Using web analytic data is becoming an essential part of a media agencies role. Although aesthetic considerations have to be a large priorty the project team should also remain focused on their data. Data that is used to its full advantage can often leade to vast improvements in the end users overall experience.

Imedia connection have recently published an interesting article on this very subject: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/20964.asp

The four key questions you can answer using your data are:

1. How do your visitors arrive?
2. What are visitors looking for?
3. Where are visitors landing, bouncing and viewing?
4. What are your website's trends over time?

Get these right and you're onto a winner.

It's fair to says IIS7 has some differences when compared to IIS6 (Well, Duh!)

The one I found most difficult to get my head around was the Wildcard Handler Mappings.  Traditionally, we wrote the handler in .net, or used the global.asax file to map the requested re-written URL to a pgae in the application.  IIS6 had the option to specify whether or not the file exists.

For example, you request http://www.creative-jar.com/News.  There is not physical file called News in the root, and even if there was, there's no extension on the file in the URL so IIS wouldn't know which dll to map it to, generating a 404 beacuse the file isn't found.  So, you set the WildCard handler to NOT verify that the file exists, before passing it to the handler to do it's magic

It's this Verify File Exists option that's missing in IIS7, causing the 404 to fire before your handler even get's a bite of the apple.

I found a good post on the subject here.  It explains the extra steps you need to get IIS7 not verifying files in your web application, instead just passing the whole request to your app and let it carry on as normal.  The post links through to an open-source UrlRewriting HttpHander called UrlRewriter.NET which has such a simple setup, it's untrue.  It currently uses a section of the web-config to work out it's mappings but, being that it's open-source, you can change it to collect from wherever you like

enjoy :¬)

Stumbled across a great feature for ecommerce/portal/information websites recently.

In a nutshell, if you are using Firefox or Internet Explorer, you probably have a search box in the top right-hand side of your browser. In which case you can add your site to the list of sites that this search box will search... So instead of defaulting to live.co.uk or google.co.uk your search could also encompass a variety of websites.

A simple explanation can be found here: http://remark.wordpress.com/articles/quick-architecture-extending-reach-with-a-search-provider/ 

This functionality uses OpenSearch technology which has been pushed by Amazon/A9/Alexa for a few years - www.a9.com

[EDIT]

Combine this with the new features of the next generation of browsers, and you've got some pretty useful tools http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/09/15/what-s-new-for-ie8-search.aspx

So google have released their new browser, and it's based on a combination of Safari and Firefox. Definately worth playing with, it's lightweight which is a surprise but you quickly miss alot of features available in trusty old Internet Explorer or Firefox.

Download it now, you know it's going to have some audience and is going to have to feature in all testing that is completed. You also get a an install of google gears in the background, so make sure your happy about that before downloading! Nothing like a bit of freeware to help your computer run quickly!

If you want to understand online advertising or simply want to understand who does what in the world of online advertising, then read the following three blog posts. A very easy to read and comprehensive guide to online advertising, relevant to Google adwords, Live Adcenter and Yahoo Advertising, and probably a load of others that exist.

Online Advertising Business 101, Part I - The Online Advertising Value Chain

Online Advertising Business 101, Part II - How does adserving actually work?

Online Ad Business 101, Part III - Ad Networks

Now having read these posts, it's time to start an online advertising campaign, or get someone who knows what they are doing to run your Pay Per Click campaign for you!

A very interesting video on new Live search features, at time of writing not available in the UK (only in the US). Well worth getting your ecommerce SEO up to speed to be able to be part of these features.

While browsing through the RSS feeds, I came across a nice resource of SEO and marketing bits.
Have a look through:
http://blog.seoptimise.com/2008/07/78-essential-search-engine-marketing-seo-resources.html