Google launches 'Account Activity' dashboard

Google’s mission to become a hub for all online activity has taken another step forward with the launch of a new ‘Account Activity’ tool.

The opt-in service logs actions across all Google’s products and produces a password-protected monthly report of the data.This allows users to track how many emails they send and receive, search activity and how much time they spend logged-in from different locations.

A blog post states that knowing more about your own account activity will help people take stock of what they’re doing online and “help take steps to protect your Google account.”At the moment it looks like Gmail, Latitude and search are the only products incorporated into the dashboard, but the post above says that more services will be added over the next few months.

This is a simple add-on to Google’s existing services, and in truth, it’s simply opening up access to data it already tracks.After opting-in this morning I was immediately emailed a report detailing my Gmail activity dating back to February 28 of this year.

While the information isn’t particularly useful on its own, it's quite interesting from a productivty perspective and is easy to digest, so I don’t intend to opt-out.The benefit for Google is presumably that it highlights the range of services it offers, and encourages users to sign up for others within its portfolio - including Google+.

The company’s recent focus has centred around increasing sign-ups to G+, so that it can incorporate social data into search and maps.But the emphasis on getting users to sign in when using all Google products is bad news for website owners.Google now encrypts search data from users that are logged in, so referrals show up in analytics as 'not provided' - making it far more difficult to improve SEO by optimising content and landing pages.Encryption only took affect in the UK a few weeks ago, but the impact has already been noticeable.

By making it more attractive for users to be signed in through the introduction of the Account Activity service, it seems that the search giant isn’t planning to make things easier for those going against the Google grain any time soon.

What Is a Trackback

A trackback, also often called a linkback, serves to let bloggers know when others have linked to their posts on a website. Not every blog has trackbacks enabled, but the majority of bloggers appreciate this tool since they want to know when someone has mentioned their post online. A trackback also enables the person posting it to place their site's link on the blog they are referring to. While most people find trackbacks a good way to let other bloggers know that they have mentioned their post on their site, the downside is that it does enable spammers to get their own site's link listed on the blog.
Many bloggers make it a point to get as many comments and trackbacks as possible on their site. This is not only because it means people are actually reading the blog, but also because it results in links to their site all over the Internet. This, in turn, can drive more traffic to their blog, especially when placed on a site with related content. A trackback can also be beneficial to the person who posts it, as their site will then be linked in the list of those who have mentioned the blog. Thus, this tool is often helpful for both the person posting it and the writer of the blog.
Like many web publishing tools, trackbacks have a negative side, as well. For instance, they can create more maintenance work for the blogger, as he should remove old trackbacks that link to sites that are no longer working. This is because the blog's searchengine ranking may suffer if the list of trackbacks is full of invalid links. Another downside is that just about anyone can create a trackback to the blog, leaving their link behind. Not surprisingly, spammers often take advantage of this fact, linking to blogs that have little to do with their own content just so that their link is on the blog.
Due to these issues, some bloggers choose to either disable trackbacksaltogether, or change the settings on their blog so that each one has to wait for approval first. This can allow bloggers to ensure that only valid or relevant web authors can link back to their site. Web authors referencing a blog on the same platform that they are using often only have to add the link to their post, as it should appear as a linkback automatically. On the other hand, bloggers on different platforms may have to find the trackback link, which is usually at the end of the blog post, and then copy it. Either way, this tool can be beneficial for the bloggers involved when it is not abused.

Free SEO Tools for Website Analysis

 

Top 3 free online tools which will help you while doing website analysi

Woorank 

Site Trail 

Hubspot's Marketing Grader

Woorank:

Woorank is one of the best free tool for basic SEO analysis. Woorank team is putting their maximum efforts to optimize this tool. SEO Professionals who would like to know about any site in a single click can approach this tool without any doubt. One good thing is it’s always free and clean interface with no ads. Following are the couple factors this tool analyzes about a website:

• SEO Suggestions
• Visitor’s information
• Social Share data
• SEO Tech Info
• SEO Tags Data
• Link Evaluation
• Keyword Analysis
• Website Authority & Back links
• Usability & Security
• Tracking & Technologie

Site Trail:

Site Trail is another free SEO tool for website analysis. It’s little new compared to woorank. It’s also offering the same kind of features in woorank. However Site Trail team has few more additional features to their tool i.e. Hosting, Server, DNS Records & HTTP headers information. Following are the list of features it offers:

• Social Media Stats
• Basic SEO Data
• Visitors Analysis
• Traffic Rank Details
• Content & Linking Analysis
• Hosting & Server Info
• DNS & HTTP header Records

3. HubSpot’s MarketingGrader:

It will give little in-depth analysis of any website. This tool is able to recognize whether your site is a blog or not. It’s good to test one of your sites personally on this tool, so that you will have a better idea. If you are marketing professional then you will worth testing it. Listed below major features:

• Blogging analysis
• SEO Info
• Mobile Compatibility check
• Social Stats
• Analytics