The Search Engine Blog

Archive for December, 2006

It took me a while to blog this one, but Blogger is officially out of beta. Or at least we hope the long standing bugs are gone. Having been frustrated with the length of time it took to get Blogger out of beta status and make any long needed improvements, I moved to WordPress some time ago. For those of you still using Blogger, get out there and see what’s new. Gee, maybe Google made it search friendly? Huh?

Blogger Buzz: The New Version of Blogger

There is a lot of hype over Wikipedia starting a people oriented search engine. This is solely because of the success of the online encyclopedia, but can lightning strike twice? There are many who think so. Of course all the hype is over blown as usual. I doubt this will knock Google and Yahoo! into kingdom come, but it will keep them on their geeky toes.

Warning…the link below has way too many ads and popups. The Times has a lot to learn about desired user experience. Hey morons….stop clicking on the ads and they won’t be motivated do this!

Website design – tools for web designers on Squidoo
Founder of Wikipedia plans search engine to rival Google – Industry sectors – Times Online Wikiasari

Here’s a great article that again repeats a standard rule. This is one most people think about too late. SEO should be a part of the planning of any site, not an after thought. All too often I’ll have a customer show me their new plans days before a site is suppose to launch only to have to tell them that they’ve got to redo a lot of work. Include SEO in the planning and avoid delays and possible loss of ranking.

Should SEO be a Standard Task in Web Development?

Here is a nice write up explaining what CSS, Ajax and Web 2.0 are and how they can impact search listings. The short of it is to follow some really basic rules. Have text links to your other pages, design for the user first, and don’t do stupid code tricks. Ajax doesn’t seem to help a site much in rankings, but users love it making this the “evalutate it before you use it” tool.

Web 2.0 Technologies and Search Visibility

Want to see the last time Google spidered your site? Check out…

Google Webmaster Tools – Site Status

Unfortunately it seems to be reporting incorrect information. I’ve done a few searches that state they don’t know about the site and recommend submitting a site map. When I log into the site’s Google account, it shows an error free site map that was indexed only a few hours ago and has been indexed on a regular basis. What gives Google?

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ReviewMe | Write reviews for cash!

What do rel=”nofollow” links do? This is used as part of the a tag when creating a link to another site. What’s curious is that people seem to be using them without a clear understanding of what they do. The search engines themselves don’t tell you, yet they are the ones that introduced it years ago. Here’s a forum discussion that relates peoples experiences researching the nofollow. As usual, common sense and basic core skills win out. Just plan your site and use robots tags instead.

Yahoo Slurp following rel=”nofollow” links

Once in a while, someone will ask us why they should pay for monthly SEO work. After all, there are only three big search engines that capture 75% of the market. The question contains the answer. One of the things we do monthly for customers includes submitting to the minor search engines and directories. They make up 25% of search traffic. Crunch some numbers and that’s over 950 million searches. Can you afford to cast aside 25% of your potential business? If you are doing your own SEO work, don’t forget the small guys. In a vertical market, you may actually receive more business from the little guys than the big three.

Sorry no posts in a while….big move to a bigger new place. Hate moving; love the results.