User search block / Remember me?

NameDriver · Feb 8, 2006

Hi guys,

Just a couple of updates. That are not major but not insignificant either

The login will soon have a "remember me" thing, which is effectively ready, but tech are having problems with... yup, AOL again! You gotta love AOL, operating in their own little Internet Universe. Anyway, I'm told that will be live later today.

Something I find more exciting is the user search function. I'm sure you're by now aware of the ability to see the user searches on your domains (Settings / Click on folder / Click on domain with traffic). We've now added the number of hits as well as a check box.
This is effectively a 'passive' tool rather than an 'active' one. By that, I mean you can now select which searches don't appear on the page if there is something you don't want something up there. Tech are implementing a little box at the bottom so you can also see the ones that do appear on the page, though the searches which appear highest on the list are most likely to be up there on the page.

We have only allowed this for accounts which have been pre-screened by us. I believe this has been done for most of your acconts, but if you cannot see the check boxes, send me an email or PM and we'll look into it.

Have fun. Any comments, requests etc. welcome as always.

Ed

Rikkers · Feb 8, 2006

Hi Ed,

I saw this Tuesday & have spent a couple of hours housekeeping with it since then.

I assume that the most "productive" searches are placed at the top, regardless of the number of hits, using the secret namedrive recipe?

If thats not the case I'll have to spend another couple of hours putting it all back again!

VisualDigits · Feb 8, 2006

Finally, I'm tired of typing in my email and password all the time. If it doesn't work with aol who cares. A professional should move away from aol.

droplister · Feb 8, 2006

firefox remembers it for me

good simple addition, sometimes its the little things that make a big difference

NameDriver · Feb 9, 2006

Hi Rikkers and everyone.
I thought for extra clarification, I might as well cut and paste a post from a forum elsewhere regarding our related searches. Should help to make things a little clearer. Enjoy...

I can appreciate that our related searches and the stats associated therewith may be somewhat confusing. You'll find that some searches with fewer hits will actually appear higher up the list than others. This is because the position in the list is determined by our tech's own combination of hits / clicks / behaviour on the site etc. Generally we try to make it that the link which is performing best is highest-up the list as this is obviously the most-cherished search.

Here's a quick RS rundown. RS is ND speach for Related Searches. We try to reduce everything to two letters to help people understand us more. My name fits perfectly into this pattern...
"
The RS on your domains are generated in four ways:

1. If you set no category or keyword (i.e simply list the domain with NameDrive), your domain will start out with 12 'standard', popular, RS (such as 'cheap flights', 'jobs' etc.)
2. If you select a category or a category+subcategory, this will set four highly-searched, strong PPC, relevant links as the first 4 RS. The further 8 will be the top 8 'standard' searches.
3. If you select categories and input a keyword, the remaining 8 RS after the four category-generated searches will be generated by the keyword. These searches can be seen by clicking the magnifier.
4. When users click one of the searches on your domain or search for something in the search box, these are placed on the list of RS. The more searched / clicked the term is, the higher it appears on the list.

The searches which appear as 'user searches' on this page refer to the searches made by visitors to your domain - both in the search box and by clicking the related searches. They can be removed by using the check boxes next to each term.
RS which appear on your domain but not in the list above can be changed either by selecting a new category or inputting a new keyword.
"
Taken from a note which will be posted at the bottom of that settings page.

As I said this yesterday, this is essentially a passive tool - mostly for removing unwanted RS - be they offesnive (though we have a very strict adult filter - sorry for all those with Essex-related domains) or trade mark violations. So if you have diesel.com and you want to keep it clothes-free, then you can block anything which crops up. This doesn't stop people searching for the term in the box, but it means it won't appear as a link on the page.

If you want to be 100% safe for a name such as diesel.com and don't want to have to check every 24 hours if someone's searched for a new clothes-related term which you haven't blocked yet, then you can always supply us with 12 related searches which you would like 'fixed' on the page. These will never change no matter what you or anyone else does. You can also supply us with terms per domain which you would like to be blocked.

Some of the things you find people looking for on your domains can be quite disturbing. This tool really does come into its own in this situation though. For low-traffic domains, you sometimes find that someone comes to your domain domainparking.com and searches "knitware" for some obscure reason. If they then subsequently click an ad, then you get that stuck on your page. Alternatively, you have someone who comes onto your page and searches "Amusing Gorilla Stories" and, though it has nothing to do with the domain, people who come there think "hmm, interesting" and click on it for a laugh. Fine, it's good for the CTR, but not great for the relevance of the domain. Now you can remove these if you like.
I'm not trying to say that auto-optimized related searches are a bad thing as they've had a great effect on the CTR on our system, but you now have the ability to get rid of the rogue elements without contacting us.