NEWS FLASH! Article Directories JUMP-ON The RSS Syndication Band Wagon

Quick question... do you publish 'articles' on a regular basis?

I'm talking like on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

If so, then you're in for a real treat.

If you haven't heard, RSS (Real Simple Syndication) is taking the Internet by storm because of its many benefits, especially for someone (you) who provides fresh 'quality' content on a regular basis.

Not only does RSS GUARANTEE 100% delivery to whoever opt's in to your feed(s), it can also 'syndicate' your content across the Internet in an instant to thousands of websites and portals - delivering an avalanche of FREE targeted traffic to your website(s) at NO cost to you whatsoever.

Wow! Was that a mouthful or what? It gets better, so hold on.

We all know that without traffic to our website(s) we have no business.

We also know that the Internet is starving for fresh content on a daily basis to feed its ever growing appetite for information.

The upside to this is if you're someone (you) who publishes articles as one of your means of online promotion for your website(s), then you're in for a real ride.

As you well know, Article Directories are one of the primary places article publishers (like yourself) go to submit their articles.

Why?

Simply because this is where website owners go to find fresh related content to publish in their newsletters or on their websites on a daily to weekly basis to feed their audiences' need for information.

And with time always being a major factor, adding fresh content can become quite a chore for a website owner who is already hard pressed for time with all the other daily duties an online business requires.

So with that being said, how does RSS and Article Directories fit into the mix? And, how can you benefit from this technology by submitting fresh 'quality' content to Article Directories that offer RSS Syndication?

The answers simple.

The Article Directories (at least most of them) now have RSS Feed databases available for websites looking for RSS feeds.

What's this mean for you?

This means every time you submit your new article to the Article Directories that offer RSS Syndication and they approve your submission, your article will go out to all of the websites displays that RSS feed.

For example, let's say 1000 websites have your RSS Feed category plugged into their RSS Feed list, guess what?

The next time that RSS feed updates (usually within 24 hours) guess whose article is going to show up on all those 1000 websites INSTANTLY?

That's right...Yours!

What does this mean for you? Simple...more traffic and more profits!

Are you starting to see the HUGE benefits to RSS and Article Directories adopting this new technology?

Do you see the benefits this will give the person (you) publishing articles to these directories on a regular basis?

RSS Syndication is truly becoming the cornerstone of how content is delivered and/or syndicated online and it has only just begun.

Once everybody else jumps on the RSS band wagon, after seeing the true benefits of RSS Syndication and how it can deliver their content to their target audience without any worry of being redirected into the trash can like email, you the publisher will benefit for years to come -- receive F-R-E-E targeted traffic, collect more leads and make more sales without having to do anything except provide fresh 'quality' content to these Article Directories on a regular basis.

So...the only thing you have to do now is find those Article Directories that offer RSS Syndication and start submitting your articles.

If you don't write and publish your own articles, maybe you should consider getting started and/or hire a Ghost Writer to write them for you.

Below, I have listed a few resources that offer RSS Syndication to get started:

Article99
http://www.article99.com

Go Articles
http://www.goarticles.com

Ezine Articles
http://www.ezinearticles.com

Announce Articles
http://www.announce-article.com

(Note: Some of the above resources are free and some are paid.)

Well, I hope you've found this article informative and helpful. Now, the only thing left for you to do is...Take Action!

Cory Threlfall is an Internet Marketing Strategist and is the Editor and Publisher of The Internet Wonders eZine which is published 'Bi-Weekly' that focuses on providing Webmasters with quality Articles, Product Reviews, Tips, and More on how to Promote, Build and Increase your Web Traffic! Subscribe at: http://www.internetwondersezine.com

By Cory Threlfall © 2005 - http://www.internetwondersezine.com - Published Sep. 2005

How to Analyze your Visitors to Improve your Web Site

This article is a detailed description on how to interpret your web hosting statistics software. Typically, the web hosting you have comes with its own web statistics program such as webalizer or awstats. There are also free traffic monitors such as servustats, web stats, and others. And for a nominal subscription of around $15-$35 a month you can get a more detailed analysis of your visitors with a paid program.

Why is it important to monitor your visitors?

You could gain a lot of traffic to your web site by simply looking at the number of visitors per month, but what do they do when they reach your site? Do they visit the pages you want? Do they leave shortly after arriving? What pages are they interested in? Etc. Armed with this important information you can tweak your web site to help achieve your goals. What good is it to have hundreds of visitors go to your site if all they do is leave right away or look at pages that are not important?

The Statistics Report

Since most statistics software don't have the same options I will use my paid subscription I use and go over the details provided by it. You will find that the free stat reports are limited to the information that you have, and after reading this article it will also help you decide whether you want an upgraded version of the statistics report. So let's begin!

Traffic
 

• Page Views
  Page views are the number of times HTML pages are loaded in your visitors' browsers.
  
  "Page views measure the whole pages that are displayed to a viewer and do not include the supporting image files. Every time a complete page displays, it counts as one page view, even when the visitor just refreshes the page, or leaves it for a second and then comes back."
  
  "This determines whether your web site is interesting enough to look further into it and explore more pages."
   

• Repeat Visits
  Users who browsed your site more than once during the selected time period.
  "In other words, these are all visits minus the first visits (or unique visitors) in the selected period. The percentage of repeat visits to all visits will give you a good picture of how appealing the content of your Web site is."
  "Do you give your visitors a reason to return to your site? Is your site updated frequently with articles and content?"

Activity
 

• By Time Zone
  "This report shows you what hour of the day they visited your site according to their time zone."
   

• By Local Time
  "This report shows you what hour of the day they visited your site according to your time zone."
   

• Day of the Week
  "What day of the week they visited. Was it during a weekend or weekday? You can determine the best days to update your site or send out important information to your customers with this report."
   

• Work/Leisure Time
  "Do people view your web site during typical business hours or do they visit after they have gone home?"
  
  "What type of people visit your web site can be determined from this. Should you concentrate on business people or not."

Navigation
 

• Navigation Paths
  A navigation path is a sequence of pages that the visitor viewed from the moment he/she enters the site to the moment he/she leaves.
  "From the marketing view, it is important to know the most common paths your visitors follow to get to the landing pages (that is the pages where the target events take place such as ordering, file downloading, form filling and submission, etc.). You will learn which of the navigation paths are the most effective."
  
  "The frequent exit patterns will show where your site is underperforming. You will see where to improve the content of your site to make your visitors' experience perfect."
   

• Entry Pages
  The page that a visitor goes to when first visiting your web site.
  
  "By setting your links to go to specific pages of your web site you can determine which referral links are working and which are not."
   

• Exit Pages
  The page that a visitor leaves your web site from.
  
  "Do your exit pages match your entry pages? If so, then see what you can do to fix your entry page to keep visitors on your site. Is it a navigation problem? Content not good enough?"
   

• Pages Viewed After Home Page
  "The success of your web site depends on how short the way from your home page to your target page is."
  
  "This also helps uncover any navigation problems or lack of interest in your web site."
   

• Site Stickiness
  These are visits grouped by the time that visitors stay.
  
  "It is a sign of how well a site's content captures the visitor's attention. Do they leave a few seconds after entering? Or are they thoroughly interested in what you have to say on your web site?"

Visitors
 

• Unique Visitors
  Another measure of Visitor activity that counts only the first action of a visitor in a selected period of time.
  "This measures what a visitor does on the first visit only in a selected period of time. The software will grab specifically where they came from so you can tell the actions of one person visiting your site. In other words if you have three unique visitors visit your site ten times each instead of having a counter of 30 visitors you'll see 3 visitors and what pages they visited."
  
  "The number of unique visitors versus page views is an important indication of site performance. If you have a high unique visitor count, but relatively low page view count, this is a sign of low site attractiveness to visitors, so you should rewrite the site content. On the other hand, if you have a low visitor count and very high page view count, this shows that your site is stimulating people, however it needs more promotion."
   

• New Visitors
  This is a brand-new visitor, arriving at your site for the first time.
  
  New visitors are always unique, although they are not the same as unique visitors. The number of new visitors will always be smaller than the number of unique visitors, because a unique visitor is one arriving for the first time in the selected period (so the system may identify the visitor as unique in the current period but it also knows that he/she has been before). A new visitor is one on his first visit.
  
  "This will tell you if your web site is attracting new customers."
   

• Frequent Visitors
  "This report tells you how many times a certain visitor visits your site. Do they only visit your web site once? A few times a day? Once a week? Several times a week?"
  
  "This analysis is important to find out if people view your site as something to come back to and let you know if you need to make changes to keep people coming back."
   

• Motivated Visitors
  If two or more pages are browsed during a visit, this will be counted in the Motivated Visits report.
  
  "The ratio of visits when more than one page is viewed to all visits is a good sign of your site's attractiveness."
   

• New Visitors' Second Visits
  "This report lets you know how many of the new visitors returned to your site. Not to be confused with repeat visitors, because this one monitors only the new ones."
   

• Visit Frequency
  The number of return visits all of your visitors take.
  
  "Do the highest percentage of all of your visitors visit only once? 2-4 visits? 5-10 visits? Or as much as 300 visits?"

Referrers

The reports here show you where your visitors came from.
 

• Bookmarked Pages and Direct Typing
  "Do people bookmark your web site to visit later?"
   

• Search Engines
  "What search engine did they use?"
  "What keyword did they type in?"
  "Which keywords are the most popular? Adjust your web site to the popular keywords."
   

• Referring Pages (Links)
  "What other web sites did your visitors come from? Concentrate on the higher traffic links."
  "Do they come from directories that pay off or not?"

Pages
 

• Popular Pages
  "What area of the site are people most interested in?"
   

• Unpopular Pages
  "Are these pages to fix or delete?"
   

• Views Per Visit
  "How many pages are viewed during their visit?"
   

• Views Per First Visit
  "How many pages do first time visitors view?"
   

• Page Stickiness
  "How long do they stay on different pages. Should you fix or delete the pages people don't spend much time on?"

Systems
 

• Browsers and Browser Versions
  "It is a good idea to see what a majority of your visitors view your web site in. What does your web site look like in their browser? Try it, you may be surprised to find out that some content is not readable or supported. Or it may make your web site look awful."
   

• Operating Systems
  "Are your visitors using Windows, Macintosh, Linux, or WebTV?"
   

• Windows Versions
  "Are your visitors up to date, or are they still using Windows 95?"
   

• Screen Resolutions
  "What screen resolution do people view your site on? If a majority of people use 800 x 600 pixels do they have to scroll right and left to read the content on your site?"
   

• Color Palettes
  "What capability does your visitors computer have? Should you concentrate more on using 'web safe colors' in your design?"
   

• Cookie and Java Support
  "Do you use these scripts on your web site? If your visitors have these turned off they may not be able to view important parts of your web site. If a strong number of people have this support turned off consider using other options."

Demographics
 

• Countries
  "What countries are your visitors from? Does this pose as a problem?"
   

• Languages
  "What language do they use? If you see a growing number of a foreign language, consider making your site bi-lingual."
   

• Time Zones
  "What time zone are they coming from?"

Until the next article, have a great day!

The owner of this registered company has over twenty years experience with DOS, windows business applications, numerous programming languages, artistic development, and web design. Other areas of interest include web marketing, web promoting, and business marketing and development. After the persuasion of those praising his work, he decided to go into business himself and highly suggests everyone else to do the same.

Copyright © Michael Rock 2005 - http://www.TheInternetPresence.com - Published Sep. 2005

Your Site Map: Spider Food or Just A Light Snack?

Mechanical spiders have to eat.  In fact, they usually have bigger appetites than the real-life spiders you squish under your shoe.  What spiders am I talking about?  The automated programs sent out by search engines to review and index websites.  These "spiders" (sometimes called "bots") are looking for a reason to list your site within the database of their particular search engine.  It's hard work roaming around the 'Net non-stop, and these little guys need some nourishment from time-to-time.  In fact, when spiders find some hearty "spider food" (a.k.a. a site map with some meat to it), they sit down to stay a while. That's a good thing!

You've probably seen many site maps.  The standard ones look like the example below with each phrase being linked to the page of the same (or similar) name.

=====================
Home
About Us
Shipping Rates
Products
>> Small Appliances
------- Microwave Ovens
------- Can Openers
>> Dinnerware
------- Platters
------- Serving Bowls
Contact Us
Privacy Policy
=====================

Site maps are deemed "spider food" because they can be the perfect place for search engine spiders and bots to crawl your site.  Because a site map has links to every page of your site (and those link names or page descriptions often include keywords), it is extremely easy for the search engine spider to access each publicly accessible area with no obstacles and relate it to a given subject matter.  (For example, a page labeled "microwave ovens" is most likely about microwave ovens.)

Some site owners think that's enough.  They think a page with keyword-rich titles and links is plenty for a hungry little spider to munch on.  Not hardly!  That's not a meal… it's just a light snack.

Give Spiders A Tasty Treat

If you really want to fill the spiders' bellies, you'll want to take your site map page to the max with a descriptive site map (as I like to call them).  Descriptive site maps go beyond the simple list of links to pages.  These special versions of the traditional maps also include a short, keyword-rich description of each page. The text only needs to be a sentence or two in length.  An example is below.  This is certainly not the only way to layout or design your site map.  Get creative and use columns, bullets or other formatting to make it look the way you like.  (The links would remain the same as in the previous example.)


=====================
HOME - Home page for XYZ Depot, a home accessories outlet.
ABOUT US - Account of how XYZ Depot became the world's largest
home accessories outlet.
SHIPPING RATES - Shipping rates and delivery times.
PRODUCTS - Complete listing of home accessories offered.
>> SMALL APPLIANCES - Exciting selection of small appliances to
save you time in the kitchen.
------- MICROWAVE OVENS – Top-of-the-line microwave ovens from
brands you trust.
=====================

Descriptive site maps work well in attracting and satisfying spiders because they include naturally occurring keywords.  They also place keywords in the vicinity of a link that points to the associated page.  Add these advantages to those that already exist, including:

· having links in the body copy of the page · overcoming complex navigation such as DHTML or Java · lending quick access to pages located several layers deep within the site · assisting with usability for visitors (especially disabled visitors) · and others

and you have prepared a huge feast for the search engine spiders that is almost guaranteed to entice those hungry little critters to crawl through every available page of your site.

Does every site need a site map?  It certainly wouldn't hurt. Sites with less than 20 pages or sites where most or all the pages have links directly from the home page generally don't "need" a site map, per se.  However, practically every site of every size can reap benefits from including a map on their site.

If you're creating a site map for your site, don't stop with the basics.  With just a little added effort, you'll have a four-course meal to serve the spiders that will keep them happy and satisfied and that will help get you exceptional rankings.

Copy not getting results?  Learn to write SEO copy that impresses the engines and your visitors at http://www.copywritingcourse.com. Be sure to also check out Karon’s latest e-report “How To Increase Keyword Saturation (Without Destroying the Flow of Your Copy)” at http://www.copywritingcourse.com/keyword.

By Karon Thackston Copyright © 2005  -  http://www.marketingwords.com - Published Aug. 2005

How Keyword Density, Frequency, Prominence And Proximity Affects Search Engine Rankings

By Michael Wong © 2005


In this article, I explain the difference between keyword density, frequency, prominence and proximity, and how they affect search engine rankings.


Keyword Density

Keyword density refers to the ratio (percentage) of keywords contained within the total number of indexable words within a web page.

The preferred keyword density ratio varies from search engine to search engine. In general, I recommend using a keyword density ratio in the range of 2-8%.

You may like to use this real-time keyword analysis tool to help you optimize a web page's keyword density ratio.

Keyword Frequency

Keyword frequency refers to the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase appears within a web page.

The theory is that the more times a keyword or keyword phrase appears within a web page, the more relevance a search engine is likely to give the page for a search with those keywords.

In general, I recommend that you ensure that the most important keyword or keyword phrase is the most frequently use keywords in a web page.

But be careful not to abuse the system by repeating the same keyword or keyword phrases over and over again.

Keyword Prominence

Keyword prominence refers to how prominent keywords are within a web page.

The general recommendation is to place important keywords at, or near, the start of a web page, sentence, TITLE or META tag.

Keyword Proximity

Keyword proximity refers to the closeness between two or more keywords. In general, the closer the keywords are, the better.

For example:

How Keyword Density Affects Search Engine Rankings

How Keyword Density Affects Rankings In Search Engine

Using the example above, if someone searched for "search engine rankings," a web page containing the first sentence is more likely to rank higher than the second.

The reason is because the keywords are placed closer together. This is assuming that everything else is equal, of course.

You may like to read my article, "How To Find Out What Keywords Your Customers Are Searching With." In this article I show you how to capture your most targeted visitors with the search engines by discovering what keywords they search with.

Michael Wong is an internationally recognized internet marketing expert, and the author of a leading SEO book, numerous marketing tips, and reviews of marketing tools and ecommerce software. Visit his web site at http://www.Mikes-Marketing-Tools.com

Article by Michael Wong - http://www.Mikes-Marketing-Tools.com - Published Aug. 2005

Google Sitemaps Explained

Three Ways To Index Your Site With Google Sitemaps [Difficult, Hard, And Easy]

Google has recently implemented a program where any webmaster can create a Sitemap of their site and submit it for indexing by Google. It is a quick and easy way for you to keep your site constantly indexed and updated in Google.

The program is appropriately called Google Sitemaps.

In order for you to best use Sitemaps, you must have an XML generated file on your site that will transmit or send any updates, changes, and data to Google. XML (Extensible Markup Language)is everywhere these days, you have probably seen the orange XML icon on many web sites and its often associated with Blogging because Blogs use XML/RSS feeds to syndicate their content.

Today RSS is known mostly as 'Really Simple Syndication' but its original acronym stood for 'Rich Site Summary'. XML is only simple code like HTML and it is used to syndicate your content to all interested parties.

And the interested party in this case is Google. By creating Sitemaps, Google is really asking webmasters to take charge of the indexing and updating of their sites. Basically, doing the Googlebot's job!

This is a 'Good' thing! With the steady influx of new web sites growing rapidly, indexing all this material will become a challenge, even with the resources of Google. With Sitemaps, websmasters can now take charge and make sure their site is crawled and indexed.

Please note, indexing your site with Sitemaps WON'T improve your rankings in Google. You will still be competing with the other sites in Google for top positions. But with Sitemaps you can make sure all your pages are crawled and indexed quickly by Google.

There are some other big advantages of using Google's Sitemaps - mainly you have control over a few key variables, attributes or tags. To explain this as simply as possible, your XML powered sitemap file will have this simple code for each page of your site:

< url>
  < loc>http://www.yoursite.com/ < /loc>
  < priority>1.0 < /priority>
  < lastmod>2005-07-03T16:18:09+00:00 < /lastmod>
  < changefreq>daily < /changefreq>
< /url>

Along with 'urlset' tags at the beginning and end of your code, and an XML version indication - that's basically your XML file! File size will depend on the number of webpages you have.

Taking a closer look at this XML file:

location - http://www.yoursite.com - name of your webpage

priority - you set the priority you want Google to place on that page in your site. You can prioritize your pages: 0.0 being the least, 1.0 being the highest, 0.5 is in the middle. This is ONLY relative to your site. It will not affect your rankings. Why is this important? You have certain pages on your site that are more important than others, (home page, high profit page, opt-in page, etc.) by placing high priority on these pages, you will increase their importance in Google.

last modified - when you last modified that page, this timestamp allows crawlers to avoid recrawling pages that haven't changed.

change frequency - you can tell Google how often you change that particular page. Never, weekly, daily, hourly, and so on - if you frequently update your page this could be extremely important.

Why do I need a XML Generator?

In order for this XML sitemap file on your site to be constantly updated, you need a Generator that will spider your site, list all the urls and automatically feed them to Google. Thus constantly updating your site in Google's massive index or database. Keep in mind, Google also gives you the option of submitting a simple text file with all your URLs.

Now there is already a flood of these generators popping up! Different ways of generating your XML powered sitemap file. More are probably appearing as you read this. For your convenience, three ways to generate your XML Sitemaps file are listed below:

Difficult - Google's Python Generator

That's a relative term, if you know your server like the back of your hand and installing scripts doesn't scare you, you're probably smiling at the word difficult. Google supplies a link to a generator which you can download and set up on your server. It will cough up your sitemap XML file and automatically feed it to Google.

Google XML Generator
https://google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/sitemap-generator.html

In order for this Generator to work, Python version 2.2 must be installed on your web server - many servers don't have this. If you know what you're doing, this will probably be a good choice.

You don't need a Google Account to use Sitemaps but it's encouraged because you can track your sitemap's progress and view diagnostic information. If you already have another Google Account gmail, Google Alerts, etc. just use that one to sign in and follow directions from there.

To submit your Sitemap using an HTTP request, issue your request to the following URL:

www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=sitemap_url

Hard - A PHP Code Generator

This is a php generator that you can place on your server. This generator will spider your site, and produce your XML sitemap file. Download the phpSitemapNG and upload it to your server. Run the generator to get your XML sitemap file and send it to Google.

PHP Generator
http://enarion.net/google/

Again, this is only hard to do if you don't know your way around PHP files or scripts.

Easy - Free Online Generator

These Generators are popping up everywhere, and Google now keeps a list of these 'third party suppliers' of generators on their site. Find them here:

Google's List of Third Party Generators
http://code.google.com/sm_thirdparty.html

One of the easiest to use is www.xm-sitemaps.com, and you can index up to 500 pages with this online Generator very quickly and it will give you the sitemap XML file Google needs to index your site.

It will go into your site, spider it and index all your pages into an XML sitemap of your site. You can download this file, Compressed or Non- compressed and make minor changes such as setting the priority, changing frequency, etc.

Then upload this file to your site as sitemap.xml to the root directory of your server i.e. where you have your homepage. Then notify Google Sitemaps of your XML file and you're in business.

Of course, the only drawback, if you constantly add pages to your site you will need to also add these pages to your XML sitemap file. This won't be much of a problem unless you're daily adding pages to your site - then you will need something like the PHP or Python generator to do all this for you automatically.

Google is still the major search engine on the web so getting your pages indexed and updated quickly is the major reason to use Google Sitemaps. If you want your site to remain competitive it's probably the wisest route to take.

To learn more about the different Services and Programs offered by Google click here: Google Adsense & Google Adwords: http://www.bizwaremagic.com/Google_Cash_File.htm

By Titus Hoskins © 2005 - www.bizwaremagic.com  -    Published Aug. 2005

Does Google manually influence its search results?

Some webmasters have seen referrer URLs in their web site log files that start with eval.google.com and end with an email address. The eval.google.com web site exists but it is only available if you have login information and access it from a special network.

Do humans change Google's search results?

It has turned out that eval.google.com is some kind of quality center. Google pays people from all over the world US$10 to US$20 per hour to check Google search results every day.

These people, called International Agents at Google, seem to have been recruited through universities. There is also a job posting for Google quality raters on Monster.com:

Google Inc. is recruiting part-time, temporary, home-based workers to help with work on a search quality evaluation on a project basis. [...]

Candidates will evaluate search results and rate their relevance. Thus, all candidates must be web-savvy and analytical, have excellent web research skills and a broad range of interests. Specific areas of expertise are highly desirable.

An official Google spokesman has confirmed that the quality center exists and that real people rate the quality of search results.

What does this mean to your web site?

As long as you didn't optimize your web site with shady tricks, this means nothing to your web site. The human reviewer try to filter web pages that use unethical search engine optimization methods such as cloaking, hidden text, etc. from the search results.

We've said it before in our newsletter: ethical search engine optimization is about everyone winning.

• Search engines: They win as they are provided with pages that are easy to understand and that contain the quality information that their visitors search for.
   
• Searchers: They win as they are getting what they ask for from the search engines. They search for "green widgets" and get a page about green widgets.
   
• Web site owners: They win as they are getting quality visitors who are interested in what their web site has to offer.

As long as you optimize your web pages with ethical search engine optimization methods, you don't have to be afraid of human reviewers.

Copyright Axandra.com - Web site promotion software tools   -  Published Jul. 2005

Cosmetic Changes at Google Precede Larger Overhaul

Google is undergoing some of the most sweeping changes in its short, seven year history. As of next week, Google will have finished sorting what might be its largest algorithm shift ever as the final points of the 3.5 part Bourbon Update were installed last Monday. This update has been staggered into three and a half sections in order to avoid a massive amount of dislocation in established rankings as was seen in previous major updates. While changes stemming from the Bourbon Update have not actually manifested into a full reordering of Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs), many individual webmasters have reported fairly significant losses or gains in ranking over the past few days.

There are dozens of factors behind changes at Google but the greatest is the enormous valuation of the company itself. With share prices nearing the $300 mark and current market capitalization topping $80billion, Google is considered the most valuable media company in the world, surpassing the $78billion value of Time-Warner and rising far above Yahoo’s estimated value of $56billion. Most of Google’s riches are newly found, having been generated after their August 2004 IPO. In their race to outlast, outperform and outsmart their competitors, Google has changed its PR strategy and its appearance to suit the legions of suits swirling in and out of their Mountain View offices.

While money may move mountains, it takes a community to change an institution. The search environment has changed substantially over the past three years and in that time, every major player in the search sector has changed as well. Today, Google has become a lot more complicated, so much so that it has stopped trying to look simple. This change in corporate attitude is best reflected in two places, the homepage and the About Google section.

Google’s homepage used to be quite simple. Recently, Google created a personalized portal interface (google.com/ig) offering users instant access to several of these new features. For folks with Google accounts such as Gmail users, subscribers to Google Groups, Google desktop users and other account holders, personalized versions of the once sparse homepage now presents instant entry points to the various applications the individual uses. Many industry observers have suggested Google’s adoption of so many new features and an all-in-one interface show they are moving towards presenting themselves as more of a portal like Yahoo or MSN. Google has always been a bit different than its competition. Even when borrowing and innovating on competitors’ ideas, Google has, until now at least, managed to keep itself at an arm’s length from the mainstream in appearance and operation. The maintenance of that image gave Internet users an alternative view of Google, one that propelled Google to a position of almost total dominance of the search engine sector. While that dominance might have slipped over the past year, Google is still the most popular search appliance in the world.

One of the ways Google has acted differently than others is in the appearance of not taking itself too seriously. Its corporate ethics policy was limited to the three word phrase, “Don’t be evil”. Its front page interface retains the double-entendre induced “I feel lucky” button, even though the button is rarely used. The prospectus issued during their August 2004 IPO was specifically written to appear idealistically anti-corporate. Since its introduction, Google has practiced projecting a simple, youthful image that required very little in the way of explanation, so long as their search engine lived up to users’ expectations.

Google strives to live up to user expectations and, for the most part, has met and exceeded them time and time again. There is one long-held expectation that Google may not be able to live up to any longer though. Many of us assume Google’s relatively informal public attitude will continue to carry over into the later part of the decade. It won’t. By comparison, Google will almost certainly continue to be perceived as the search engine driven by youthful energy. Whenever competitors such as MSN or Yahoo try to appear as down-to-Earth as Google does, their efforts seem obvious and forced. Does anyone remember that poor-fellow in the butterfly suit wandering aimlessly around New York last year? Google’s communication style is maturing and the best place to view these changes is on the About Google section of their site.

Google has published information about itself on pages found behind the “About Google” link for several years. While documents found in the About section have never been totally static, a facelift over the past few weeks has radically altered the look and feel of the section. Along with the traditional organic search engine results and highly targeted paid-ads, Google is actually a series of 30-someodd search-based applications ranging from alerts and answers to wireless search and weather information. Driven in part by an inventive entrepreneurial spirit and in part by a desire to keep up with products offered by competitors, Google has been rapidly adding new features and tools to their core search service for the past three years.

Google’s About Google page was once much smaller than it is today. It has grown slightly larger every time Google adds another offering to it. The biggest changes are found behind the increasing number of links on the About page. Today’s version of the About page has five boxes added to the left hand side of the page advertising Google Desktop, Blogger, Google Code, Google Mobile, and My Search History. In the center column, Google continues to show four main site sections labeled, Our Search, For Site Owners, Our Company, and More Google. Collectively, those sections contain a larger number of links than they did previously and the number of documents found behind those links has grown as well. Serious Google users should take an hour or two to tour these changes and learn more about the staggering range of features, services and search-enhancements Google now offers.

For webmasters and SEOs, an examination of the new Google Webmaster Guidelines is a definite must. Google has recently changed its webmaster guidelines which are also considered to be a primer on “ethical SEO” practices in relation to Google placements. Google has recently updated its webmaster guidelines to include information on “supplemental listings”, crawling frequencies and prefetching. Google has also posted information on its new Google Sitemaps experiment.

Google Sitemaps is perhaps the most important new feature for SEOs offered by Google in a long time. Said to be an experiment in spidering, Google Sitemaps invites webmasters to feed site data directly to Google through an XML sitemap page. Webmasters and SEOs can now tell Google exactly which sections of their sites to crawl, and providing they are keeping their XML sitemap current, when and where to look for changes to their sites. This experimental initiative will especially help webmasters working with database driven sites or large Ecommerce sites where documents are subject to frequent change and are often found behind long-string URLs. Google has been kind enough to provide detailed information on establishing an XML feed and setting priorities for Googlebot.

As it grows, Google appears to be running into the same problem other webmasters with numerous sites or services encounter, the rapid dilution of a domain’s unique topic focus. In order to keep themselves accessible, understandable and relevant, Google’s teams of engineers, programmers and public relations specialists are involved in what appears to be a massive overhaul of the interface, public documents and the basic sorting algorithm that produces organic results. As in previous years, how this all plays out in the end is entirely up to the searching public. From the SEO/SEM perspective, it is a good thing Google is in the midst of this update. Web workers have been demanding a greater degree of transparency from Google for some time now and perhaps these updates are the beginning of a new commitment to communication from the Googleplex.

Article by Jim Hedger, News Editor, StepForth Search Engine Placement, Inc.  www.stepforth.com  -    Published Jun. 2005

Why isn't Your Website Selling?

We've all been there. We spend countless hours coming up with a concept, a product or service, and finally get our website up and operational. And then what? We wait. And wait. And wait for sales to start coming in.

Perhaps you're just starting out or going through a dry spell. But no matter what stage of the game you're in, if your website isn't selling, your business can't survive.

So what can you do? How do you know what the problem is and how to fix it? Let me offer a few ideas and suggestions:

Problem: Your home page copy doesn't give enough of the story. Copy that is too short or confusing will send people clicking away. People want to know right away what you're selling, how it benefits them, and how much it costs.

Solution: Try selling the product right on the home page, with short descriptions of each product or service. This allows visitors to find the order button easily. Then, you can offer links to more info for each product for those who want to know more.

Problem: Your site is promoted entirely with pay-per-click. Unfortunately, this method just doesn't work that well for most sites. Nobody quite knows why, but theories range from 3rd world computer sweat shops hired to click on your link, to software that lets competitors automatically click your link all day. Whatever the case, it's not unusual to get 1,000 pay-per-click visitors and never make a sale.

Solution: Search engine optimization. If you have a hard time doing this on your own, it might be worth it to hire someone to do it for you. Make sure your keywords are on target and that your site is registered with the major search engines.

Problem: Your only promotion has been a press release. A release is usually a good idea, but it needs to be combined with other forms of advertising. Articles, classified ads, email announcements, and even direct mail are great options for advertising your site.

Solution: Find some ezines that are read by your target audience. Then, place some classified and solo ads in those publications (and make sure your release goes there, too. Many whose websites have done very well will swear by this method. Ask a few people you admire which ezines they have had success with, and try some of those.

Problem: Your site is too wordy or too complicated. Believe it or not, too much copy on your site can be just as bad as not enough. How much you need depends on what you're selling, how much explanation is necessary, and what the price is. Sites that simply talk to much or speak in terms common people don't understand are bound to fail.

Solution: Go through your site copy and get rid of unnecessary clutter. Delete redundant paragraphs and cut out the fluff. It might be wise to give brief descriptions of what you're selling on one page, then offer links to more detailed info on another page. Don't try to show off your vocabulary. Explain your product or service on your site in the same way you'd explain it to someone who walked into your store in person.

If people can find your site but it still isn't selling, it's likely that you have at least one of these problems. Once these issues are corrected, chances are your site will become the selling tool you designed it to be.

Article By Kevin Nunley © 2005  -   http://www.DrNunley.com   -  Published May 2005

Kevin Nunley provides copywriting that SELLS! From web copy to classified ads, you'll find everything to help your business succeed at http://www.DrNunley.com.

Get the Most Leverage out of Your Articles...Compliments of Yahoo!

I've long been an advocate of a form of online marketing that I personally call "article marketing." Yahoo! has recently added a layer to article marketing which is extremely exciting, and any one who uses the power of articles needs to take notice.

Introducing Yahoo!'s Creative Commons Search in Beta http://search.yahoo.com/cc

Here's what it says as means of explanation at the site:

"This Yahoo! Search service finds content across the Web that has a Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/) license. While most stuff you find on the web has a full copyright, this search helps you find content published by authors who want you to share or reuse it, under certain conditions."

Obviously, if you're not a writer and are in need of content on your site, this is a great place to go. You can find content through Yahoo!'s Creative Commons search that you can use for commercial purposes, and you can also find content that you can modify, adapt, and build upon.

What forward thinking on Yahoo!'s part!

Now, let's talk about forward thinking on your part.

Why is this Important to Article Writers?

Let's think about it for a minute. The links pointing back to your Web site from your articles and the relevant link text in the bio are extremely important to a savvy article writer. By allowing other Web sites, e-zines, online publications, and print publications to publish your articles, you're widening the scope of your visibility.

And in walks a powerhouse like Yahoo! with their new Creative Commons Search.

Wouldn't you like your articles to be available in a select search on Yahoo!?

Do you have to think twice? (Or even once?)

How About an Example?

Disclaimer: It's rather dangerous to give an example in print. As soon as you do, your example could slip in rankings. Forgive me if that happens here.

Please go to:

http://search.yahoo.com/cc

Click on "Find content I can use for commercial purposes."

Type "seo articles" (without quotes) in the search box.

Click Search CC.

The #1 page at the time of this writing is:
http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles.html

Click on the link, then scroll to the bottom of the page. You'll see the Creative Commons License that says "Some Rights Reserved."

It says, "This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License."

Click on the link. You'll see the actual license and what rights are available under the license as well as what conditions have to be met.

So, if you want your articles to be available through a Yahoo! Creative Commons Search, you simply allow it to be licensed out through Creative Commons.

How Can Article Writers Take Advantage of Yahoo!'s Creative Commons Search?

Follow these easy steps:

1. Go to Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org/

2. Click on the Publish graphic at the top of the page on the right.

3. Answer the questions: Allow commercial uses of your work? Allow modifications of your work? Jurisdiction of your license? Format of your work (such as text)?

4. You can also click to add more information about your work. If you're only going to create a license for one article, you can get very specific about your article.

5. Click on Select a License. You'll see how the license will look on your page. You can then copy and paste the text to your Web site.

You can even add a Creative Commons License to your blog!

How Long Does it Take for Yahoo!'s Crawler to Find the CC License?

After I put the licenses up on our Web pages, our pages were found in a Yahoo! Creative Commons Search within two weeks.

What about All of the Typical SEO Ramifications?

Does the same Yahoo! crawler crawl Creative Commons licenses? (To my knowledge, there isn't a different crawler.)

Will having a Creative Commons license get your pages into Yahoo! faster? (I haven't done any testing on this yet to see if new pages will get into the regular index as well as Creative Commons, but it's an interesting concept.)

What about a brand new Web site with an articles directory? (You need to have a link from another Web site, because of your site isn't indexed at all, you can't expect Yahoo! to find and spider those article pages quickly.)

Does having a Creative Commons license on your articles affect your regular Yahoo! rankings? (I've seen no evidence of this to date.)

What about Relevancy of Search Results?

That's an interesting question. Let's look at another example.

Again, go to:

http://search.yahoo.com/cc

Choose "Find content I can use for commercial purposes."

Type in "wordtracker." Click on Search CC.

The #1 result is our articles page again:

Marketing on Internet Search Engines - articles by Robin Nobles and John Alexander
www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles.html

"Wordtracker" is being used 11 times on the page, since we've written several articles about Wordtracker. It's not being used in the title, description, etc. This page is not focused on Wordtracker at all. However, this page definitely has a higher link popularity than our other pages.

We have several Wordtracker articles in those same results, yet our articles page is #1. I'll let you study the rest of the results yourself.

Some of the Search Results Aren't Exactly "High Quality"

We have seen some SERPs that aren't exactly high quality. Will your results float to the top? We'd like to think so.

Will Yahoo! or Creative Commons find a way to police the results that are less than quality? After all, this fabulous tool definitely has potential for abuse if not policed in some manner.

In Conclusion . . .

Article writers, if you don't mind others using your content on their sites, be sure to visit Creative Commons and add the CC licenses to your articles. How easy can increasing your online visibility get?!

But don't abuse the system. If the beta tool gets abused, it may never make it to the full version, which will be a shame for us all.

For those of you who are looking for valuable content to add to your sites, be sure to visit Yahoo!'s Creative Commons Search. This is an ideal spot for finding relevant content that's available to be used on your site.

Just remember that the #1 ranked result may not be the best article for you, so do your research.

Robin Nobles is Director of Training for the Academy of Web Specialists. Robin has taught several thousand students in her online and onsite search engine marketing courses during the past several years. Visit the On-lineWebTraining to learn more about their online search engine marketing courses and software solution. For onsite training by Robin Nobles and John Alexander, visit Search Engine Workshops

By Robin Nobles - Search Engine Workshops - Copyright © 2005  -   Published May 2005

How to Quickly Gain Traffic to Your New Web Site

The problem with a new site is that it often takes a long time before it is indexed by the search engines. This means you are missing out on getting traffic and making sales. Google places new sites in the "sandbox" which means they are on "hold" for a period of time before they rank.

Here are some ways to generate immediate traffic to your web site:

1. Start a PPC (pay per click) campaign ­ you can begin a Google Adwords campaign and start generating visitors the same day you set it up. Of course it is going to cost you some money but you can set a limit for how much you wish to spend. You will soon get a good idea what keywords produce the most clicks for your ads. You can incorporate these keywords in your site when you optimize it for the search engines.

While you run your PPC campaign get busy with preparing your site for the main search engines. Once you have been indexed by the main ones such as Google, Yahoo and MSN and start moving up in rankings, you can scale back the amount you spend on Google Adwords. Your goal is to eventually rank high enough that you won’t have to use PPC anymore because you are getting enough visitors.

2. Optimize your site for the search engines ­ the keywords that generated the most clicks from your PPC campaign, should be included in your web pages. Research alternative keywords using utilities such as Wordtracker or the Overture Suggestion Tool. You can determine the popularity of those keywords by seeing how many Google Adword campaigns are running. You accomplish this by entering the keyword or keyword phrase in the Google search engine and see how many ads appear on the right hand side of the page. If there are a lot, that means the keyword you chose is very popular and in high demand.

Integrate a few of your best keywords within the text on each of your web pages. The home page should contain the keywords which have the highest demand (most searches) with the least number of competing web sites. Then proceed with the other pages in descending order of keyword popularity.

Make sure you also include these keywords in your meta tags, title, h1-h3 tags, links and file names. Don’t overdo it for you may get penalized for spamming the search engines.

3. Increase link popularity ­ this refers to how many external and internal links are pointing or linking to any particular page. External links include those that come from web sites other than your own whereas internal links are those that come from within the same domain name. Link popularity is not based on the "quantity" of links but the "quality" of those links as well. Therefore increasing link popularity does not necessarily require having a large number of links pointing to your site but rather a good number of quality links.

4. Submit to the top search engine directories ­ many of the top directories have good link popularity that can be passed on to your site. They also have specific category pages that are related to the nature of your site. The major directories include The Open Directory, Yahoo and Zeal.

The Open Directory is one of the largest that is still free, however it can take months or even years to get listed. If you become an editor for Zeal you can get your site listed free. Yahoo costs $299.00/year to be included. It is worth it if you can afford it.

Here’s a couple of articles on how to properly submit your site to the search engine directories:

http://www.searchrank.com/resources/art007.htm
http://www.searchrank.com/resources/art015.htm

5. Submit to specialty search engine directories ­ you may wonder why I haven’t mentioned submitting to the major search engines. When you work on building the link popularity of your site, it automatically places you in the main search engines. Once you have submitted your site to the main directories, find specialized directories related to your business. Here’s a good resource:

http://searchenginewatch.com/links/article.php/2156351

You can also research the link partners of your competitors’ sites by entering your favorite keyword in the search engines. Once you have found a number of top ranked sites, download the Google toolbar and check their back links. This can save you a lot of time researching other areas to find quality links.

Once your site been indexed by the search engines and included in the directories, focus on adding more content and continue building your link popularity. This will help you to maintain and/or increase rankings with the result of gaining more traffic to your new web site.

By  Herman Drost  -  Copyright © 2005  -   Published May 2005

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com. Affordable Web Site Design and Web Hosting. Subscribe to his “Marketing Tips” newsletter for more original articles. mailto:subscribe@isitebuild.com. You can read more of his in-depth articles at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles

PayPal: the Grand Daddy of Online Sales Transactions

I love PayPal. They've been doing business online almost as long as I have, and they're constantly improving and adding new features to their service.

According to their website ( http://PayPal.com ), they have over 56 million accounts and more than 53,000 people who sign up for new access every day. They deal in transactions totaling over $48 million per day.

PayPal makes it easy for anyone to take payments over the Net with no need for a merchant account. What that means to you is lower fees and a level playing field. If you've been hesitant to start your online business because you thought you couldn't afford your own merchant account, PayPal is all you really need.

There are three types of accounts:

Personal: For your personal shopping use. You cannot accept debit or credit card payments, but sending and receiving money is free.

Premier: For buying and selling under your own name. Send payments for free, with low fees for accepting money.

Business: This is perfect for your online business. Add your own name to be included on your customer's credit card statements. Sending money is free, but you are charged small fees to accept payments.

There are no set up fees and the fee you pay PayPal when accepting cash is based on your sales volume for the month.

Standard Rate: $0 to $3,000 - pay 2.9% and .30 per transaction Merchant Rate: $3,000 to $10,000 - 2.5% and .30 per trans $100,000 and up - 1.9% and .30 per trans.

To apply for the merchant rate, you'll have to have one month of sales that meet the ranges above and fill out a short application to get approved.

Many of the options I'm going to point out to you are for "business accounts" only, so you'll want to go that route when registering or upgrade your current account to that level.

Paypal has added so many new features over the years, it's hard to keep up with just how powerful it is. I'm amazed every day at the variety of features that can make your life as an online entrepreneur run as smooth as silk.

Let's take a look at some of these options:

1) Shopping Carts: If you sell multiple items on your site, PayPal has a built in shopping cart. Just copy and paste their buttons for an instant store front. No third party software needed.

2) Subscriptions/Recurring Payments: If you sell a service that needs to be paid for monthly, you can set up this type of payment option on your site. This is great for trial periods and membership sites.

3) Donations: Maybe you don't sell anything, but you have a very informative site or newsletter. A PayPal button suggesting your readers make a donation is one way to help defray your costs.

4) Optional PayPal Accounts: One of the drawbacks to using PayPal used to be your buyer had to register for their own PayPal account. This is no longer true and you can select in your control panel to make it optional, not mandatory.

5) Customized Payment Pages: You can add your website colors and logo to PayPal's payment pages. You can create and save up to three different page styles for a seamless check out process.

6) Logo Center: If you accept PayPal on your site you'll want to add logos to your website letting the world know. You'll find many shapes and sizes to use.

7) Invoicing: Send your customers detailed invoices via email. You can include detailed line items, descriptions, tax and more. You can save up to 10 customized invoices for later billing purposes.

8) Payment Request Wizard: Did you know you can add payment buttons to your Outlook and Outlook Express messages? This is a quick and easy way to get paid faster.

9) PayPal Debit Card: If you have a PayPal account you'll want to get a debit card to go with it so you can easily access your funds at at any ATM. The card has a Mastercard logo so you can go shopping and the money will come out of your PayPal balance. You can also use it to draw out cash from your account up to $400.00 per day. You'll also earn 1.5% cashback on your purchase.

10) Refunds: Anytime you receive a payment, you can easily refund it by clicking a button up to 60 days after the sale.

11) Mass Pay: Easily send payments to large groups of people. This would be an easy way to pay your affiliates if you run your own affiliate program.

12) Packing Slips: If you sell hard goods you can create packing slips for your shipments.

13) Shipping Calculator: Easily add shipping costs for your "buy it now" buttons or your PayPal shopping cart items.

14) Seller Protection Policy: If you meet their guidelines you can protect yourself from liability and PayPal will absorb the chargeback at no cost to you. Covers up to $5,000 on any fraudulent transaction and is for tangible goods only.

15) Auto Return: You set the url for your buyers to come back to after they make their payments. Great for setting up your download page for what they purchased and makes for instant delivery.

Since eBay also owns PayPal, they've also integrated some pretty cool tools for eBay Sellers:

1) End of Auction Emails: When your auction ends, wouldn't it be nice if you could send a customized email with all of the details included automatically? Now you can. This is great for putting nervous buyers at ease when they are waiting to hear from you.

2) Auction Logos: If you want to offer an option in your eBay listings so buyers can pay you directly you can manually add a PayPal logo to do so.

3) Post Sale Manager: If you sell many items on eBay it can be a full time job tracking it all. With PayPal Post Sale Manager you can easily manage invoices, shipments, and feedback on everything you sell.

4) Shipping Center: USPS and UPS have teamed up with PayPal to offer you integrated service in one location. Calculate shipping costs, print shipping labels, track shipments and much more.

5) Buyer Financing: Add promotional financing to your "big ticket" items so your eBay buyers can more easily afford to purchase with monthly payments. Buyers are approved within 30 seconds and you get paid your full price immediately.

6) eBay Gift Certificates: Send eBay Gift certificates to your friends and family so they can buy anything on eBay as long as the seller accepts PayPal.

As you can see, PayPal is all you need to run your online business. If you thought all you could do was accept or send payments, you're missing out on the powerful features that makes PayPal the perfect business partner for any entrepreneur. And as partners go, that's one thing you can both agree on.

By Merle  -  Copyright © 2005  -   Published May 2005

"Must Have Marketing Resources" Ebook by Merle is loaded with VALUABLE online resources you need to know about, when it comes to running your web business. Get your copy now at ... http://mcebook.mcpromotions.com

The Web We Weave, Linking for Google: April 2005

Over the past week, SEOs and SEMs have noted some significant changes in the search engine results delivered by Google. Google appears to be actively cleaning its listings by targeting sites using suspicious link-building techniques. A couple of well-known search engine marketing sites have vanished from Google results under keyword phrases they dominated just last week.

The sudden disappearance of these sites, along with a notable difference in search results under other highly competitive phrases has led many in the SEO/SEM industry to conclude Google has implemented some of the spam-link busting filters outlined in their 63-point patent document published two weeks ago. After examining results displayed at Google since Friday April 8, we too are drawn to this conclusion. In other words, something has changed in the way Google ranks sites. Given a lack of any other credible information, we are looking toward the sorting methods and ranking techniques Google has protected under U.S. and international patent laws to provide details.

As stated in previous articles, one thing to be very clear about is that nobody except a very small number of Google engineers can claim to know the exact variables Google uses to populate its ranking algorithms. We do know how Google and other spider-driven search engines operate, how they operated in previous months or years, and the outcomes those operations have produced historically over time. Having watched search engines for years, experienced SEO and SEM firms can make such predictions and assumptions with some degree of accuracy. After all is said and done, the proof is always in the pudding, so to speak, and our predictive assumptions are either proven or shown false in the search engine results pages.

This time, the big "trigger target" for Google appears to be links. As anyone who has followed search engine optimization techniques knows, Google puts a lot of stock in the value of links between documents. PageRank remains the core concept of Google's general algorithm though the weights and measures used to determine "page rank" as we understand it have changed radically over the years.

Back in the earliest days, one link equaled one positive vote, a rather clean sorting concept that worked extremely well in a much cleaner Internet environment. As Google rose to become the dominant search engine, the search marketing industry started to focus on Google. An amazingly vast pool of brainpower started to deconstruct every nuance in the basic algorithm, making changes, shifts or additions to the algorithm cause for lively discussion and analysis at any one of a dozen search marketing discussion forums. A very small number of Google search engineers, no matter how extraordinarily intelligent they are as individuals or collectively, simply can't keep up with the SEO/SEM industry without resorting to making sweeping change to the core-algorithm periodically . If Google ever loses its dominance in the sector, the next search firm to dominate will, without question, face similar concerns. We have seen similar algo-updates in the past, the greatest being the Florida Update of November 2003. This week's update was not nearly as severe as Florida , at least not yet. Given that this suspected update is based on measuring the value of specific links, it might be weeks or even months before we see the full results.

If you or someone you know has been engaged in a link-building plan that relies on link trading between multiple sites that don't actually relate to or do business with each other, you might want to take a few hours to examine your link-building strategies.

About four weeks ago, an article appeared in Wired Magazine telling the world how simple it was to game Google by bulking up on links. The article became a focal point for discussion in many circles and might be inadvertently responsible for a notable rise in the number of link-trading email spam offers. It may have also alerted Google that it was high time to implement a number of new link-evaluation filters designed to separate the good from the bad. This idea has been the subject of a few recent articles and is backed up by several sections of the 63-point patent document.

To recap the central theme of the patent document, Google compiles document profiles based on the historic data of several elements relating to every URL in its index. The historic data included in that profile plays a determining factor in various scores, or points Google assigns documents when generating keyword driven search results. It is therefore easy to extrapolate the concept that the recent update is based on historic data in regards to links.

It is also easy to extrapolate another assumption, though this one is a bit of a stretch. There has not been a visible backlink or subsequent "PageRank" update in months. Together these two thoughts might indicate that Google's index has become a lot more fluid with micro-updates that affect unique sets of document profiles as opposed to massive updates that could put the entire index in flux for weeks at a time.

Link building is and should always be an essential part of the search engine optimization process. All spider driven search engines find new documents by following links. This is the underlying concept of the "world wide web" analogy. Linkage between documents is actually what the web was built for. Google will therefore value these links as long as the web exists. In this way, Google is a victim of its own success. It is the world's most popular search engine and it values links more than any other search engine. It stands to reason that the hyper-brainiac forces of the SEO/SEM world spent a lot of time figuring out elaborate link-generation schemes. These schemes, by the way, are pretty far from the spirit of the evolving web, as I understood it a decade ago. Good links made a useful web. Links designed primarily get attention under multiple keyword phrases are not so good. Perhaps the "O" in SEO should also represent "organic". Google really appreciates links that develop ORGANICALLY.

Bob links to Jane because Bob thinks Jane has information relevant to viewers of Bob's document. As it turns out, Bob was right and the anchor text he used to phrase the link accurately represented the content found on Jane's document. Bob was not paid to link to Jane. As a matter of fact, Bob expects nothing in return except perhaps a better environment for his site-visitors. Both Bob and Jane score good points in their document profiles and everyone lives happily ever after in a naïve representation of an intellectual nirvana. As the web works today, Jane is almost certainly selling something to pay for the high cost of providing good information while retaining the ability to pay her mortgage. Jane therefore benefits from a link provided by Bob and wants to get as many as she possibly can knowing that if she ranks higher than anyone else, she will likely make more sales. The moment Bob sees Jane building links for financial benefit; he starts to think of what he can get in return for a link. An industry built to game Google is thus born and Google engineers start to worry about how their link-driven results are perceived by the search-surfing public.

Google is using a number of logical measures to both predetermine and actively-determine the value of each and every link it follows. Google is interested in the long-term behaviour of links and compiles a life-cycle analysis of links as part of the document profiles associated with all documents in its index.

Here are a few observations and questions for performing link analysis. While there is no proof Google will or will not consider these points in relation to a document at any given time, there is plenty of evidence that webmasters and search marketers should at all times. According to a number of sections of the patent, (particularly those numbered in the 50's) Google is capable of taking a much wider analysis of links and their purpose than previously thought.

When new links are added, Google examines how their appearance or disappearance affects other links associated with the document. When a link appears is important to Google. If a number of links appear to a new or existing document at once, Google would like to be able to easily gauge the value of each of those links. One of the ways it does that is by date. When did the link appear? What other links were present on the document the link came from when the link appeared? How does the presence or disappearance of various links on that document affect the relevancy of the document or the perceived relevance to the document it points to?

How do documents networked by links relate to each other over time?
Links can change over time. Google wants to be able to judge if a link is seasonal or time driven as part of its weighing criteria. One of the ways it judges time, seasonal or event driven linkage is by trends associated with documents connected by links. Are there similar link-trends shared by documents that are linked together?

What date did fresh link appear?
When did Google notice a fresh link exists? The date Google becomes aware of a link is a benchmark date. Google compares a number of other factors against that date in the profiles of documents associated with that link.

What anchor text was associated with the link?
Google uses anchor text as a relevancy determinant. A link using "blue widgets" as its anchor text should therefore link to a document directly associated with blue widgets.

When did links directed to a document start using specific keyword phrases as anchor text?
Again, Google refers to a benchmark date. In this case, it compares the benchmark start date against those of other links in the document profile.

Does that anchor text change?
The next two obvious questions are, when and to what. Google uses this information to track link-campaigns and to determine link-spam advertising from active, organic links. For instance, a link with anchor text that remains static might be judged harshly if other links on the page are also static. If that same link was found on a page where other links changed from time to time, Google would take a brighter view of the value of that link.

When the anchor text of a link changes, was that change relevant to changes in document content?
If the anchor text of a link changes in relation to content on the document linked to, chances are the link was placed with care and consideration. Google would then assign a higher score. If, however, the anchor text is noted to change without any relation to the text on the document linked to, there is a chance the link is part of keyword-link branding campaign.

Google is using a number of other factors to determine the validity of links, some of which involve the behaviours of those who follow links to documents in Google's index. Determining the value of a link also means considering if human-users think the link is valuable.

The concept of document profiles is very real. Google is making a list and checking it more than twice when determining the value of links and webs they weave. Google examines these link-webs as they relate to both individual documents and the sites they are associated with. When building, buying, placing or otherwise acquiring links in an SEO or SEM campaign, it is wise to think about what Google is going to think about that link. One thing you know for certain is that Google is going to think quite a bit about it and every other link associated with it.

Article by Jim Hedger, News Editor, StepForth Search Engine Placement, Inc.  www.stepforth.com  -    Published Apr. 2005

Google changes its algorithm again

Some webmasters have observed significant ranking changes in Google's search engine result pages. It seems that Google has tweaked its algorithm again or that it is still fine-tuning the way it ranks web pages for its next algorithm update.

What has happened?

Google uses more than 100,000 servers to store its data. These servers build-the Google data centers. Depending on the time and the place from which you access Google, Google will redirect you to different data centers.

For example, you might be redirected to the IP address64.233.161.105 or to 216.239.57.105 when you enter www.Google.com in your web browser. Both IP addresses reflect different data centers in which Google will search for your query (the IP addresses in this example were operational on 29 March 2005, they can change at any time).

There are very many different Google data centers and each data center has its own index. Normally, the contents of the different data centers is about the same.

Webmasters who observe several data centers have found out that there are currently three types of data centers. Depending on which data center group you use for your search query, you'll get different results.

What does that mean?

It seems that Google uses different algorithms in these data centers and that Google uses some data centers to test algorithm changes. Using only a few data centers allows Google to test algorithm changes without affecting all search results.

The three different data center groups that have been observed by some webmasters probably reflect the test of different algorithms that affect the same ranking factor.

Data center group one (the biggest) uses the current algorithm, group two (a small group) tests algorithm change A, group three (another small group) tests algorithm change B. That way, Google can test the best way to improve its algorithm without affecting all search results.

What does this mean for your web site?

At the moment, this means nothing for your web site. The changes are only tested in some data centers. If you use Google's normal web site and if you don't access Google's data centers directly, chances are that you haven't been affected by these testing changes.

To optimize your web pages for high Google rankings, take a look at the web pages that currently have top rankings on Google and try to find out what these pages have done to get these rankings. As these pages have top 10 rankings, they must have done something right.

IBP's Top 10 Optimizer can help you to do this quickly and easily. IBP's advice is always based on the latest search engine algorithms.

Don't go mad about Google. Although Google is a very important search engine, you'll also get targeted visitors from Yahoo, MSN Search, Ask Jeeves and other search engines. Optimizing your site for more than one search engine makes you less dependent on a single player.

Copyright Axandra.com - Web site promotion software tools   -  Published Apr. 2005

How to get out of Google's sandbox

If your web site has good rankings on Yahoo, MSN and other search engines but not on Google, it's likely that your web site has been put into Google's sandbox.

What is Google's sandbox?

Why does Google delay the inclusion of brand-new web sites?

What can you do to get out of the sandbox?

Can you speed up the whole process?

Google's sandbox is Google's attempt to prevent spammers from creating web sites that are just a flash in the pan. Google wants to return high quality web sites with good content in its result pages.

Copyright Axandra.com - Web site promotion software tools   -  Published Mar. 2005

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