SearchEngineZ - News and Ideas

Classmates.com - Very Naughty

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:51:00 +0000

I've received them too - emails from sites like Classmates.com and Reunion.com, telling me that a friend is trying to contact me. I ignore them, but those who are curious need to take out a paid subscription to find out that the friend doesn't exist.

Thankfully a white knight, Anthony Michaels (one of the few people to ever successfully sue Google) is suing Classmates.com.

In the internet age it is vital to be squeaky clean in all endeavours, business or personal.

How to get into Google News

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 11:00:00 +0000

Your blog does not qualify. So what does? Here are the factors that Google considers before accepting an application to be a source for Google News:

1) Original content, not just regurgitated news.
2) Multiple Authors (Create an “Authors” page of the writers, editors, etc).
3) Organization info: Contact info, About Us.
4) Homepage/Logo should clearly state what industry segment you cover (music, sports, finance, etc.).
5) Use a news template/theme for a blog. I’m a big fan of three-column themes.
6) Article URL’s should consist of at least 3 digits, and appear static not dynamic. For examples, just mouse over the URL’s on the homepage of Google News.
7) Author’s name on each article.
8) Article Title should be the same on the H1 and Title tag.
9) Article Frequency: Publish 3 times per day.
10) Images & Video are good. They should be contained within the article.
11) Advertising on site is good. It show’s there is visitor traffic.

Found here via Sphinn.

Network Solutions Get Greedy

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 22:26:00 +0000

Not happy with having a tidy little monopoly on aspects of the domain name business, they've now begun a very sneeky, dirty tactic. Basically, if you use NS for hosting, and someone visits a page on your site that doesn't exist, they serve ads and keep the profits. Not only is this unethical, it can damage the reputation of your site.

Yes, they mention it in their T&C (amongst 59,000 other words), and yes it is possible to turn it off, but the default is on.

Meta-Video Search at Mefeedia

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 01:10:00 +0000

I don't like the name, but it functions very well, a is an excellent place to find video content online. Mefeedia indexes YouTube, DailyMotion, Metacafe, Blip, Veoh, BoingBoing TV, Video Blogs, TV Sites (Hulu, CBS, ABC, and others), News Sites (CNN, MSNBC, ABC News, CBS News, etc.) and Music sites.

Images In Regular Search Results

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:29:00 +0000

Eric Enge has compared the 4 major search engines, and found that Google and MSN are not nearly as good as Yahoo and Ask when it comes to providing images in regular search results.

Google particularly failed when the search phrase actually included words like pic and picture.

TinyMax going places?

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 01:22:00 +0000

TinyMax have a new blog, and it looks like they might be coming up with some new products or services. The name is kinda catchy: TinyMAX.

Microsoft buys FAST

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 21:41:00 +0000

Microsoft has announced a deal to purchase Norway-based Fast Search & Transfer (FAST), a leading provider of enterprise search solutions, in a deal valued at $1.23 billion.

FAST were the owners of AllTheWeb and FAST search engines, which at one time were the best there was, in the eyes of some.

Amazon's Author Search Needs Improving

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:50:00 +0000

When looking for a book by Thomas Moore - the author of popular spiritual books including the New York Times best seller, Care of the Soul (1993), Amazon also lists "Utopia" by Sir Thomas Moore, who died in 1535.

I know that Amazon is not able to tell which Thomas Moore I was searching for. But when I find the Thomas Moore I am after, I would like to see just books from that specific Thomas Moore.

Currently Amazon cannot tell one from the other. It might be too difficult to achieve using a computer algorithm. But it could be done manually, and even if they did just the most searched for authors, manually created authors' biographies and bibliographies would add real value to Amazon as a great book resource. Maybe they could make a wiki of authors?

Live Cricket Scores in Google Results

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 10:13:00 +0000

How cool is this... the live cricket match between Australia & New Zealand wasn't on - they had a replay of an old AU/England match on instead. The first step in finding out whether the game had finished early or not was to do a Google search for "cricket".

The results had at the top:

Current Cricket Matches

Eng 351/10 | SL 548/9 | Eng 250/3 (Match drawn)
PD Collingwood* 23, KP Pietersen 45 - scorecard
NZ 254/7(50) | Aus 154/2(26.3) | RR: 5.81 (Match is delayed due to rain)
RT Ponting* 51(61), MJ Clarke 33(54) - scorecard

ws-4.willow.tv

How cool is that!

You Can Adjust Google Search Results!

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 22:22:00 +0000

(if you are one of the lucky ones...)

It seems that a few users are getting to vote on sites that appear in the search results, and that will change the results that they see. More here...

If a search engine gets this right, it could improve results, or at the very least get rid of spam. This is what the wikipedia guy is aiming for with his new search engine.

Google's method is flawed. The best way to judge a site is to visit it, and it's a hassle going back to the search results to vote. It needs to use a toolbar, floating window or the like - where one can quickly click on a button without disturbing their browsing.

A simple "report spam" button in the Google toolbar could help remove spam from the search index - all it needs is lots of votes and the verification of a Google human. It only takes 10 seconds to recognise spam, so at $20/hr it would only cost 10c per site. This would be valuable for sites that get hundreds of spam votes.

Google: Paid Link Policy Elucidated

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 13:55:00 +0000

These are the new guidelines from Google.

Some SEOs and webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links that pass PageRank, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google's webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results.

Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:

* Adding a rel="nofollow" attribute to the tag
* Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file

Google works hard to ensure that it fully discounts links intended to manipulate search engine results, such excessive link exchanges and purchased links that pass PageRank.

And if you see someone breaking the rules (ie your competitor), you can snitch.

The PayPal factor - the power of environment

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 14:58:00 +0000

If you are one clued-up, web-savvy, marketing-oriented chappy (or chappess) - there are several ways to make your mark on the world, and million$ in the process

1) Go alone
2) Go alone but hire others
3) Work for others

It seems to be that, if you are full of beans and talent, and a potential employer is on the verge, then a relationship is quite likely. And, when hired, you and a bunch of similar young studs (or studettes), are the factor that makes your company a success, well:

a) You will hopefuly have made lots of money from shares & options
b) You will have seen how it all works at corporate level
c) You'll have become cocky enough to go solo

The folk behind these sites all started out at PayPal:

Facebook
Slide
Yelp
Digg
YouTube

Read about the PayPal Mafia at CNN

AOL buys Yedda

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 22:10:00 +0000

In a "me too" move, AOL has purchased question and answer site Yedda for an undisclosed amount.

"Incorporating Yedda's unique technology into AOL enables us to bring together our traditional search resources and an entire community of people to help users quickly find answers to questions," AOL President Ron Grant said.

(in other words, "bolt on).

Hopefully one day there will be a meta-interface for all this knowledge, rather than the many Q&A sites that exist. This is something Jimmy Wales should be focusing on, not search.

Google and GoDaddy join forces

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 22:15:00 +0000

With the new partnership, Go Daddy hosting customers will have easy access to Google Webmaster Tools and Go Daddy will automatically submit sitemaps to Google on behalf of customers.

I do not expect GoDaddy's hosting service to be better than I can get elsewhere, but for their many customers this is pretty cool. Sitemaps are a pain-in-the-butt, and it's about time that someone automated the procedure - kudos to GoogleDaddy

Chumby Now Available!

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 00:07:00 +0000

Only in the US though, which rules me out. Otherwise, Chumby is a great device for those that want to keep an eye on the web during while relaxing at home.

Widgets bring info for free (no subscription req.), and about the only negative is that it does not run on batteries.

- traffic reports
- picture gallery
- email notifications
- eBay tracking

and so on... basically any widget you currently use should be possible for the Chumby - unless it requires interaction

User Generated LinkBait

noreply@blogger.com (Rob) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 03:42:00 +0000

Over at Distilled is a great idea of creating unique, stimulating, linkbait - without too much effort:

1. Find a forum with a decent traffic level in your niche
2. Spend some time contributing to the community, get your name respected and ensure the mods don’t see you as a spammer (having a trusted profile in your niche community/forum is worth it’s weight in gold - treat this as a serious investment and don’t ruin it for a one-shot chance at linkbait)
3. Start a post on the forum with the seed of an idea, and a couple of examples from you
4. Let the forum community chip in their own ideas and funny comments and let them grow the idea for you
5. Wait for the thread to die down and compile all the best bits from it
6. Write this up into a piece of linkbait for your site
7. Social media success!