Webmasters across the Internet spend countless hours preparing their websites to suit Google's latest algorithm changes, in the hope of achieving a decent Google page rank, or a handful of backlinks on Googles huge database, but at the end of the day.. does it really matter?
It's not so long ago that I used to subscribe to the notion that AOL and Yahoo believed they owned the Internet and had the right to control it. The over-the-top war on spam a clever smoke screen whilst out monitors were pumped with pop-ups that generated millions.
You probably haven't given a lot of thought lately to vertical search results, that thin sliver of search real estate that is sandwiched between the top sponsored ads and the top organic ads that generally shows a few lines of news results, or local, or products. I have. Don't panic, there's really no reason why you should have. It's really just a sad comment on my day to day activities. But I've noticed some things, and I think its incumbent upon me to share them with you. So let's get vertical for a few moments, shall we?
Yahoo announced the release of their new spider, Yahoo Slurp. Wait a second wasn't their spider already called Yahoo Slurp? Yes it was, but this new version is apparently faster and more efficient that the old one. isn't that what they said when they built the bionic man? Ah good old Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man. Well this may not be the Six Million Dollar Search Engine Spider, but it is a step in the right direction.
Yahoo states that we can expect a "25% reduction in the number of requests and bandwidth consumed by the crawler." As a result, when you check your log files next month you can expect to see less crawler activity from Yahoo Slurp. Yahoo has been testing the new spider in conjunction with the old one and it wasn't until earlier this week that it was fully deployed.
There is a search engine based in Pasadena, California called Snap.com with a stated desire to become 'The other way to Search'. All it takes is a click and a search or two to see how Snap.com is a true alternative to the norms of search advertising. I recently asked some employees at ICMediaDirect.com to check out Snap as an example of a company that not only thinks 'outside the box, but operates there, too.
We'd do well to steer clear of any insurance group billing itself as a revolutionary and unprecedented kind of policy-provider. Indeed, risk management calls for avoiding risk while seeking measured solutions. This is in stark contrast to the Internet, which is still developing as a platform and needs creativity and innovation as much as we need oxygen. So when a giant like Bill Gross, founder of Snap.com, aims to build search alternatives, I take special notice.
Google is using a new crawler software program for their AdWords advertising system that automatically spiders and analyzes the content of advertising landing pages. The name of the new crawler is AdsBot-Google. If you see such an entry in your web logs then your web site been visited by the new bot.
The update of the Google index is often referred to as the Google dance. For several days when Google is updating their index to include new pages and update their algorithms, search results almost seem to take on a life of their own. High positioned sites have been known to drop into near obscurity while the lesser-judged sites suddenly find themselves careering towards dizzy heights in the rankings. While this phenomenon is usually relatively short lived, lasting only two or three days, many webmasters take it to be a sign of things to come during the next major update.
Google finally released Google Notebook. Google Notebook is a resource provided that allows you to take notes on web sites that you visit. You can mark your notes as private or share them with the rest of the world.
You can compare this to delicio.us, furl, stumbleupon, etc. as a recent way in the past to help increase your web site rankings that would provide links to your web site.
However, because of new developments there is another stronger reason to consider these options. With the Google BigDaddy update, resources point to the development of enhancing searches by what people 'bookmark' and take 'notes' to be a stronger ranking factor than in the past!
I pity the poor new entry in the search engine space. How do you possibly stake out new territory in the hottest online space there is? How do you avoid being swept away in the tidal wave of momentum that is going to the industry leaders, Google, Yahoo and MSN? How do you attract enough users to gain a critical mass? Well, you have to offer something different.
A new desktop search tool, Quintura, is betting that a new user interface based on the concept of semantic mapping is just the ticket they need to win the search lottery. And if semantic mapping sounds familiar, it should. I've been talking about semantic mapping for almost 2 years now. It's a powerful concept in understanding how people search and something we identified in our previous research. But when it comes to building a new user interface around it, I'm not sure Quintura's implementation will be taken up by the search masses.
A new search engine to be released in June will offer faster and better quality internet searches as well as providing unique protection against expensive 'click through fraud' for companies who advertise in its sponsored advertisements section.
Megaglobe.com, which will operate from over 300 individual country-specific URL's and is to be translated into hundreds of languages, is set to challenge its rivals by employing a unique and sophisticated algorithm to improve the quality of Internet searching.
The patented algorithm works by allocating each search result a ranking - known as a Megarank - based on analysis of the quantity and quality of pages which link to the search result. The algorithm then creates a structure of importance to the sites based on their relevancy.
Yahoo! has just launched a new search technology on its AlltheWeb property that rivals Google's instant suggest feature in the beta release of Google Toolbar 4.0. The AlltheWeb Livesearch tool displays search results instantaneously for suggested keywords as you type your query into the search box; almost as if it is reading your semantic map before you even hit enter. And they have a catchy tag line too: Search Smarter. Find Faster.