Google/NORAD Santa Tracking About to Begin Again

The North American Aerospace Defense Command, otherwise known as NORAD is tracking Santa Claus's rounds this year, keeping up a tradition that has been going on for 54 years.

Norad has been working with Google for several years by way of Google Maps and Google Earth. Last year, they started using Google Analytics as well. Google is now sharing a video of last year's Santa tracking:

On the YouTube blog, Jeff Martin writes:

Oooh, it's almost Christmas! And that means that Santa is about to leave his digs at the North Pole to embark upon his '09 World Tour, placing presents under the trees of good little girls and boys all over the planet. Where will he be, and when will he make it to your house?

You can find the answer at www.noradsanta.org . You see, every year, NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, tracks Santa's journey from the time he lifts off from his Arctic village to his final stop in Hawaii at the end of a looooooooong night. You can join the ride at Noradsanta.org or try m.noradsanta.org if you prefer to do your Santa tracking on a mobile phone. You'll also want to subscribe to the NORAD Tracks Santa YouTube channel , which will contain videos of many of his stops around the world, all captured by NORAD's Santa Cam network.

Check out the related articles below for our coverage of Santa tracking from years past. If you go to NORAD's site, you can see a live countdown leading up to Santa's flight.

Have You Read This?

> Tracking Santa's Web Analytics

> Google Teams With NORAD To Track Santa

> Google To Track Santa With NORAD

Google Analytics API Gets New Features

Google has launched some new features for the Google Analytics API. These include support for advanced segments and 48 new metrics around goal performance, as well as goal configuration data.

"With advanced segmentation, you can look beyond your aggregated data and peer into the nuances of traffic and visitor activity on your site," says Nick Mihailovski of the Google Analytics API Team. "For example, the average time on site for all visits could be 60 seconds, but when you segment by country, you might learn that average time on site of visits from Germany is over 2 minutes."

Google has added two new ways to use advanced segments through the API including creating them on the fly by specifying their expression directly through an API query and using advanced segments created in the Google Analytics web interface through the API.

The following video shows how to work with goal configuration data in the API.

Google has also added 10 new dimensions to access custom variable data and each one that is used is available through the account feed.

Google has updated all of its documentation for the API, and is encouraging the continued feedback of users.

Have You Read This?

> Google Analytics Gets a Bunch of New Features

> Correcting Your Web Analytics Mistakes

> Google Adds Heavily Requested Features to Analytics API

You May Get More Traffic from Twitter Than You Realize

If you use Twitter or create content, you have probably figured out by now that it can be a great tool for driving traffic to your site. There are measures you can take to expand this if your content is not bringing in the Twitter traffic on its own.

Is Twitter a significant traffic source for your site? Comment here.

If you're not seeing much traffic from Twitter, there is a chance it's coming in anyway, and you're just not aware of it. For that matter, if you are getting a lot of traffic from Twitter, you may be getting even more than you thought.

Stan Pugsley, director of business intelligence for iCrossing says that nearly 70% of referral traffic from Twitter goes unmeasured, particularly if you are using web analytics tools like Google Analytics or Omniture.

"The problem is not with the web analytics tools, but with the Twitter applications like Tweetdeck and Twhirl that are not based in an Internet Browser," explains Pugsley. "When a user clicks through a link in a tweet, those applications do not register a referring URL that can be picked up by the destination website. It appears that they are coming directly to the site. According to TweetStats, only 31.7% of tweets originate from twitter.com, and those are the visitors that can be tracked back to tweets."

Pugsley suggests testing this for yourself, by installing a twitter app like Tweetdeck, installing the Live HTTP headers plug-in for Firefox, and clicking through the URL in a tweet, then looking at the referrer.

His observation about missing Twitter traffic stats is not a new one, but probably still a topic that gets overlooked frequently. Back in the summer, Danny Sullivan wrote a couple of articles for Search Engine Land tackling the subject. These dig in quite a bit further. If you feel like you are being shortchanged on your Twitter traffic, these are required reading.

As far as simply increasing your traffic from Twitter, here are a few tips:

1. Include some kind of Twitter/tweet button on your content.

2. Abide by this equation, or at least the principle behind it.

3. Make your Twitter presence known throughout your site

4. Use your Twitter presence along with your site on business cards, signatures, etc.

5. Actively engage on Twitter.

6. Tweet your own content. If they're following you, they must be interested in what you have to say (that doesn't mean to just Tweet ads and sales pitches. Tweet useful information).

7. Include ways to share your content on other social networks. It will often find its way to Twitter by other people.

8. Integrate Twitter into your other marketing channels (email for example).

I'm sure there are plenty of other tips that could go here. Feel free to share some if you have them.

Twitter is much more than a way to drive traffic, but when traffic is the goal, it certainly holds a great deal of potential. If you were unaware that you may be getting Twitter traffic that is not being counted as such, perhaps you will see even more potential.

Have you found Twitter traffic that wasn't being counted by analytics services? Talk to ArisYulianta and Friends... about it.

Have You Read This?

> Driving Traffic with Twitter

> An Equation for Getting More Traffic from Twitter

> Where Social Media Fits Into the SEO Equation

Google Integrates AdSense For Feeds, FeedBurner, Analytics

The desire to integrate products is strong at Google; it’s not hard to imagine that the company would eventually like to offer one great, big search/video/email/advertising ball.  And today, it took a tiny step along that path by rolling together some analytics products.

A post on the AdSense for Feeds blog announced, “If you use either AdSense for feeds or Google FeedBurner to track item clicks and also use Google Analytics, as of today, you will automatically start to see your feed item click analytics show up in Google Analytics with some additional information added to help you understand how distributing your feed with FeedBurner leads to traffic on your site.”

The post then continued, “Specifically, we will help you classify your links by tagging the Source as ‘feedburner,’ the Medium as the channel in which we sent out your feed such as ‘feed’ or ‘email,’ and the Content as the actual endpoint application in which the user viewed your feed content such as ‘Google Reader’ or ‘Yahoo! Mail.’”

More distribution endpoint labels are on the way, too.

Hopefully this update will help people earn a little extra money heading into the holidays.  At the least, it may simplify FeedBurner and AdSense for Feeds users’ lives a little, which would also represent a nice treat this time of year.

Have You Read This?

> Google Launches Analytics For Mobile Apps

> Correcting Your Web Analytics Mistakes

> FeedBurner/Google Alum Goes To Twitter

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