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This article explains why the proportion of "keyword not provided" visits to most websites is increasing, and gives you options for finding out what keywords people are searching for when they reach your blog.

Why the percentage of not-provided search visits to your blog has increased

If SEO is important for your blog, and if you therefore watch the Stats > Traffic Sources tab in your Blogger dashboard or your Google Analytics results, you'll probably have seen that proportion of your search-visitors whose keyword is "not provided" has gone up a lot recently, to be more-or-less 100% of your Google search traffic.   (In the Blogger Stats tab "not provided" isn't shown - but the number of visits per keyword is now massively less than the vists from Google.)

This is no accident: Google is now witholding the keywords that people use, and (says that) this to protect your visitor's privacy. The issue has been widely discussed in sites like SearchEngineLand.

Opinions vary, but many people believe that

"Not knowing keywords has big implications if you use data about what people search for to decide how to develop your blog." [tweet this quote].

For example,   I publish listings of the contents of old (ie graphical copyright expired) song-books in a particular niche on one of my blogs.  There are far too many songs for me to load the full text or sheet music of all of them. And this is a niche with lots of competition:   there are a zillion websites distributing song-lyrics (most illegally).  But by watching the search-terms that led people to arrive at certain pages, I can identify particular songs that people were looking for and not finding anywhere else (the so called "long tail" of search keywords). If these songs are now in the public domain, I can make a dedicated page for them, and share what I know - in many cases after doing more research and pulling together information from a range of different sources.    Not knowing the keywords that people use to get to the book-listing pages would totally destroy this approach.

What you can do about it

So far I've identified three alternative options for getting data about what my visitors are searching for.

Ask for user-provided information

I've used Google Docs to make a data-collection form, and invited my visitors to use it to tell me about songs they are looking for.

The advantage is that I can ask them for richer information than just the keywords, eg where / when they remembmer it from, multiple snatches of the lyrics, what style the music is, etc.

But the disadvantage - and it's a big one - is that it only works for people who actually get to my site and then go into the other page where this form is kept, and fill in the form. I don't want to go into details - but let's just say that I haven't been run off my feet!

Get data from WebMaster Central

If you have verified your blog in Google Webmaster Tools, then the Search traffic > Search Queries tab shows the queries that have caused your blog to show up in search results pages, as well as how many times this has happened and what position, on average, you had in these pages.

This is richer information than you get from Analytics or Blogger-Stats, which only tell you about people who actually visited your blog.

But the disadvantages are that data is only kept for 90 days, and it only shows the top 2000 keywords.   Both of these are issues for me - some of my song-book contents are seasonal - if something is being looked for now, then the moment (week, month) may have passed by the time that I've noticed the trend, researched the song and written it up to a standard that I'm happy to publish. So really I want to checking the logs for nine months ago, so I can research things that are likely to be popular again next year.

Get data from AdWords

Advertising campaigns are the one place where Google is passing the search-keywords through to back-end systems. And because of this, Adwords does have data about what your visitors are searching for - provided you've set it up to collect this data. To get it up:

Firstly, sign up for an AdWords account. You probably have to deposit $10 into the account to get started - but you don't actually need to set up any advertising campaigns or spend any money after that.

Then link your AdWords account to your Google Webmaster Central account.

Once this is done, Adwords will start collecting the search-keywords for your blog. To get at the data:

• Log in to AdWords
• Select "All Online Campaigns,"
• Make an empty campaign (if you haven't got one already)
• Go to the "Dimensions" tab
• Change "View" to "Paid & organic".

AdWords will display your stats, since you signed up and linked your account. This includes the top search terms that users got to your site with, number of clicks, number of queries and some other measures too.

I'm only just starting to assess how well this will for for my song-listing site - will update this post when I have more specific information about how well it works and whether I can get actionable results from it.

What other alternatives have you found?

Leave a comment below, and I'll expand this list as we find out more options for accessing keyword-based search traffic information.

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This article describes the Creative Commons search tool, which you can use to look for pictures, videos, music etc that are available for other people to use under a Creative Commons license.

What is Creative Commons

Previously I've described how copyright applies to bloggers, how you can protect your blog-content from copyright theives, and what you can do if they take you work anyway.

The focus in that series was looking after your own rights.

But rights always come with responsibilities. The details vary by country, but in general you cannot just copy other people's recent work without their permission - in the same way that they cannot copy yours.

Some people, though, are happy to give other people permission to use their work, often with certain conditions (eg you must including an attribution link to the creator).

Creative Commons is an easy, legal way for creators to give permission for things they create to be used by other people. It is a framework which offers "licenses" that creators (writers, artists, composers, poets, etc) can apply to their work to say that other people can make copies, and what conditions apply  (eg non-commercial use, only if you attribute me, etc)

To use it, authors, artists, etc don't need to register their work. Instead, they go to the Creative Commons website and get code / text to put with their published work to show what rules apply.

Then they can publish or upload their pictures, writing etc anywhere they want, and by linking to the licence the work is as protected as anything on the internet can be.

How to find pictures & music that are Creative Commons licensed

Creative Commons have a very useful search tool, found at http://search.creativecommons.org

This is not a search engine. Instead it is a front-end-tool that lets you choose:

• The keywords you want to search for (the search words)
• The type of license that you need (use for commercial purposes - yes or no, modify, adapt, build upon - yes/no)
• Which of the file host/search services to use (eg flickr, Google, Open clip art library - etc)

Once you have entered the search options, click on the source that you want to look in, and you are  taken to that site and shown the results of the search-query and options you entered.

For example, when I entered:

• "Christmas"
• Commercial allowed (because I wanted to make a picture to use in Blogger-HAT, where I have advertising)
• Changes allowed (because I wanted an image that I could use as the basis for another one, rather than exactly as it is now)

and clicked on Fotopedia, I was shown:



From here I could use the search tools in Fotopedia to refine my image-search and find just the right picture that I could use to represent a Christmas carol worksheet on my blog.

What sources are included

Today, the sources that are linked to from Creative Commons search are:

• Eurpoeana - media
• Flickr - pictures
• Fotopedia - pictures
• Google web - web search results
• Google images - pictures
• Jamenda - music
• Open Clip Art Library - images
• SpinXpress - media
• Wikimedia Commons - media
• YouTube - video
• Pixabay - images
• ccMixter - music
• SoundCloud - music

It wouldn't surprise me if this list grow/shrinks, as sites become more or less useful as sources of public-domain or creative-commons-licensed materials.

Things to watch out for

Creative Commons cannot guarantee that the results of searches that start in their tools will always be available for re-use: source systems may change their approach, items may be mis-tagged, content owners may change their mind, etc. So they recommend that you should always click-through to the original image in the source site, and double-check the license and attribution requirements there.

Also, some sites may allow you to link directly to the copy of the image on their site. this can be a lot quicker than making your own copy, uploading it and included it in your blog.  But doing this means that the image will not be used as the thumbnail-image for your post. And if the picture is ever removed from the original site - or its web-site address there changes - then the link in your blog will not work any more.

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Related Articles:

Bloggers and Copyright - an overview

Protecting your blog-contents from copyright theft

Taking action when someone has used your copyright materials

Thumbnail images - a picture to summarise each post

Adding a picture to Blogger

You can add a custom version of Google's +1 button to your blog, just like  Facebook's Like button.  It can go in under the title bar in the post-header or beside or below each post.  Or it can be a gadget.   And the "plus one" function can apply to  an individual post or your whole blog.   


[Updated Jul 2011 to link to the asynchronous version of the code.] 

What is Google's +1 button

+1 is Google's answer to Facebook's Like button - or at least that's what Google are hoping.

They first announced it in March 2011, and have now added it to the standard sharing buttons for Blogger.


The big difference between +1 and Like is where the results appear:

• Like shows up in counts in the Like button and inside Facebook in the feed from the person doing the liking.    
• +1 shows up in Google search results - it's still not clear if this is just in search results for your "friends" (however they're defined) or if it shows in search results for everyone, or how much influence it will have on search-result.  

Adding +1 if you don't use Blogger's standard sharing buttons

Provided you're willing to accept the disadvantages of editing your template, it's easy enough to add a customized Tweet or Facebook share button to your blog.

Adding a customised +1 button is very similar.   Just follow these steps:

1   Go to the +1 button configuration page Webmaster Central.

2   Choose the basic settings you want:  pick button size, annotation and language. 

So far, I've used the medium (20px) size, as it seems to fit best with the other share-items that I've added before.   You should be able to see it at the top of the page if you're reading this article through a web-browser.   Note that this option is slightly smaller than the default "standard" option.

Annotation is about how your number of +1s is "noted" in the button - choose the different options and watch what happens in the preview to see which one you want to use.  Or choose None if you don't want the button to show a count.




3  Click on Advanced options, and decide what you want to to apply the +1 function to:

• If you want to to put the +1 button where it can be used to on the individual post URL rather than your whole blog, then put some text like PUT-URL-HERE into the "Url to +1" box.   

• If you want readers to +1 your whole blog, just enter your blog's web-address (ie URL) into the "URL to +1" box.  
  (NB It may be possible to leave it blank in this case, but I'd rather specify exactly what URL to use, in case anyone hits +1 from an archive page or similar, which has a separate URL).

5   Copy the HTML shown.


The code provided is in two parts.  The first section is what you put into your blog whereever you want the +1 button to appear.   The second part starts with a comment:  "<!-- Place this tag after the last plusone tag -->".   This means that:

1. You only need to put the code underneath that line into your blog once, and 
2. The place to put it is immediately after the last time you put the +1 button code into your blog.  Iif you only add the button once, then put after that time.   

6   Add it to your blog in the same way that you would add add any other share-this-to-whatever social sharing button, except --- if you want the button to recommend individual posts not the whole blog, then before you save the change, replace the PUT-URL-HERE part of

href="PUT-URL-HERE"    (or whatever text you used)

  with

expr:href='data:post.url'

What your viewers will see:

Visitors who see your blog in their web-browser (not through an RSS feed reader) will see a new button wherever you choose to put it.   (People who read your blog thru feed aggregators, or by email subscription, won't see it.)


When someone clicks the button, what happens depends on whether they are logged in to a Google account at the time, and whether that Google account has a public profile.



I'm not even going to try describing all the options possible as yet (or this will never get published!) but you are welcome to try the one at the top of this article to see how it works

Later on, as the button starts to be used enough to provide meaningful data for Google, potential viewers who see you site listed in Google search results will start to see counts of the number of times that other people have "plus-one'd" you in their search results.

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Related Articles:



Putting a Share this to XXXX button onto your blog

Advantages and disadvantages of editing your template

Putting a "tweet this" button on your blog

Connecting your blog and the social networks

Understanding Google accounts

This article is about changes made to Google's custom search engines made in June 2011, and the implications for Blogger users who have been using the iframe option to show search results inside their blogs.


Previously I've explained how to make a Google custom-search engine for your blog,  This is particularly useful for AdSense publihsers, because it lets them have a share of the revenue from the advertising displayed inside Google search results.


As a result, Blogger users who used the CSE i-frame display option need to upgrade to one of the new displays.   This can be done now - it's not clear how much longer the iframe-based code will work for.

Also, Blogger users who don't currently have a custom-search in their blog but want to install one have some new options to choose from, as described in the New CSE Display Options.


What's happened for existing Custom Search Engines

If you already have a Custom Search Engine (CSE), you manage it  by logging in to the CSE control panel. If you have been using the iframe option and you go to the look-and-feel tab now, there is a new message like this:

Deprecation warning: The Iframe option is deprecated. We recommend the "Two page" or "Results only" layouts in the Search element as the new options. Please refer to our developer guide for a complete list of layout options.

"Depreciated" is web-developer speak for "we don't like this, and one day we will stop supporting it and wll do some new feature that makes it break".    In short, "we don't apprecaite this any more".

In short, the new message is saying that the iframe option will work for now, but you will need to change to use something else sooner or later.


New CSE results display options

Instead of the iframe option, Blogger users need to choose one of the options that are based on Google web-elements.   Choose Search-element under Hosting Options and you will be shown the new display options, which are:

• Full-width - The search box and search results take up the whole width of the place(post, page or gadget) where you put the Search element.

• Compact - Like the full-width option, this takes up the the entire width of the page or column, but the results section shows fewer results, so it takes up less vertical space. Google say that "this option is optimized for mobile devices, so it works well on Android, iPhone, or Palm webOS devices."

• Two Column - The search box and the search results section are in places in your webpage, and to leave the search results section, a user must click on the X icon next to the search box.

• Two Page - The search box and the search results are placed in two different places (posts, pages or gadgets).  In this option, the search results section also has search box, so visitors can submit further queries directly in the search results page.

• Results Only - Search results are shown in the place (post or gadget) where you put them - but Google CSE doesn't give you a search box, you need to make your own.

• Google-Hosted - CSE gives you the code for a search-box, and you put this into a post or gadget.  But then someone clicks search, they are taken to a Google-hosted webpage outside fo your blog, which can be opened either in the same window or in a new window.

Google have provided examples of each layout option.


How to install these into blogger

Follow these steps to choose one of the new display options, for either a new or existing Google Custom Search Element that is used in Blogger:

1)  From the Custom-Search-Elements, choose Control Panel, and then choose Look and Feel.

3)  Scroll to the bottom of the page, and click Save and Get Code



How well do each of the options work with Blogger:

Full-width and Compact:

• You need to put the search-element into a gadget that is visible the whole time, or
• Searching your site becomes a two click process (on click to get to the search box, one to run the search), which will confuse some users.

Two-column:
This option does not currently appear to work with Blogger (at least not when I tested it under Firefox 4 / MS Windows XP)

Two-page:
Inside Blogger, this appears very similar to the way that the iframe-results display worked:   to install the code, you need to say what page or post the results will appear on, and then you are given specific code to put into each of:

1. The place (gadget or page or post) where the search-box goes. and
2. The place (gadget, post or page) where the results go.

I haven't fully decided, but it's likely that this is the option I will use for the Blogger-Helpers-Search Tool.

Again, inside Blogger, the results-only option is very similar to the Two-page option, with some key differences:

1. There is no search-query bar at the top of the place (post, page, gadet) where the results are displayed, and
2. You need to make your own search query form and to call the search from it.

It's very likely that I will use this option for several of my other blog-sites, where the search is always called from a gadget:   because the gadget will continue to be shown on the search results page, I don't need to put a search-form into the results.

NB  Having to make your own search-query may seem difficult, but there is a very simple way to do this, by using CSE itself to build the search-box code for you:

• Choose the two-page option
• Enter the URL of the post or page where you want the results to appear
• Click Save and get code
• Copy the code that you are told to install into where you'd like the search box to appear.
• Paste that code into the appropriate gadget, post or page
• Go back to the Look and Feel tab in CSE
• Choose the results-only option
• Click Save and get code
• Copy the code that you are told to install into where you'd like the results to appear.
• Paste that code into the gadget, post or page where you want to put the search results

Google-hosted
I have not investigated this option, because I want to have the search-results right inside my blog.

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Related Articles:



Putting a Google Search Engine into your blog

Setting up AdSense for your Blog

Blogger-Helpers-Search-Tool - a customised search of high-quality sites

Installing HTML into your blog

This article is about adding a Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) to a blog made with Blogger.  However much of the information is relevant to putting Google-CSE's into other blogs and websites also.

Search vs Custom Search

Blogger provides a search gadget that you can add to your blog the same way you add any other gadget.   This works well, provided your blog is public, and you have allowed Google to index it:
Old interface:  Settings > Basic > Let search engines find your blog = Yes.
New interface:  Settings > Basic > Privacy - edit > Let search engines find your blog = Yes

However if you want more control over how the search in your blog works or if you are an AdSense publisher and want to (potentially) earn revenue from ads on the results page then you need to use a Custom Search Engine.  (Or some other non-Google search engine might work too - but it's not what I'm covering in this article.)

A Custom Search Engine (CSE) is like a specialised widget:  you log into the CSE-editor and set up the search options, and then are given some code to put into your blog.   Setting up the options and putting the code into your blog isn't hard, but you do need to do a few specific steps to make sure the code you are given that works inside Blogger.

If you use a CSE, as well as getting a share of the AdSense earnings, you can also customize the search, eg by searching more than just the one site, turning auto-suggestion on, modifying searches with additional keyworks, adding refinements, changing the layout of results, etc.



Creating your Custom Search Engine

Follow these steps to make your own search tool, and install it into your blog.

Log in:

1  Go to Google's custom-search-engine application

2  Log in with the Google account that owns the blog

You can transfer a blog from one Google account to another one.   But there is not currently any way to transfer ownership of a CSE between Google accounts.   So if there is any chance that you might want to hand the blog over to someone else in the future, it's a good idea to make sure that items like this are owned by a Google account that can go with it.

3  Click the Create a Custom Search Engine button (currently a very large button near the top right of the screen)


Start your CSE:

4  A simple wizard opens, to help you create the CSE.  Fill in these fields on the first screen:

• Name - what you will know it as

• Description - describe what it's about (mostly so you know later on, I think)

• Language - if your blog isn't in English, it's important to change this to the correct language, so that the search works correctly.

• Sites to search:
  
  Enter your blog's URL.  
  
  Put  www. at the beginning, and  /* at the end (this says to search all of your blog, not just the home page) . 
  
  Example, the sites-list for the search on this blog is www.blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/*

• Edition - unless you are willing to pay $US100/year, you need to select Standard edition. 
  
  This displays Ads-by-Google on the search results page.  But if you are an AdSense publisher you can link these ads to your account and earn revenue if they are clicked on.

5  Read the Terms of Service, and if you are happy with them tick the box and press Next.   One important rule (when this post was first written) is that Google needs to be the only search-provider on your site.   I don't know how strict they are about this - and I'm not about to put an Amazon search widget onto one of my blogs to find out.

6  Choose a Style

7  Test the search:

• Enter a search-term

• Click the Search button

• On the screen, check that the search looks and works ok.   If not, search for words from a post entered several weeks ago, in case Google is behind in indexing your blog.

• If necessary, go back and make changes.

You can choose different themes for the search results without re-running the test-search:  just click a theme and wait a second or two for the screen to re-draw. 

8  Create the CSE by clicking Next

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Customize your CSE:

9  Click any of the options in the list to go to the CSE Control Panel for your Google account.   In this Control Panel:

• The Basics and Sites tabs have a little more information than was in the set-up wizard, but you do not need to change them

• Refinements and Promotions let you add extra functions to your search.  They are not needed for a standard blog-search.  Refer to Google's documentation (available from the tabs) for more about them.

• Synonyms lets you upload a customised set of word-combinations that should be treated as equivalent in your search. 
  
  For example, in Blogger-hints-and-tips if I always use the word "gadget" in posts, it would be sensible for me to upload "widgets" and "page elements" as synonyms since they mean the same thing, and are terms that people are likely to search for.  However even though it would be sensible, I haven't actually uploaded this list, and the custom-search here seems to work well enough.

• Autocomplete offers searches similar to the one your reader (appears to be) typing:  by default it's turned off, but if people who search your site a used to standard Google search (which now has it on) then it may be good to turn it on. 
  
  You also have an option to manually include or exclude certain auto-complete patterns  could be useful if your blog is in a niche with very specific terms for which the standard auto-complete option is totally wrong.

• Look and feel:  this is is essential for custom-searches that are to be used in Blogger.
  
  Firstly, you need to choose a layout:   I've described the options for CSE screen layout for people who needed to convert existing CSEs to the most recent layout options, but the notes there will help you see what layout might be right for your blog.
  
  Second, under Choose or Customize a Style, you may choose a style:  by default it's set to the value you picked in the wizard.  There is also a Customize button, and this let you edit a number of features including the colours, how the Google brand is shown, and whether or not a logo is shown at the top of the search results.
  

• Make Money:
  
  If you don't already have an AdSense account, you can apply for one from here.   Because you will be using AdSense for Search, rather than AdSense for content, the rules and processes are a little different to those for joining AdSense for your blog.
  
  If you have an AdSense account on the Google account that's making the CSE, then this connection is easy - just turn it on. 
  
  If your AdSense account is associated with another Google account, then you need to make the connection by entering the Google Account ID and certain other information that you've previously associated with the account, like phone number and postal code.:
  
  
  

Install:

10  Once all the customization is done, choose the Get Code tab.  Copy the HTML that is shown, and install it into your blog - either into an HTML gadget, or into a Post or Page.

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Related Articles: 



Putting HTML from a 3rd party into your blog

Transferring a blog from one Google account to another

Setting up AdSense on your Blog

Showing image-only AdSense ads in your Blog

Finding a picture's URL in Picasa-web-albums.

This article introduces the "Blogger Helpers Search Tool", which lets you search of a select list of blogs and websites that are known to provide excellent advice about using Google Blogger.  


The "Blogger Helpers Search Tool" (BHST) lets you search within a selected group of English-language websites that give excellent help and advice about Google Blogger.

You can find it by choosing "Search Blogger Helpers" from the menu at the top of this page.

Why?

There are over a dozen "blogger tutorial" websites and blogs that I regularly follow using RSS - because they're a good way to hear about new ways to use Blogger, and what's happening with other related products.

And even though Blogger-Hints-and-Tips is also about Blogger, the sheer range of

• Features in Blogger
• Ways to combine Blogger and other tools (eg Facebook, Twitter, Google Docs, etc etc)
• Levels of experience and ability to understand "how to" articles

means that no one can possibly know enough to help with everything that can be done with Blogger.   So I see the people writing these other blogs as colleagues, not competitors.

Also, when I'm solving a problem in my own blogs, I often think "Ahh, yes, I read something about that".   But often I can't remember if it was Chuck in The Real Blogger Status, or GreenLava in Blogger Sentral, etc, etc.

Putting these ideas together, I created a Google Custom Search that applies all the power of Google Search to a select list of blog-sites that I've chosen because of the quality advice that they give.   I set the custom-search up yesterday, then applied the advice in Blogger Sentral's recent article about putting the search results in a page, which looks far better than the old way of showing them in a standalone page hosted by Google.


Who's on "The List"

To start with, I've put in BHAT and the helper blogs listed under "Recommended Blogger help sites" on my sidebar, because these are the ones I consult most often.

I plan to add more helper blogs to the list over time.  I haven't written down all the guidelines for what's included yet, but to start with, I'm looking for sites that:

• Show the date when an article was published or last updated   
• Are in good-enough English  (some helpers speak other languages too)
• Explain things well enough that I want to subscribe to see what they're going to write next.

Of course I cannot guarantee that the search-results are all correct and up-to-date:   as with any Google search, you must carefully assess the results and judge if they are good enough for you.


To see if a particular site is included:

Use the tool to search for

site:YOUR-SUGGESTED-URL

Because there are no keywords, the results will list all pages on the site that that Google's index currently  knows about - if the site is on the list.

If the results say "Your search - site:YOUR-SUGGESTED-URL - did not match any documents", then YOUR-SUGGESTED-URL is not currently in the search-list (or Google hasn't indexed it - this is unlikely, except if Google has banned a helper-site).   


To suggest a site to include:

Leave a comment below, giving the name and URL of the site, and a few words about why you think it should be included.  

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Related Articles:



Blogger Helpers Search Tool

Setting up a custom-search for your blog.

RSS:  why it matters

Giving your blog a search-box

Linking blogs and websites