</p>
<p>My gut feeling is that it&#8217;ll decline faster. Corey was an object of ridicule, while Heath Ledger is a respected actor whose personal life has been relatively straightforward. The main focus of the jokes has been childish, anti-gay stuff, and I reckon that juvenile attention spana will move on.</p>
<p>Also, at this time yesterday a Google search for &#8220;heath ledger dead joke&#8221; returned my page as search result number 4. Since then the media sites have been all over this story. Many mention his role as The Joker in the new Batman movie. As far as basic Google searches are concerned, &#8220;joker&#8221; and &#8220;joke&#8221; are the same thing. I&#8217;ve dropped to 6th place, and presumably will fall further.</p>
<p>Stay tuned&#8230;</p>

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		<title>Lessons from tacky Heath Ledger jokes, Day 1</title>
		<link>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_lessons_1/</link>
		<comments>http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_lessons_1/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 23 Jan 2008 21:05:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Stilgherrian</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[death]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[google]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[heath ledger]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[steve irwin]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_lessons_1/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[[Update 30 January 2008: More analysis of this has been posted since this article was written. Look for items tagged "heath ledger".]

Just 24 hours ago, actor Heath Ledger died. Before most people even knew he was dead, I&#8217;d set up a web page asking for jokes about his death and I placed an advertisement (pictured) [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>[<strong>Update 30 January 2008:</strong> <em>More analysis of this has been posted since this article was written. Look for <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/tag/heath-ledger/">items tagged "heath ledger"</a>.</em>]</p>
<p><img src='http://stilgherrian.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/heath_ledger_1_20080123.jpg' alt='Screen grab of Google AdWords advertisement: Heath Ledger jokes. Only just dead, but the tacky jokes have begun. Outrageous! stilgherrian.com ' class="imageright" /></p>
<p><strong>Just 24 hours ago, actor Heath Ledger died. Before most people even knew he was dead, I&#8217;d set up a web page <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/internet/heath_ledger_dead_jokes/">asking for jokes about his death</a> and I placed an advertisement (pictured) on Google. Tasteless. But there was a porpoise. This was Science!</strong></p>
<p>Here&#8217;s what I&#8217;ve learned so far. If you have any questions as you read this, please ask them. I&#8217;ll be exploring the data more deeply over the next few days.</p>
<p>Actually, before we get to the juicy numbers, my motivations:</p>
<ul>
<li>I&#8217;d just read a great article reminding me how <a href="http://www.copyblogger.com/google-adwords/">Google AdWords can bring traffic to your website quickly and cheaply</a>. <em>How</em> fast? Let&#8217;s try!</li>
<li>My page of <a href="http://stilgherrian.com/humour/more_irwin_jokes/">jokes about Steve Irwin&#8217;s death</a> still pulls a couple hundred readers every month. Regular readers know that shits me.</li>
<li>Here was a breaking news story and I was ready to pounce. A perfect opportunity to see what I could learn.</li>
<li>You didn&#8217;t think I&#8217;d respond to the media circus of a star&#8217;s death by <em>mourning</em>, did you? </li>
</ul>
<p>According to <a href="http://www.crikey.com.au/Media-Arts-and-Sports/20080123-Heath-Ledgers-death-devoured-by-media.html"><em>Crikey</em>&#8217;s media timeline</a>, Ledger died around 7.30am Sydney time. News broke 45 minutes later, and by 8.35am it was in Australia&#8217;s mainstream media. Just 65 minutes from death to TV news. Such is the imperative to stay ahead of the media pack by <em>being</em> the pack.</p>
<p><strong>My jokes page was ready for business just before 10am, around 2.5 hours after Ledger&#8217;s death. The first joke was posted at 10.25am, and 8 minutes later I was called an &#8220;asshole&#8221;.</strong></p>
<p>I&#8217;m not <em>exactly</em> sure when my <a href="http://adwords.google.com">Google AdWords</a> effort went online, because I had to create an account and figure out how it worked. I&#8217;m guessing around 11am because that&#8217;s when the real flood of traffic started.</p>
<p>I&#8217;d bought spots in the search results for &#8220;heath ledger&#8221;, &#8220;heath ledger dead&#8221; and &#8220;heath ledger joke&#8221;. The last two cost 6 cents a click-through, but &#8220;heath ledger&#8221; by itself was 50 cents. Murdoch&#8217;s <a href="http://news.com.au">news.com.au</a> was already advertising their own story on Google too, as were some celebrity gossip sites.</p>
<p>I burned off $20 in about half an hour, showing the advert to 2,758 people. 41 of them clicked through to my page. That&#8217;s a click-through ratio (CTR) of 1.48%.</p>
<p>I threw more money into the pot at lunchtime, but the price of a &#8220;heath ledger dead&#8221; click had gone up to 38 cents. Still, another 7,279 views generated another 168 readers, a CTR OF 2.3%. Interestingly, they all came from searches for &#8220;heath ledger&#8221; rather than &#8220;heath ledger dead&#8221; &#8212; a reminder that most people don&#8217;t think very hard before typing in their search terms.</p>
<p>Another 19,319 people were shown the ad on Google&#8217;s &#8220;content network&#8221; &#8212; that is, non-Google sites which show <a href="http://adsense.google.com">Google AdSense</a> advertisements. That generated another 41 clicks.</p>
<p><strong>For a total spend of $115.25 I got 254 new website visitors. That led to more than 40 comments posted.</strong></p>
<p>Let&#8217;s put that into perspective&#8230;</p>
<p><strong>My page was visited by 254 people who <em>wanted</em> to know about Heath Ledger. It happened in under an hour, and cost me less per person &#8212; just 45 cents each &#8212; than sending them a letter. That&#8217;s as an absolute beginner, with no planning and certainly no fine-tuning.</strong></p>
<p>I&#8217;d like to have brought another batch of punters to the page once there were a few jokes online but, 8 hours after I started my experiment, the price of &#8220;heath ledger dead&#8221; hit A$6.50, and it&#8217;s still there. Too expensive for an initial experiment, but perhaps worth it if you were selling expensive Heath Ledger memorabilia.</p>
<p><strong>So, the initial lessons:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Yes, Google AdWords deliver traffic fast.</strong> <em>Very</em> fast. Have everything ready before you start.</li>
<li><strong>Have a clear goal in mind, and tailor your &#8220;landing page&#8221; appropriately.</strong> My goal was &#8220;Let&#8217;s see how this works,&#8221; so I didn&#8217;t think too hard. If you have a commercial goal you&#8217;ll need to think more clearly.</li>
<li><strong>General search terms like &#8220;heath ledger&#8221; are usually more expensive that more specific ones.</strong> Like &#8220;heath ledger joke&#8221;. But more specific terms can tailor traffic to your exact needs. Specific terms can change price rapidly if they&#8217;re part of an unfolding news story.</li>
<li><strong>You can monitor it, and tailor things on the fly.</strong> Google&#8217;s reports can be a couple hours behind in giving you data, but that&#8217;s still &#8220;immediate&#8221; in most business timeframes.</li>
</ul>
<p>None of this is new to anyone who&#8217;s used Google AdWords before. But most small businesses aren&#8217;t even aware that you can even advertise on Google! So as I orient some clients to all this I&#8217;ll share my lessons.</p>
<p><strong>More details as I dig through the numbers. Any questions?</strong></p>

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