Daily SEO News

7 Social Media Predictions for 2009

2009-01-13T09:51:00.000-08:00

It's a new year, which means it's time to raise a virtual glass within your social network and toast your collective social graphs for a great 2009. Here are seven things to look for this year.

1. Social Media Continues its Rapid Growth

Social media will be propelled by the ease in which phones and netbooks are able to access them. Mobile devices will be the primary way people access these networks and tools.

People ages 35 to 50 will further adopt social media. These users activity levels will be less than those under 35 years old; primarily using social media to stay connected with those that they know or to reconnect with friends from the past rather than using the tools to meet new people. One exception will be growing their business network in sites like LinkedIn (see prediction 2).

The social media activity level of Baby Boomers is analogous to how senior citizens today utilize e-mail. Whereas Generation X all have an e-mail account and access it daily, these older users aren't all on e-mail and those who are access it only a few times per week.

2. Business Networks Surge as Economic Crisis Continues

Job seekers will look for every edge and contact available, and online business networks will be their primary resource. Integration points between sites like Facebook and LinkedIn will continue to be enhanced to make transitions for the user as seamless as possible.

This will help bring us closer to an interconnected Web rather than one that has been historically comprised of walled gardens and ghettos. This openness can already be seen on the music industry side with Apple recently announcing that all of their iTunes will be DRM-free.

3. Many Free Services Will Become Defunct

Sites and companies will learn it's difficult to make a profit, especially as banner revenue declines, and it will take some transition to figure out a better ad revenue model for the Web than banners. Don't be surprised if the leveraging of the social graph (i.e., online representation of our relationships) becomes the world's largest referral program.

4. More Traditional Broadcast Television Moves Online

Just as we've seen many people live without a landline telephone -- using only a cell phone -- we'll see households stop paying for cable and view what the Web has to offer via their Internet connection and hook up their computers to their high definition televisions. Keep in mind that YouTube already supports HD and the Democratic National Convention was in HD online.

5. Social Media Changes Offline Behavior

The openness of social media can often have drastic consequences in relation to jobs, relationships, etc. People will start leading their lives as if their mother is watching.

6. More Social Media Searches for Products and Services

People don't care what Google thinks as much as they do about referrals from friends. The technology is already available (e.g., Facebook Beacon) to track purchases online. Seeing what your friends purchased, as well as their opinions, is invaluable.

Unfortunately, the real adoption of this won't occur till 2010. Google has already recognized that their main competition isn't Yahoo, MSN and Ask; but Wikipedia, Facebook, and Twitter. Hence, a few months ago they launched Google Suggest, which allows users to rank and comment on search results they receive as well as view other's comments.

Don't be surprised if Google buys Twitter. After all, Twitter co-founder Evan Williams originally started Blogger, which Google purchased in 2003.

7. Marketing Budgets will Continue Shrinking

The financial downturn will encourage more marketing executives to turn to organic social media initiatives to drive awareness and interest.

All in all, 2009 looks to be a year of significant growth for social media. So if you haven't yet figured out how to incorporate a social media marketing plan into your business model, make it a New Year's resolution to do so.

Google Changes, Colorizes Favicon

2009-01-12T04:08:00.000-08:00

Google’s new fav icon (January 2009):

Google's new fav icon

Why the change? Google said in the past that the redesigned favicon reflected a “Simple, Playful & Unique Brand.” Has that changed? Maybe they changed it because some people really didn’t like the new favicon?

Want To Rank Tops In Google? Do YouTube Videos, Stupid

2009-01-09T08:49:00.000-08:00

The Forrester Blog published a small but interesting study on how you can improve your chances, by 50 times, of showing up at the top of the Google search results. Their tip? Utilize Google’s Universal Search by creating videos.

Not only does Forrester share statistics and analysis on how to improve your odds with videos, but they also share tips on how to improve your video’s chance at being the top video in Google web search.

Let’s first discuss the odds. The blog post showed that a video has a “11,000-to-1 chance of making it onto the first page of results.” If you compare that to web pages for the same keyword set, you only have a “500,000-to-1 chance” of getting on the first page. So for keywords that show video results in Google, you have a “50 times better chance of appearing on the first page of results than any given text page in the index,” reports Forrester.

How can you improve those odds? Well, use some of the tips Forrester gives on how to achieve that top spot for your video.

* Insert keywords into your video filenames.
* Host your videos on YouTube, and embed those YouTube videos into your own site. Google says its algorithms consider how many times a video is viewed, and any views embedded videos receive on your own site get added to the ‘views’ tally on YouTube. (And yes, nearly every video we saw Google blend into its results came from YouTube.)
* Optimize your YouTube videos by writing keywords into your videos’ titles, descriptions, and tags.
* Embed videos into relevant text pages on your site. The context provided by the text on those pages (which is hopefully already optimized for search as well) will help the search engines figure out what your videos are about.
* Also create a video library on your site, so Google knows where to find your video content. (Google Video Sitemaps can help with this too.) Write keyword-rich annotations for each video in the library.

Google’s Countdown To 2009 Promotes Products & Services

2008-12-17T01:02:00.000-08:00

Did you know Google has a countdown to 2009 calendar? It is available at google.com/countdownto2009/ and it basically is a dressed up calendar with ways to use Google for the holidays. Each day of the calendar has a new Google tip for the holidays. There is also a mobile version and it can be added to your iGoogle home page.

So far, Google has offered tips on using Google Product Search, using Google Docs for greeting cards, searching for scores, conversions, gifts, and many other services. It is a cute way for Google to promote their search services. Here is a screen capture of what I see on December 16th at the countdown to 2006.

Google Webmaster Tools Adds Settings Section & Enhances Crawl Rate Controls

2008-12-09T03:16:00.000-08:00

The Google Webmaster team announced three main things at their blog over the past day or so. The first we covered, was the new Google help discussions area. The second was adding a new settings link in webmaster tools to consolidate some features. The third item is enhancements to controlling your crawl rate.

Let me take you through the last two in more detail.

Google has moved four features to this new settings area. The features include setting your geographic target, controlling your preferred domain, opting in to enhanced image search and setting your crawl rate control. The crawl rate control will be discussed below, cause that feature was slightly changed. Here is a picture of the new settings page:

Google enhanced the crawl rate controls to let you either choose to let Google determine the best control rate or let advanced users pick their own crawl rates. Do note, like I said at the Search Engine Roundtable, some webmasters are reporting that they are unable to change their control rates. Here is a picture of the new AJAX slider you can use to change your crawl rate at a more granular level:

Free .EDU & .GOV Backlinks

2008-12-04T21:51:00.000-08:00

Obtaining high-quality backlinks is obviously the undisputed king in any SEO campaign. You need targeted backlinks with good anchors to really drive your rankings in the SERPS.

Everyone knows about spamming around do-follow blog comments on Wordpress blogs but what about getting links on coveted EDU or GOV domains?

EDU and GOV links have authority. The problem with gaining backlinks on GOV and EDU domains is the work it involves and is generally impossible to search out any webmaster on those domains for a link exchange opportunity.

Fortunately there are tons of EDU and GOV domains out there– we just need to find them, and Google makes this process faily simple.

Running the Google command site:.gov or site:.edu will tell Google to only show results from those two type of domain extensions. So, if I wanted to find Wordpress blogs on .edu or .gov URL’s I would run something like site:.gov wp-admin or site:.edu wp-admin. That will give you a few thousands Wordpress blogs to check out, but also try site:.edu blog or site:.gov blog or site:.edu comment.php, etc. for other blogs that may have comment forms enabled. Those searches bring up a few million results.

Ever wonder how blackhatters compete on the most competitive terms in the world (like Viagra)? EDU backlinks of course! (And lots of other techniques)

So I’ve located a blog on the Harvard school site, actually a student blog hosted by Wordpress MU. Wordpress MU is great and I will discuss it further in a later post but regardless I have successfully placed a link on an EDU domain — Harvard Law at that. (and a note to everyone, thay have the MU blog creation turned off unless you own a Harvard domain e-mail address.)

And that concludes this tutorial. Getting quality EDU and GOV backlinks just takes a little bit of imagination, and with patience you will soon get in to the groove. It may take a bit of frustration starting out but once you hit the jackpot you’ll be thankful you took the time!

Google 2008 Year-End Zeitgeist; Fastest Rising Searches

2008-12-03T21:59:00.000-08:00

Google’s official list of the most popular search activity for 2008, aka Zeitgeist, has yet to make its debut, but the search giant has been leaking out tasty tidbits of data to get us salivating for even more search data.

The fastest-rising search terms of 2008

1. Obama
2. Facebook
3. Att
4. iPhone
5. YouTube
6. Fox news
7. Palin
8. Beijing 2008
9. David Cook
10. Surf the channel

These queries have seen the most growth since 2007. It will be interesting to see which ones stick around for 2009, and compare scorecards at that point. Facebook, iPhone and YouTube are the most likely candidates, though Obama could prove to have some staying power. Sarah Palin, Beijing 2008 and American Idol David Cook are most likely to fall off the radar screen.

Holiday gift-giving with Google

In honor of Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2008, Google Base posted the early trends appearing in millions of searches for the most popular gifts so far this holiday season. In addition to the overall list of popular products, Google reported cold weather apparel including branded searches for “north face jacket” and “burton jacket”, as well as wacky searches for “ugly christmas sweaters” and “dog sweaters”.

Top gift / product searches overall

1. nintendo wii
2. wii fit
3. ipod touch
4. xbox 360
5. nintendo ds
6. ipod nano
7. uggs
8. nikon d90
9. zune
10. digital picture frame

The Google Holiday Shopping guide breaks down more popular gift categories on Google Product Search, including the Top 10 searches for Video Games & Toys, Winter Apparel and Specialty Foods. Bonus savings offers are being extended to shoppers who use Google Checkout at hundreds of partner retailers.

Do-It-Yourself trendspotting at Google

Until the official 2008 Zeitgeist is available, the research tools at both Google Insights and Google Trends are simple ways to look up the popularity of a topic (no matter how obscure), compare web search volume for different personalities or websites over the course of 2008, or a single day or month.

Yahoo Launches Search Assist For Image Search

2008-12-03T21:56:00.000-08:00

Yahoo has rolled out the Search Assist feature to Image Search. For example, a search for images on barack obama will return images within the actual Search Assist bar. Here is a screen capture:
To generate search assist image results, go to Yahoo Image Search and begin typing. If the query is popular enough and can be refined, Yahoo will show images within a different refinement category. So in the example above, the first image on the left, is a refinement option to see [barack obama family] pictures.

In addition, after you search, you can click on the little up arrow under the search box, to open up Search Assist. This feature, i.e. opening the search assist box after a search, is new.

Yahoo also said they will be launching Search Assist for Images on Yahoo.com soon.

Happy Thanksgiving & Programming Note

2008-12-01T21:34:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving Search Engine Land readers! Today, in observance of the holiday, we hope to not write here today. So make sure to tune in tomorrow for today’s search news and tomorrows.

To give you something fun to look at, I’ll post what I did at the Search Engine Roundtable, a collection of special Thanksgiving logos from across the search industry.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Google’s Logo:

Live.com’s theme:

Ask.com’s theme:

DogPile’s logo:

AOL’s logo (which is also animated):

FriendFeed’s Logo:

Search Engine Roundtable’s theme:

Cre8asite Forums Logo:

Live Search Launches Instant Cashback For eBay Purchases

2008-12-01T21:33:00.000-08:00

Microsoft just announced Live Search instant cashback rewards. This instant reward currently only applies to items purchased at eBay. If you make a purchase at eBay, using Live Search Cashback, you should see the rewards instantly in your PayPal account. Yes, you won’t have to wait 60 days to see the money.

Clearly, having instant cashback rewards with all their partners is something we would love to see. But for now, having eBay give you instant cash back is really nice to have.

What about all the past rewards pending 60 day approval via eBay? Well, I checked one of my orders and I currently do not see my cash back reward in my PayPal account. So I assume this won’t impact past orders.

This is one way to get users to trust the Microsoft Live Search Cashback program is to offer the rewards instantly. This is not exactly their response to the major distrust they earned over Black Friday, but it does help.

Microsoft in talks to acquire Yahoo’s online search business for $20 billion?

2008-12-01T03:32:00.000-08:00

Microsoft is in talks to acquire Yahoo’s online search business for $20 billion, reports The Sunday Times. But this report has been described as “total fiction” by Ross Levinsohn, one of the two key players who were to play a major role in the reported Microsoft-Yahoo deal, according to BoomTown . BoomTown says it has also spoken to top sources at Yahoo and Microsoft and all scoff at such a deal now taking place or that either side has been in any such discussions of late.

Under the talk proposal as reported by The Times, Microsoft would support a new management team -- led by Jonathan Miller, ex-chairman and CEO of AOL, and Ross Levinsohn, a former president of Fox Interactive Media -- to take control of Yahoo. Under the proposal, Microsoft would also provide a $5 billion facility to Miller and Levinsohn who would raise an additional $5 billion from external investors to buy over 30 per cent of Yahoo shares.

The talks with Yahoo involve Microsoft obtaining a 10-year operating agreement to manage the search business. It would also receive a two-year call option to buy the search business for $20 billion. That would leave Yahoo to run its own email, messaging, and content services. It is expected that the operating agreement would boost Yahoo’s income by as much as $2 billion per annum, informs The Times.

Yahoo Launches “Vertical Lens” Search Through BOSS

2008-11-30T21:11:00.000-08:00

Yahoo announced an expansion to the BOSS technology named “vertical lens” technology. In short, this allows developers build their own vertical search engines using Yahoo’s search technology, through BOSS. This new technology is replacing Yahoo’s old Search Builder tool.

When we questioned Yahoo as to why they dropped Search Builder for BOSS, Yahoo told us:

BOSS vertical search engine is more powerful. Not only it can support Search Builder’s functionality, it has the following features

* It gets “structured” content from customer sites to allow searchers to navigate and refine their searches.
* It gets proprietary content in real time; the content is searchable immediately
* It builds a vertical lens of the web for the customer and blends the results from this lens with the customer data.
* It customizes ranking based on customer needs: ranking can be recency based, popularity based, or social based

Personally, I have been a Google Custom Search Engine user, but I am very interested in giving Yahoo’s solution a try on some of my sites.

YouTube Defaults Videos In HD Format: But Forgets Embed Feature

2008-11-26T21:28:00.000-08:00

YouTube announced that all videos on their web site will now be in the wider format HD format, 16:9 ratio. The YouTube player is now 960 pixels wide, as opposed to the standard format of 4:3 ratio. 4:3 aspect ratio videos will continue to play in the wider format, but YouTube has added black borders to the right and left of the video, to fill that space.

YouTube has a help document describing how to upload better quality videos. It includes using MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format with MP3 audio and a video resolution of 480×360 or higher with a frame rate of 24fps or higher.

Below is an embedded version of me covering the news on video. Note, the default embed code still uses the old 4:3 aspect ratio. Why not give the new format or at least an option for it in the “customize” section?

Here is the default embed code, converting my 19:6 ratio to a 4:3:

Here is when I use code by a third party to make it in HD format

Google Page Rank - What Do You Know About it

2008-11-24T02:49:00.000-08:00

Whether you are a search engine optimiser, a web master or you simply want to know how search engines work, you need to know about Google page rank. This article explains how Google determines trusted sites and elaborates on some of the factors in detail including the PageRank algorithm.

Page rank, an introduction

Google uses the ‘page rank algorithm’ amongst many other factors to determine which web pages are displayed at the top of search results. Expressed in a range from 0 to 10, the algorithm essentially ‘confers’ ranking from one page to another. Thus, for example, if a page rank 6 page links to you and there are no other external links on that page your page potentially gets a page rank boost of up to 4.8 (only a maximum of around 0.8 of the page’s own rank can be conferred). The reality is that the conferred ranking is distributed across ALL links on that page so a page rank 5 page with 5 links on it confers at most 0.8 page rank to each of its linked-to pages.

In practice, page rank is something the webmasters tend to obsess about, frankly because it is one of the few visual measures of ranking provided by Google, other than of course the presence of a site at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs). Page rank is, in fact, a measure of . . .page rank. Many webmasters rigidly refuse to trade links with sites with lower page rank than their own, regardless of relevance. This is a mistake.

There are a good many page rank 0 websites that appear at the top of the results for relatively competitive terms. Equally some high page rank sites don’t appear for their target keywords. All of this indicates that, as you may expect, page rank is but one of many ranking factors in the Google algorithm.

The Google algorithm has developed over time and is far more complicated than it used to be. For example trusted sites will have higher search rankings and Google is known to have had teams hand reviewing high traffic and ‘major brand’ sites. The ranking that really matters is overall ranking in the SERPs. Over the last few years many methods have developed to improve a page’s rank. Today, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the practice of promoting a site’s overall search ranking by using a combination of various legitimate techniques.

Link Building

Google’s page rank and indeed your overall position is based on how well linked a site is. Link building is the process of creating (on your own site and on other people’s) relevant links to improve a page’s SERPs ranking. The more relevant sites that link to a site, the higher it will rank for relevant search terms. In contrast, having random or off-topic links to a site will not really improve its search ranking and may indeed harm it, particularly if you have returned or ‘reciprocated’ those links. This is not to say that reciprocal linking is a bad thing (contrary to the opinions of some in the industry).

Google still rewards on-topic reciprocal links provided that they are properly acquired. Decent, on-topic links with relevant terms in the link text or anchor text from legitimate sites should create sustainable long term ranking. The focus here is on relevance and the ranking of the other site in the SERPs — not on whether it is a PR5 site or not.

On-Page Content and Code Optimisation

Early search engines used to heavily rely on META tags - these were created by the web designer to describe their own site and write their own keywords. However since these are easily manipulated (and abused), modern search engines such as Google index or crawl pages’ content and determine their own descriptions and keyword relevance based upon on-page content in combination with META tags, keyword density, the use of heading tags and so forth.

Designing pages to contain only relevant content to a subject is thus vital for good SEO. Each page should try to be specific to a particular topic (and include relevant keywords) but of course link to other topics. Generally it is important to make the first section of text in a page concise and relevant to the content of the rest of the page. The importance of fresh, unique, regularly updated content cannot be overstated.

Google to shut down Lively by end of 2008

2008-11-21T04:11:00.001-08:00

Google has decided to shut down Lively , an online tool that allows users to create 3D (three dimensional) virtual chat rooms where they can invite friends and chat with them online. According to the company, Lively will not be available after December 31st, 2008. Lively was launched in July 2008.

“It has been a tough decision, but we want to ensure that we prioritize our resources and focus more on our core search, ads and apps business. Lively.com will be discontinued at the end of December, and everyone who has worked on the project will then move on to other teams,” Google has said .

Niniane Wang, an engineering manager at Google, had developed Lively as a part of Google’s 20 per cent project that allows the company’s employees to spend one day a week working on projects outside their day-to-day responsibilities.

Five tips for creating SEO friendly Flash

2008-11-20T04:30:00.000-08:00

Ready to optimize Flash content using SWFObject 2.0? Here are five tips to help you get started. But before you jump ahead, remember that while Flash accessibility programming has become the best means to get your Flash content recognized by spiders, the fact still remains that when it comes to website design for search engine performance, textual content still reigns supreme.

Include traffic-driving, keyword-based messages. Understand the keywords your target market is searching for, and feature them in the messages within your Flash content. If replicated in Flash replacement content, these keywords have the potential to drive traffic to your website.

Emphasize language over images. When deciding on your Flash design scheme, remember that while language can be replicated in replacement content, the same cannot be done for images. Therefore, whenever possible, leave your images out of your Flash content (you can optimize image files separately) and focus on content that can be replaced and recognized by engines.

Use videos that contain content that can be “replaced.” Customer-engaging video content with keyword-rich messages can now actually help stimulate search engine visibility if it is replicated in text form. Just remember that if your video primarily consists of dialogue, the “spoken words” must also be available in readable form to qualify to be “replaced” in text form.

Include links in replacement content, If your Flash content features links to other important parts of your website, make sure to include them in the Flash replacement content, making them visibile search engine crawlers.

Avoid spam tactics. Make sure the replacement content made available for search engines is an accurate representation of the Flash content that is made available for users.

Google SMS Search now offers internet like experience

2008-11-19T03:23:00.000-08:00

Google India has launched a newer version of its SMS Search service that allows users to SMS their query to 9-77-33-00000 at the cost of a regular SMS and get instant answers. According to the company, the new Google SMS Search service is available across all operators on both GSM and CDMA mobile phones across India.

Google claims that its new SMS-based search service works just like its internet search and can offer cricket scores, stock updates, Indian Railways train schedules, PNR (train ticket) status, horoscopes, movie show-times, latest news, flight status, weather information and facts & figures. Google SMS Search service can also work as a local business search, dictionary, calculator and currency convertor.

“No longer do you need to remember complicated strings to put before your query, you can search as if you are searching on Google web search – we will do all the hard work to understand your query and give you the best results on SMS,” Google India has said.

Google Hosting Time-Life Photo Archive, 10 Million Unpublished Images Now Live

2008-11-18T21:20:00.000-08:00

TimeWarner and Google have announced that starting today Google will make available millions of images from the Life Magazine photo archive. The vast majority (97 percent) of these images have never been seen by the public (they were sitting around in physical envelopes). These are hard-copy photographs that have been or are being scanned by Google and will be hosted by Google. They will show up in Google.com and Google Image search results. All these photos are available in high-resolution (5 and 6 megapixels).

The images will be free to use for “personal and research purposes” but will be digitally watermarked to prevent unauthorized or unlicensed commercial uses. There are links to appropriate contacts for those who want to use the images commercially.

The images are labeled by subject(s) and organized by decade and category. They can also be searched by photographer and date. In other words you can search for all images by a particular photographer in a particular year or decade.

Why would TimeWarner do this? The company merchandises the photography and there’s a link on every page to a Time page where people can purchase the image:

Today about “three million images” are present, according to Google’s RJ Pittman, and roughly seven million more will be added as they’re scanned over time.

The photos are accessible through a dedicated front door but are also integrated into the core image search index. Pittman said that working on this project for roughly a year has yielded benefits and improvements that will be integrated into Google image search as a whole. He added that Google is looking to make image search, including the interface, better and suggested that the Life archive represents something of a preview of how Google image search could develop over time.

Google isn’t monetizing these images specifically at the present.

Facebook launches new feature to remind users of upcoming birthdays

2008-11-18T03:24:00.000-08:00

Social networking site Facebook has added a new feature that can remind users of upcoming birthdays of their friends via an email notification. “If you opt in, you will receive an email on the weekend summarizing the upcoming birthdays of your friends for the next week,” according to Facebook .

“That’s good news for all of us who want more birthday information. It’s bad news for Birthday Alert and its clones that already do that on Facebook,” writes Michael Arrington on TechCrunch . “Birthdays are big business. Bebo founders Michael and Xochi Birch started their social network Bebo with a simple birthday reminder service. That service had 100 million users at one point and still brings in $4 million per year in revenue from e-cards and gift purchases. Bebo was funded in the early days from birthday reminder revenue.”

YouTube launches ad program to enable video creators promote their videos

2008-11-17T03:34:00.001-08:00

Google-owned video sharing site YouTube has launched YouTube Sponsored Videos , an advertising program that enables video creators to promote their videos and make it easier for people to find them. According to the company, YouTube Sponsored Videos is currently available only in US, “but we're working to bring it to other countries soon.”

The new advertising program has automated tools that allow content owners to decide where they would like their videos to appear, place bids in an automated online auction, and set daily spending budgets. Then, when people search for videos, YouTube will display relevant videos alongside the search results. These videos are labelled as ‘sponsored videos’ and are priced on a cost-per-click basis.

“Just as AdWords provides people with relevant, non-obtrusive advertising, we hope that Sponsored Videos will provide useful, engaging content, accessible to advertisers of all kinds,” Matthew Liu, product manager, YouTube, has said . “We think this is a great first step for offering users, partners, and advertisers search marketing solutions on YouTube.”

Search In Pictures: Yahoo Still Partying, Google Censorship & Yahoo Posters

2008-11-16T19:39:00.000-08:00

In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.

Yahoo’s Oktoberfest:

Fiesta Yahoo! Purple Power 2008:

Hot Yahoo Car:

Google Maps Censorship Protest:

Google’s Site Search Gets Faster; Yahoo’s Goes Away

2008-11-13T20:24:00.000-08:00

Google has upgraded its Site Search tool to give users more control over the frequency that Google spiders a site. But, if you think this is something that will help your site’s performance on Google.com search results, it won’t.

Site Search is Google’s on-site tool for individual websites; you use it to add a search engine to your own website. The new feature, On-Demand Indexing, lets site owners tell Google to index their site by clicking a button, rather than waiting for Google to do it on its own schedule.

A Google spokesperson tells us that this has no impact whatsoever on a site’s indexing and ranking on the main Google.com search engine:

“This feature allows site owners to update search results on their website On-Demand, by adding them to a special, separate index for their own site. Pages indexed with On-Demand Indexing do not impact the ranking or indexing of pages on Google.com.”

There’s more on Techmeme about Google Site Search.

Meanwhile, it looks like Yahoo’s site search tool, Yahoo Search Builder, has been taken down. It used to be available at builder.search.yahoo.com, but that URL now redirects to Yahoo Search. We have an email in to Yahoo, and will update this post as we learn more.

Gmail now offers voice and video chat facility

2008-11-13T04:05:00.000-08:00

Google has introducing Gmail voice and video chat that enables users to have free voice and video conversations right from within Gmail. According to Google, the new video chatting from Gmail is as easy as sending an instant message.

“We have tried to make this an easy-to-use, seamless experience, with high-quality audio and video -- all for free. All you have to do is download and install the voice and video plugin and we take care of the rest,” Google has said .

Six Things You Might Be Doing Wrong (And How to Fix Them)!

2008-11-12T19:46:00.000-08:00

I touch a lot of sites every month -- some small, some large, some that we built, and some that were done by outside firms. In doing a wide variety research into what is and isn't working for a small business Web site, I find the most frequent issues fall within the following six categories.

1. Duplicate Content

There are a few types of duplicate content. One of the most common I see is duplicate page titles and meta descriptions.

Many times this problem is actually created innocently -- repeating the brand name on each page as the page title or just reusing one meta description for all pages on a site. Search engines will see the duplicate meta descriptions and sometimes judge a page as duplicate before they get to the actual page content. This happens more often when there isn't very much supporting text on the page.

Beyond giving search engines the wrong impression about your site, you're missing a key opportunity to optimize this page for a search phrase that will bring good qualified traffic to your site.

Many times duplicate content isn't created on purpose. Many different software platforms might create duplicate content without you even knowing it.

If your site is built in WordPress, you could be innocently serving archive and category pages that duplicate content on individual post pages of your site. WordPress is a great platform, but a bit dangerous if not set up correctly. Do some reading, and find a forum like the Search Engine Watch Forums to help you customize your Web site to eliminate duplicate content issues.

2. Working Without Keyword Research

Keyword research is the foundation of good SEM. Don't handicap your rankings and CPC before you even start by guessing what keywords you should be using. This research should be done before building a Web site if possible. A variety of keyword research tools can give you insight into what your audience is looking for. Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery have free versions. Try the tools at SeoBook or the Google AdWords keyword research tool.

3. Landing Traffic on the Wrong Page

If you're advertising via paid placements it's extremely important to land your traffic on a page that is designed, or at least targeted, to serve the needs of the searcher. I see a lot of PPC ads and banner ads that land the searcher on the homepage -- a page that isn't set up to give that searcher what they're looking for.

For example, say I'm searching for "3-bedroom Hilton Head Rental." If that ad lands me on the homepage, then I have to go searching for something I've already told you I'm looking for. The most targeted page for that PPC ad should be the page that lists all three-bedroom rentals in Hilton Head.

4. Ignoring Link Building

If you're trying bring traffic to your site naturally (without PPCs), getting the right keywords on the right pages is only a portion of the job. Google's algorithm weighs incoming links quite heavily -- but not all links are the same.

If you're putting keywords on your pages but not building links to those pages with good link text, you're hurting your chances at ranking as a means to increase organic site traffic. There are a ton of different ways to link build. I recommend reading Search Engine Watch's Link Love columns by Sage Lewis and Justilien Gaspard every week for great tips.

5. Obsessing Over Rankings & Page Rank

These are two very different issues -- but because so many site owners obsess over both means they're linked together in this article. Being number one for a term isn't your goal -- sorry, but that's not where you should focus your energy. Having a PageRank of 6 is also nowhere near your goal.

Are you making money? Is the return on the money you're investing in search making you exponentially more money? Obsessing over the little green bar (which isn't updated very often) or the rank of your listing will give you an ulcer -- and position three can make you just as much money, and in some cases even more, than position one can. I'm not saying rankings are irrelevant -- because logically being in the top six on page one is your goal -- but if you're third and obsessing over first, then you're obsessing over the wrong things.

6. Set it and Forget it Mentality

It's short-sighted to think you can optimize your Web site and leave it be. PPC accounts and ads that are written and left to their own devices can cost immense amounts of money -- with no return if they aren't monitored.

There is no "magic formula" that allows a number one ranking if you follow these three rules and leave it alone. Some sites need higher keyword density -- pages optimized for very competitive keywords may need more quality links to achieve the traffic you need to make money online.

These issues are all fixable -- they're just the six I see most often. It's important to know the strengths and weaknesses of what you're doing and get the issues that are holding your online business back out of the way. SEM is an ongoing process that requires art and science -- invest the time to do it the right way.

Google Ad Planner now accessible to anyone with a Google account

2008-11-12T01:05:00.000-08:00

Google has made its free online media planning tool Google Ad Planner , which was till now available to select agencies, accessible to anyone with a Google account.

According to the company, Google Ad Planner helps agencies to improve their media planning process by letting them know unique users, page views, and other data for millions of websites from over 40 countries.

Google Ad Planner can also help users identify websites their target customers are likely to visit and define audiences by demographics and interests. It can also allow users to generate aggregated website statistics for their media plan.

Sify launches Sifymail WIYI powered by Google

2008-11-10T22:42:00.000-08:00

Sify Technologies has launched a new mail service called Sifymail WIYI (World In Your Inbox), powered by Google. Sify had earlier signed a deal with Google under which Google Apps suite of communication and collaboration tools, including email, chat and online documents, would power Sify mail and chat, as well as other applications using the Google Apps platform.

According to Sify, Sifymail WIYI will offer its users a 7 GB mailbox, faster downloads and effective spam filters. It will also provide simultaneous chat, advanced search, Sify Documents, Sify Spread Sheets and Sify Calendar all accessible from the inbox. A wide range of widgets and customizable windows will let users to personalize their inbox to become virtually their home page.

Venkata Rao Mallineni, head of portals and consumer marketing, Sify Technologies, has said, “With internet applications and tools evolving rapidly, we felt the need to add value to Sify users by providing a one stop platform for all their Internet needs.”

“The new Sifymail WIYI is a perfect blend of email and applications that will not just enhance the user’s experience with us, but benefit them functionally. For the first time ever, all this functionality is enabled from their inbox, making it their home page on the Internet,” Venkata Rao Mallineni has added.

Google pulls out of its proposed ad agreement with Yahoo

2008-11-10T02:28:00.000-08:00

Google has decided to end the ad agreement it signed with Yahoo in June 2008, following anti-trust opposition from the US Justice Department. The agreement, if implemented, would have given Yahoo the option of using Google to provide ads on its websites and its publisher partners' sites in US and Canada.

“We feel that the agreement would have been good for publishers, advertisers, and users -- as well, of course, for Yahoo and Google,” David Drummond, senior vice president, corporate development and chief legal officer, Google, has said.

“However, after four months of review, including discussions of various possible changes to the agreement, it's clear that government regulators and some advertisers continue to have concerns about the agreement. Pressing ahead risked not only a protracted legal battle but also damage to relationships with valued partners,” David Drummond has added.

Google Trends

2008-11-06T20:38:00.000-08:00

Google trends is a tool that enables you to see what topics are popular in Google search engine over the years. The information about user searches are stored, sorted and presented in easy to understand way.

Google trends is a great way to follow trends and user behavior over a long period of time. It’s also a good way to see when you should start prepare special holiday promotions, start a contest or introduce a new product.

Looking on user behavior may help you predict what is the best time to make the right move and when can you expect to gain the most from your actions. It also gives you a general idea on user preferences based on search volume of keywords.
Examples:

Valentines day - see how soon should you start promoting your seasonal products,

Firefox vs. Internet Explorer - check how fast did Firefox gained popularity over past years and became more popular than Internet Explorer.

Google Trends website: http://www.google.com/trends

What Can the World Expect from President Obama?

2008-11-05T21:33:00.000-08:00

Today is the first day of the next era in America. The U.S. has chosen as its President-Elect Barack Obama, after the most exciting and galvanizing U.S. presidential election in recent memory. The partying will continue for weeks - but now comes the rolling up of sleeves and the fulfilling of promises. If Obama puts his policies where his pledges are, what are the environmental consequences? There are so many challenges we face; here, we take a look at the green ones.

Appropriately for a campaign conducted with such enthusiasm, energy has underpinned everything - and no wonder, when fuel is becoming a problem in itself, never mind its complicated relationship to food. The United States of the next few decades needs to find ways of ridding itself of an unhealthy dependence on unsustainable energy sources - and to undertake a sustainable, ethical approach towards renewable ones. Here's how the new Democratic government intends to tackle this formidable challenge:

A reduction in national oil consumption by at least 35% (or around 10 million barrels a day) by 2030 - and by the same year, a reduction in national energy usage of 50%.

A new Clean Technologies Deployment Venture Capital Fund, supported by $10-15 billion per year for the next 5 years, and an overall investment of $150 billion into energy technology (and therefore green collar employment) over the next decade.

By 2025, a quarter of all energy consumed within the United States must be from renewable sources
Despite supporting the proposed Biofuel Security Act of 2006, Obama has publicly acknowledged the problems with biofuel. "Food comes first", he says, although it's not yet clear what this means in practice.

Both presidential candidates agreed on the need for nuclear power - however, McCain was in favor of a huge investment of 45 new reactors. Unimpressed, Obama has outlined his plan of supporting and maintaining existing plants, but with the emphasis on investing in new energy sources.

"And I will invest $15 billion a year in renewable sources of energy...to create 5 million new energy jobs over the next decade - jobs that pay well; jobs that can't be outsourced; jobs building solar panels and wind turbines and a new electricity grid..."
- Barack Obama, 27th October 2008

The other eco-issue of the presidential race has been pollution.
Both candidates agreed that failing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol was a major blunder - and were also of one mind that the government should invest in an emissions trading program. However, Obama differed from McCain in insisting that 100% of emission credits should be auctioned off, ensuring that all pollution is paid for by the people that produced it. (Something Al Gore is sure to like.)

On top of improving the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standard to 43 miles per gallon, Obama also intends to reduce vehicle greenhouse gas emissions by 5% in 2015 and 10% in 2020 - a statement he made at the Detroit Economic club (you can watch it here).

Overall, Obama's campaign pledge was to reduce national greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050 - a striking contrast to McCain's 60% below 1990 levels by the same date.

If these proposals become reality, they would be unprecedented. Support for them and for Obama has been remarkable. Carl Pope of the grassroots environmental group the Sierra Club - an organization notoriously at odds with previous governments - has declared his support for "the strongest set of positions any candidate has ever offered".

For a man allegedly from Krypton, Obama seems remarkably comfortable with the color green. His administration has 4 years to turn these visionary promises into something tangible, and that's the real challenge - but right now, there's plenty to be optimistic about.

Online matrimony in India may be worth $63 million by 2010-11

2008-11-05T03:31:00.000-08:00

US-based EmPower Research has published a report which states that the online matrimony industry in India may reach 21 million registrations with revenues of $63 million by 2010-2011. According to EmPower Research, the popularity of online matrimony services in India has grown mainly due to convenience and cost-savings.

The report, titled ‘A Web Partner for Life’, identifies the key challenges, such as online safety concerns among Indians and back-office, scaling processes that the Indian online matrimony sites could face while transforming themselves potentially into more powerful portals for lifelong services. The report also outlines how these challenges can be met and resolved.

Kyung Han, managing partner, EmPower Research, has said , “We see e-matrimony sites having an advantaged and much stronger position in India’s e-commerce environment. If e-marital sites can extend the trust gained by identifying a spouse/partner for a subscriber to many other, lifelong services, the e-matrimony industry may attain very strong, web loyalty among the Indian population. This is significant given the future potential of this market.”

The Need for HTML Knowledge in Link Building

2008-11-04T21:30:00.001-08:00

When you think about the skills it takes to do link development your first thought probably isn’t “coding” is it? However, as we see more template-based sites and sites administered by people who don’t have much coding knowledge gain authority, you’ll potentially want to think about paying a bit of attention to at least basic HTML.

As you may have gathered, particularly if you’ve been link building and needed to approach a blog owner, not everyone has a site because he or she is adept with code. Now, you will find some blog owners who’ve chosen a blog package for various reasons, people who are quite fantastic coders but simply wanted to set something up quickly, have ease of maintenance, etc. What you will mostly find, at least according to my experience, is people whose knowledge of HTML isn’t all that fantastic, which isn’t at all surprising, considering the fact that these blog systems have been developed for ease of use, even for the least technical beginners. They are the great equalizer.

Here’s the issue with this sort of thing: blog owners can be your bread and butter, at times, depending upon your industry, and there are cases when you are going to be the only person on earth capable of explaining to this person about how to insert a link to your site. Sounds easy enough, right? It’s not, actually. I’ll start by detailing a conversation that one of my link builders had with a very, very sweet blog owner who obviously hadn’t a clue about how to do what we wanted.

A link builder made contact with this blog owner who has a truly spectacular blog, the kind of thing that, if it’s in any way motivated by anything other than the simple desire to write and spread ideas, is simply undetectable. This blog, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being obviously done just to get rankings and/or traffic and 10 being done for the joy of blogging, would be a 10. Well, a conversation was started with my link builder, who happens to excel in the art of communication, and a deal was struck, with the link going live. Thus, the problem began…

The link was made live, as I said, but it was without a doubt the most obvious and horribly placed link that I have had the privilege to see. It stuck out like a flashing banner, only with less panache. We discussed how to handle this and another link developer actually went to the trouble of using Photoshop and a spray-painted arrow to indicate to this lovely blog owner EXACTLY where we wanted our link, so as not to appear too obviously “obtained” for a client. It didn’t hit home. The blog owner, not understanding HTML, couldn’t figure out how to do what we wanted.

And why would she be able to, anyway? This is a woman who has a blog because she enjoys writing about certain issues, not because she’s a coding genius. If blog software wasn’t so easy to use, she may never have started a blog. She isn’t alone in this regard, and it’s these types that can generate the best content out there.

Even on the sites that aren’t template-based, you can’t assume that you’re off the hook and that the site owner is code-savvy, of course. In the end, if you want the link and you want it placed in a certain spot, you need to be prepared to do things such as dig into the site’s CSS and HTML and figure out how to make it happen. Coding a link seems so simple, doesn’t it? However, let me assure you that there really are a thousand ways to mess it up. Even if you take the time to send over the code exactly as you’d like it, you can’t be sure that it will come out the way you want. As a link builder, you become the project manager of each link and it’s your job to ensure that it goes up and meets the requirements, whatever that takes.

Thus, my argument for knowing just a tiny bit about how to code…as you can see, it sometimes takes a bit more than simply telling or showing someone where you want a link. Some of your best sites are going to be run by people who will need you to hold their hand for the entire process, and if you really want the link, you’ll need to do it.

Google and Yahoo Revise Ad Partnership in Hopes of Winning Over DOJ

2008-11-04T19:52:00.000-08:00

Google and Yahoo have revised their search advertising partnership in the hopes of winning over the DOJ. Primarily, the deal has been reduced from 10 to 2 years and a cap has been placed that would restrict Yahoo to only being able to bring into 25% of their search advertising revenue from the deal with Google.

It's unlikely that shortening the deal will qualm the fears of advertisers. Robert Liodice, president of the Association of National Advertisers, which opposes the deal, told the New York Times. “If a deal can’t survive long-term scrutiny, what’s the benefit of allowing it for the short term?”. Still, keeping Yahoo alive second place competitor in the search market is ultimately good for advertisers. As Mike Masnick over at TechDirt wrote, "We're still waiting for a clear explanation of how this deal will actually negatively impact consumers, but some people still insist it will. For those who believe so, let's ask a simple question: how is this any worse than Yahoo disappearing from the marketplace? Because if the company doesn't do something soon that may be what we're looking at."

Google Confirms RSS For Web Search Results

2008-11-03T22:36:00.001-08:00

Google has confirmed for Search Engine Land that they’ll soon start offering RSS feeds for web search results. When it happens, the RSS feeds will be an extension of Google Alerts which currently only allow notification by email. The addition of RSS alerts was first picked up by Amit Agarwal who found it mentioned in an October 1st Wall Street Journal article where author Katherine Boehret wrote, “In about a month, Google will begin delivering these alerts to users via feeds, as well as emails.”

In an email today, a Google spokesperson told us: “While I can’t be more specific about an ETA, I can confirm the launch.”

Google Alerts offers email-only notifications on results from News, Web, Blogs, Video and Groups.

Google is currently the only major search engine not offering RSS feeds of web search results.

AOL Launches Local Events Search: When.com

2008-11-03T20:22:00.001-08:00

AOL is unveiling When.com this morning. It’s a local events site powered by Zvents. When.com deemphasizes the AOL brand but will become part of the “AOL Local Network,” which includes MapQuest, AOL Cityguide, AOL Travel, etc. There will also be an When.com widget soon.

When.com uses IP targeting to determine default location, but offers personalization when users register.

Zvents content is also integrated into MSN Cityguides. Yahoo has Upcoming, its user-generated events site. Google Calendar allows publishers to add events and allows users to discover/search for them. It’s not clear to me at the moment how widely that’s used, however. Users, publishers and venues can also add listings to When.com.

What’s interesting about Zvents, among other things, is that the site is trying to define “events” broadly to include local retail sales and other non-traditional event occurrences.

Google Going Down Under?; Times Selling About.com?; Latest Ad Outlook; Yahoo Offering ‘Deceptive’ Ads

2008-11-03T20:12:00.000-08:00

Australian media are reporting that Google recently sent a five-person crew to Australia to investigate the idea of building a data center there. According to Australian IT, some Google services cost more in Australia due to the need to route data to and from the U.S. and other countries. Says Google Australia spokesman Rob Shilkin: “While we’re investing in our Australian operations, we haven’t made any decisions about whether we’ll locate a data centre here.”

Gawker.com says the New York Times might be looking to sell About.com to help payback more than $1 billion in debt. The tip actually comes from Mahalo CEO Jason Calacanis, who told the This Week in Tech podcast, “They’ve been trying to sell About.com, from what I understand.”

It seems like every Search Biz these days has to include an outlook for online ad spending in the face of the global economic troubles, and this column is no exception. On All Things Digital, Peter Kafka recaps recent projections from several industry watchers.

On a very related note, Silicon Alley Insider reports that ad rates dropped 11% in Q3 this year. Particularly hard hit were music and entertainment, young adult, and social network sites. News and reference sites, on the other hand, saw a 36% increase.

And lastly, ITworld points out that Yahoo, by allowing publishers to block ads based on their level of “deceptiveness,” is essentially admitting that they allow deceptive ads — which are illegal in the U.S. The ads in question are ones that, for example, pop-up a fake Windows warning dialog box. The article includes comments from Yahoo and others, including FTC spokesperson Rick Quaresima, who says the agency would be “more concerned with the cases of deceptive advertising that could cause tangible consumer harm or consumer injury.”