Alex Higgins Blog

Hi All,

I have decided to start blogging on a self hosted WordPress installation on my own server. For those who have loyally followed this blog, please update your rss feeds and bookmarks to point to http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com

Although, I may visit this blog from time to time, I would be primaraly posting their from now on.

Search Engine Optimization for Google's Universal Search

By Scott Buresh (c) 2007

Organic search engine optimization, until recently, had been a fairly straightforward endeavor. The goal was to optimize the content on a website so that it would show up in the organic results on one or more of the major search engines - results that were comprised of nothing but other websites. However, in the middle of May 2007, Google began rolling out its new "Universal Search," something it had been working on behind the scenes for several years. This new search option may have long-term repercussions for every search engine optimization company in the industry if it is something that is preferred by the public at large and if it becomes the standard going forward.

What is Universal Search?

Someone using Google's Universal Search will find that a query brings back results that encompass not only web pages, but also videos, blogs, images, news articles, and other media available online. While Google already had in place options for searching each of these areas individually, many searchers did not notice those options or did not know how to use them, a phenomenon that became known as "invisible tabs."

With Universal Search, there's no need to select a separate menu item - the search will return results that encompass many different types of media. For example, a search for "breakdancing" might bring up not only web pages about breakdancing, but also blog posts about it, videos showing technique, and news articles about it. It would not, however, give you the reason why you were wearing parachute pants and trapped in the eighties.
However, Universal Search hasn't been rolled out fully yet. Currently, certain terms will give Universal results, while other searches will remain the same as before. This is a classic Google move - roll something out gradually, see how it plays in the public eye, and then decide what to do from there. Basically, Universal Search as it exists right now is very likely to change, depending on user feedback.

And if the limited queries that now return Universal Search results do not garner positive responses, it's likely that Google will revert to its previous, webpage predominated results. They obviously don't want to löse market share, and they already learned a valuable lesson not long ago when they released a new algorithm that was poorly received and which was subsequently dialed back.

What are the Benefits of Universal Search?

Universal Search brings several benefits to searchers. A searcher no longer has to specify the media he or she is looking for - one keyphrase search will cover everything. And the results from a search will be more comprehensive in many instances, giving a well-rounded picture to the searcher that may include better information than would previously have been found in a search of just one type of media.

What are the Drawbacks of Universal Search?

The problem with Universal Search is that it can muddy the results, and it can also introduce irrelevant results that a searcher cannot use. A search for "Paris Hilton" (ever heard of her?) will bring up news, videos, and other information about the heiress. But it will also bring up a map of the city of Paris showing locations of Hilton hotels, something most searchers that typed that exact phrase probably did not have in mind. Plus, 28% of Internet users are still using slow dialup connections (1), according to RVA Market Research. Many of these people are likely not interested in videos or other results that require much bandwidth, and such users may turn away from Universal Search entirely - there are, after all, other search engines. No, really - there are.

In addition, there is no way to turn off Universal Search; as it exists right now, it is part of the standard "Web" search, eliminating the ability to simply search web pages and introducing a new wrinkle in search engine optimization efforts. Now, a website is competing not only with other websites, but also with all the other media that will be included in the results that an average searcher achieves. And Universal Search makes it difficult for Google itself to determine the relevance between different types of media, since the factors that determine a web page's relevance are much different than those that would determine a video's relevance, for example.

What Can You Do Now to Make Sure Your Site Is Ready to be Found in a Universal Search?

Clearly, Universal Search will change how an SEO campaign is run if it catches on. But this is a real if - users' search habits are hard to change overnight, even if you are Google and you essentially define what searching is and how it works. If it does catch on, you'll need to analyze the industry you are in and figure out which types of media might be most important for you. For example, if you are a real estate firm, images of the buildings and homes you are selling might become a very important part of your site, and so you will want to focus on adding alt tags to each image so that not only does your site show up for certain keyphrases, but your images do as well. If you are a business services firm, you instead might want to focus on news items produced by your company - press releases and white papers - and make sure that those are available to search engine spiders and optimized for critical phrases.

If you are working with an outside search engine optimization company already, now is the time to ask what they plan to do in regard to Universal Search. Your search engine optimization company should at least have an awareness of the magnitude of this new way to search on Google and should be able to present you with some sort of plan of attack, even if they plan to wait to embark upon the plan until they know for sure that Universal Search is going to catch on. If you are looking into hiring an outside search engine optimization company to launch a new campaign, the same holds true - ask your contacts at the firm how they are planning to handle Universal Search. They should at least be familiar with the concept and have a general outline to present to you.

Conclusion

If you thought that it was just Google that was working on what it calls Universal Search, think again. Yahoo, MSN, and Ask, as well as several minor search engines such as A9, are all working on their own versions of a universal search that will display different media types. These versions are currently still in the testing phase, but they could be rolled out at any time. What all this means for you and your search engine optimization company is that the face of SEO will be changing dramatically over the next several months - or it won't. Only time will tell. (1) http://www.birds-eye.net/directory/statistics/2007.htm -

About The Author

Scott Buresh is the CEO of Medium Blue Search Engine Marketing, which was recently named the number one search engine optimization company in the world by PromotionWorld. Visit MediumBlue.com to request a custom SEO guarantee of your company's search engine performance.

iPhone. It's here. Ready, Set Market.

I received an email today about the new release of the Apple iPhone. There is a lot of hype about today’s release and even a strong grassroots demand, so I decided to post a blog about marketing potential for today’s on demand customers. If your looking for an iPhone marketing plan, visit iphonechat.com.

The iPhone targets consumers who need to store information and communicate or people who want entertainment on the go. Apples target segments consist of professionals, students, corporate users, entrepreneurs, and health care workers. Currently, the market for high-end phones like the Apple iPhone is small. Few people want Internet, video, and PDA features in one device because of the high price. The smart phone market is still relatively small compared with general phone market. The market will rapidly increase in coming years due to lower prices and greater power.

So is this hope or hype? The overall consensus is that product will change the face of online marketing and SEO as we know, and may even lead to the demise of traditional SEO. The release is so significant that the expected combined impact with the rollout of Google Universe, has people rethinking their online marketing strategies.

This past week (June 17-23) a search on Google News shows that over 10,000 news stories discussed the iPhone, so the question here is What Marketers Can Learn From the iPhone Marketing Hype. Well for marketers there is a lot to learn from Apple’s efforts to build buzz for the launch of this product.

Here are a few:

• Understand the Needs of Different Media - Building hype requires a full-out media blitz. However, what is offered to each media must be different. For instance, television media need access to important company personnel for on-air interviews either by having these people visit in-studio or via satellite broadcast. Print publications need statistics and graphics that can be displayed on their pages. Online media want multi-media content, such as Flash presentations, YouTube style video or other forms, that is linkable within their websites.
• Give the Product a Recognizable Brand Name - It is easier to build interest if customers have some amount of awareness of a company or product. An easy way to do this for a new product is to give the product a brand name that appears connected to an existing well-respected brand. For Apple it can be argued that the brand that people are most familiar with is not the Apple name but the iPod name. In fact, just the prefix “i” may evoke brand awareness that is associated with Apple products. So naming the product iPhone, while initially a challenging legal issue for Apple, is clearly the right move for establishing early product interest.
• Spread Word-of-Mouth Through Pre-Announcements - Announcing a new product well in advance of bringing it to market can get customers to withhold a decision to purchase competitors’ products until they see what the new product can do for them. The major implication of postponing purchase decisions is that people are happy to tell others that they are waiting to see what the new product has in store. This heightens word-of-mouth advertising and stirs interest in those who may face similar purchase decisions. Apple announced the iPhone in January and in the five months between announcement and launch there are potentially hundreds of thousands of cellphone customers whose contracts expired and are looking to make a purchase decision so the word-of-mouth potential is huge.
• Whether the iPhone will be a long-term success will have more to do with the value of the product itself and not with the factors that help generate early hype. But if any product is guaranteed to get off to a fast start it is this one.

Check out the details of the new release here

Google Spam Team Targets Real Estate Websites

By Marc Rasmussen (c) 2007

Originally published in SiteProNews, June 25, 2007

If you have any experience or background in SEO (search engine optimization) you know that Google likes website that have links pointing to it. A part of their search algorithm involves the popularity of the site determined by the number of other sites pointing to it via a link. With all else being equal Google will rank a website with quality links pointing to it higher than another website with no links. If you read Google's Webmaster Guidelines (Webmaster Central) the very first bit of advice they give you is:

* have other relevant sites link to yours.

Google loves links and they admit it. Webmasters figured this out and came up with all kinds of different techniques for getting links to their sites - link baiting, reciprocal links, ninja links, 3 way links, one way links, contextual links etc. The problem is a lot of the techniques are frowned upon by Google. They want you to get links the natural way and not to try to cheat the system.

Their guidelines say:

* Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
* Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?

In one breath Google tells you to get links to your site and then in the other breath tells you not to participate in any link scheme designed to increase your site's ranking. How do you know what a link scheme is? What is acceptable? What is not acceptable? I guess you have to ask yourself "Does this help my users?" It definitely is not a black and white situation and has plenty for room for interpretation.

Google has a web spam team headed by Matt Cutts. Their job is to enforce these Google Webmaster Guidelines and crack down on link spam. When he talks people listen. He frequently speaks at search engine conferences around the world.

I could not find it anywhere (didn't really look long) but heard that Matt Cutts in the past has mentioned that he does not like the reciprocal linking that Realtors engage in. Supposedly, he had mentioned this several times over the last few years but has not done anything about it.
Real estate agents trade links with other agents around the country and world with the argument that we refer business to each other so therefore it is a legitimate link exchange and not done for the sole purpose of pumping up our rankings. This may be true in some instances but for the most part it is bologna. I would venture to say that 95% of the agents who trade links do so to achieve higher rankings in the results. That was the only reason I did it. What was the likelihood that a visitor to my Sarasota, Florida website was there to find an agent in Albuquerque, New Mexico? The only reason I ever traded a link with an agent outside Florida was to get to number 1 in Google.

In the beginning, when I knew absolutely nothing, I was told to trade links with anyone and everyone. I did that for awhile. Then someone told me to only trade with people in the real estate industry. So, I changed it up and did that. The link exchanging worked. I wasn't number 1 but was on the first page for a couple key phrases.

Fast forward a little bit, I changed to a more search engine friendly website, traded links sporadically, added plenty of original content, included and updated a blog frequently. My overall goal was to become an authority site and build a valuable, useful website to people looking for anything real estate related in Sarasota, Florida. I simply wanted to make a website better than my competitors. Eventually, I became number 1 for the most sought after key phrases in my market and was on the first page for hundreds of phrases. I got there by having a better website than most. That is a great thing about the Google search engine. It generally does the best job of providing relevant results.

It dawned on me that reciprocal linking with hundreds of agents around the country was pretty useless to my visitors so I stopped doing it about a year or so ago. I did a couple contextual link exchanges with other agents in Florida. I figured that would be useful to someone looking for real estate in Florida but was not sure in what part of the state to look.
I had stopped paying attention to what was going on in the SEO world for awhile as I get paid to service buyers and sellers of real estate, not updating my website. I continued to post in my blog but that was the extent of it. So, I was out of the loop for 6 months or so.

A shot across the bow:

Advanced Access is an enormous real estate website provider with around 30,000 Realtor websites. I am not up to speed on the details but apparently many or all of the Advanced Access users were penalized by Yahoo. Many of the AA users would trade links with each other and it was possibly viewed by Yahoo as one big incestuous link farm.
Advanced Access hired Greg Boser, a search engine guru, to solve their problems with Yahoo. His recommendation to AA users was to erase all state pages containing excessive reciprocal links. He viewed them as useless spam. Not all of the AA users took his advice. Many of the customers resisted because of the hundreds of man hours they put into accumulating all of the links. Others were probably ranking well and did not want to rock the boat.
In April of 2007 many high ranking Advanced Access websites were suddenly missing from the Google search results. Was it an algorithm change? Probably not since the AA website were the only ones affected. Ultimately, the consensus was that the AA websites were manually given a penalty by Google. Of course, no one was 100% sure because you can't call Google on the phone or email them to get a definitive answer. Why would Google focus on only one website provider? Why the largest provider of real estate websites? Were they penalized for excessive reciprocal links? Probably. Evidently, Matt Cutts previously made warnings about it. Did the well connected internet guru, Greg Boser, have anything to do with the penalty? I don't know. Some people believe that. He supposedly knows Matt Cutts.

[ed. note I: Greg does know Matt Cutts. I do too. Greg most certainly could NOT ever get Matt to interfere for commercial reasons. Matt doesn't do that sort of thing, nor does Google. - jh]
In the Advanced Access forums one participant noticed that some AA websites were penalized while others were not. Almost all of the sites had state pages and excessive reciprocal links. Why were some chosen and other spared? How did Google determine which websites to hit and why? The forum participant noticed that just about everyone who voiced their opinions, beliefs and thoughts in the forums were hit with the penalties while the site owners who were not active went penalty free. Did Google hand pick the loudest website owners?
In May, just over 30 days later, most of the AA sites had their penalties dropped and were found again in Google.

Real Estate Webmasters is another large and very visible real estate website provider. Many of their customer sites rank exceptionally well in Google. They also host a very active forum for webmasters. If someone (or Google) wanted to send a message through the real estate community this is a great place to do it. I found it interesting that Greg Boser, the well connected internet guru, became very active in the Real Estate Webmasters forum on April 27th. Just a few weeks prior to many of their websites getting hit with a penalty.

On May 9th, a number of high ranking Real Estate Webmaster websites were suddenly missing from the Google search results. Sites from all over country had been hit with a Google penalty. I own one of those sites and was probably penalized for state pages and reciprocal linking. The damn thing is that I deleted all of my state pages and links on the 4th of May. Google most likely pinpointed me as a violator before the 4th and it took until the 9th to employ the penalty.
It is interesting that Google would hit customers of another large and potentially loud real estate website provider with an active forum. Is Google trying to send a message to the real estate community about excessive reciprocal links? Maybe. Probably. Greg Boser became active in the forums a couple of weeks prior to the penalty. Did he have something to do with it? I don't know. Possibly.

[ed. note II. Again, probably not. We will try to reach Greg for comment however we strongly doubt he was involved in having listings removed. It is possible he was warned or has received information regarding the penalty but extremely unlikely he was directly involved in its planning or execution. - jh]

Here we are 44 days later and almost all of the Real Estate Webmasters sites are still penalized. We all have deleted our state pages, reciprocal links, removed the URL's through the Google webmaster tools and have asked forgiveness via a re-inclusion request.

Is Google waiting for us to spread the word throughout the Realtor community about the no-no's of reciprocal linking? I don't know. Is it fair that a small group of us were targeted while others continue to fill their websites with spammy reciprocal links? No, but life is not fair.
Rand Fishkin at www.seomoz.org recently interviewed Matt Cutts. You can watch the interview here http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-smx-diaries-iv-the-matt-cutts-interview. Watch the 2nd video and fast forward it to around the 5:30 mark. Matt acknowledges the Real Estate Webmaster thread discussing the recent penalties. He also mentions "a shot across the bow" technique of policing.

Isn't everyone employed by Google a genius? Couldn't they have come up with a better system to policing the real estate industry other than hurting a few mom and pop Realtors?
Lessons Learned:

* Don't try to game the Google search engine. They will eventually figure you out.
* Don't trade links with hundreds of Realtors around the country. Build links only for the benefit of your users, not your search engine rankings.
* Build a site with tons of unique content, provide lots of value to visitors and eventually links will come with time. I have received several one way links from the Sarasota Herald Tribune (my local newspaper) from articles they wrote about my website and blog. I imagine this is the way Google likes to see links built.
* Google isn't perfect.
* If you rely on Google search results to feed you and your family you better have some money stashed away in the event you get penalized. Fortunately, I did this.
* If you do make money off the web keep at least one eye on what is happening in the search engine world to stay competitive.
* I rank fairly well in MSN and really don't get that much traffic from it.
* Ranking very well in Google will bring tons of traffic to your website.
* Being penalized by Google sucks.

Marc Rasmussen is a realtor in Sarasota Florida. He publishes The Sarasota MLS website.

Increase Search Engine

Every web site owner wants to íncrease search engine traffíc. It's free and the visitor is targeted to your subject matter, product or service. What more could you ask for in search engine traffíc? The downside is that you need to understand search engine ranking methods and that is quite a challenge for many.

The number of opinions and "experts" on ways to íncrease search engine traffíc is overwhelming. And regardless of what anyone might tell you, they're all guessing. The search engines themselves don't divulge how their methods work for one simple reason. As soon as anyone figures out the method, there's a mad rush to implement changes based on the method.

In a perfect world, where there were no scoundrels, this might not be a factor. Everyone would organize their web site information so that a visitor could easily find what they are looking for, and life would be good. But we certainly don't live in a perfect world and scoundrels are everywhere.

So we are at the mercy of the search engines to help us sort through the clutter to find what we want. And that's the value that the search engines provide, accurate and meaningful search engine results that are related to the search terms or phrases. So it goes back to the quality of content, that's the only common factor in all 3 major search engines' ranking methods.
Each of the big 3 (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) search engines use a little different method and technology to arrive at any given web site's ranking under specific search terms. As mentioned above, no one knows exactly how each method works. But you can test different strategies and methods to see how they impact your rank.

And therein lies the only true method of determining what the search engines might look for when ranking your web page on specific search terms. I'm sure most of us are aware that most processes can be expressed in mathematical equations. I'm not sure if that's the best method for search engine ranking, but it is the most popular for the search engine ranking process.
And consider the fact that when someone has determined (or thinks they have determined) one of the factors used in search engine rankings they beat it to death. Every discovered aspect in the past few years has been exploited immediately to the point of the search engines abandoning the tactic. As soon as the search engines see that someone can beat the system, they change it.

That's one of the big reasons you see constant change in ranking methods. Since there is a tremendous amount of revenue at stake for all concerned, i.e. sales of products and services for the web site owners, plus the advertising revenue for the search engines, any advantage is huge.

If you would have tested and tracked all the changes and methods in search engine rankings for the past few years, one constant factor would stand out. This is also one of the most misunderstood and often overlooked elements in search engine ranking for a specific term.
So what's the one thing that the search engines can't change about their mathematical algorithms? You got it, CONTENT! The search engines can play with the process, methods, or means to judge web site content. But, if web site owners stick to the basic philosophy of providing meaningful content, in relation to the search term, the impact of changes are far less, if even felt.

And that is where many web site owners run afoul of getting good search engine rankings. Many jump on the bandwagon with every new revelation in search engine strategies based on the latest changes. It's the old forest and trees scenario, Internet style. Even if you get a slight advantage from all these "new" tactics, it will be short lived. As soon as the search engines catch on that you are working the system, they will change the system.
So the best way to íncrease your rankings for a particular search term is to provide meaningful information or content based on that search term. Here a few guidelines I've found that help:
Make sure you focus on the subject matter (don't try to satisfy too many terms with one web page).

Get inside the searcher's head – figure out what they want and give it to them.
Be specific and provide details – don't generalize and be descriptive.
For a sales page use benefits and features to fully explain the problem and the solution.
Update your information often – setup a schedule to update and add more content.

There are many sub factors that can have an impact on how well the search engine bots can determine the value of the content. The search engine bots are software programs that go out and "read" your web page and then provide the information to rank your web pages on what they discovered.

You'll find many "experts" who will give you a hard líst of items and how to present this information. And I don't disagree with suggestions to include the search term in your web page in key areas like title, description, and font designations like H1. That helps the search engine software bots to determine the content.

But I've seen web pages with no meta-tags, title, or description but that had rock solid content and still had high search engine rankings on a particular search term. So make it easy for the search engines, but always remember that the content is the single consistent factor in search engine rankings.

There are a lot of different aspects to consider when trying to improve your search engine ranking, and íncrease search engine traffíc. The keyword and phrase research, interpreting the search term or phrase to provide the best result, reviewing other popular web sites with the same intentions, linking to other like content web sites, and more. How you present the information and content is also an important issue.

But all those factors come after good content. So if you start with providing the best content, you can't go wrong. After all, this is both an art and a science, not to mention a moving target. If you would like to learn more, please visit our other article links below.

About The AuthorVisit jd WebWorks, to see some recent case studies and get better results with SEO Web Site Design.

Checking Supplemental Index Status for URLs in Large Sites

For sites with fewer than 1000 pages, it's possible (if not monotonous) to see which URLs are in Google's Supplemental Index. Simply run a site: command for your domain (example) and scroll through the results pages until you start to see "Supplemental Result" next to some of the URLs.

But what if your site has 50,000 pages and the supplemental results don't start until the final 10,000? Even the fairly common site:domain.com *** -view query isn't totally accurate, and it's still subject to the 1000 URL display limit.

Depending on which case you find yourself, it can be either tedious or impossible to detect whether a specific URL is Supplemental.

Using our blog site as an example, suppose I suspect -- but can't confirm -- that an old post about Yahoo Sitemaps is in the SI. A simple info: query doesn't tell you whether the URL is supplemental or not. For example, the following shot came from the query:

[info:http://seoblog.intrapromote.com/2006/11/an_update_on_ya.html]

Instead, a quick way to check Supplemental status is to pull a unique string from the URL in question (such as a folder or filename) and tack it into an inurl:-filtered site: query. In other words, the following shot came from this query, in which I added the filename (minus extension) into the inurl: command:

[inurl:an_update_on_ya site:seoblog.intrapromote.com]

In this result, note the Supplemental Index status.
The bottom line is to find an inurl: string that will quickly filter down the site: query results so that your specific URL shows up quickly.
posted by Erik Dafforn at June 26, 2007 08:50 AM
Intrapromote: [ Case studies SEO services Bios ]

Judge rejects Google's anti-Microsoft antitrust bid

Posted by Anne Broache

Editor's note: This story was updated at 10:38 a.m. PST
WASHINGTON--A federal judge refused on Tuesday to rule on a last-minute Google antitrust complaint about Windows Vista's desktop search, saying she trusted government attorneys who said they were already satisfied with Microsoft's planned changes.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said she would rely on the U.S. Department of Justice and state attorneys to alert her if any further action is needed to address antitrust allegations lodged on Monday by Google that the search function still won't allow for adequate "user choice."

"The plaintiffs, as far as I'm concerned, stand in the shoes of the consumer," Kollar-Kotelly said at a periodic status conference here. She added that Google "is not a party to the case."
Last week, Microsoft and its government antitrust overseers outlined a number of steps Redmond had agreed to take to address Google's ongoing concerns. Those moves included, among other things, adding a mechanism that would allow both computer makers and individuals to choose a default desktop search program--much as they can choose a rival browser or media player.

But Google argued in a filing on the eve of the already scheduled court hearing that it wasn't convinced those tweaks went far enough. The search giant also asked the judge to consider extending the November 12 expiration date for certain parts of the consent decree to ensure Microsoft was truly complying with an antitrust agreement dating back to 2002.
Kollar-Kotelly said she plans to rule on whether Google was allowed to file the seven-page brief it submitted to the court on Monday (Microsoft has opposed the filing as procedurally out-of-bounds). But she said she was "not going to take any position on it or comment on" the brief's content.

The judge did suggest, however, that perhaps Google lacks complete information about the proposed Vista changes. She said she expected the government attorneys and Microsoft to supply a fuller description than that revealed in their most joint recent court filing.
Google said after Tuesday's hearing that it was encouraged by what it viewed as the judge's sensitivity to its request for more information.

"As a result of our raising concerns about Vista desktop search, the Department of Justice and the states secured remedies from Microsoft that will provide consumers more choices than existed before," senior policy counsel Alan Davidson, who attended the hearing, said through a spokesman. "We are pleased that the authorities have provided important oversight here, and hope they will closely monitor the implementation to ensure that consumers' interests are served."

In their appearances before the judge, attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice and state plaintiffs continued to emphasize they were satisfied the Google complaint had been fully resolved. They also said they expected to receive the beta version of the code in time to test it for compliance before the November expiration date. "Certainly if we don't, we will be back here" in court, said Justice Department attorney Aaron Hoag.
Microsoft attorney Charles Rule told the judge that he believed much "misinformation" has been circulating about the way Vista's desktop search works. Using a print-out of a desktop screenshot as a prop, he walked the courtroom audience through the planned changes and existing features.

For instance, contrary to what some have said, Vista's search indexer has been "designed to back off" when other applications are running, which should assuage any fears about third-party desktop search applications encountering problems, Rule said. He also said users can already set up their machines so that third-party desktop search options appear in the left-hand side of the Start menu and in menus that appear when the desktop is right-clicked--and said that wouldn't change.

Kollar-Kotelly indicated she was also pleased with the progress that Microsoft and antitrust authorities had reported in other areas, such as its communications protocol program, a required licensing regime aimed at helping third-party developers to create software that works with Windows.

"This has been a productive report and a productive hearing," she said near the event's close.
Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith said in a statement afterward that the company is "going to work hard to implement the resolution we reached with all the governments involved and presented to the court today."

The parties are currently due back in Kollar-Kotelly's courtroom on September 11, with a status report to be filed a few weeks beforehand.

Winner Best Keyword Research Tool » Online Marketing Blog

Posted by Lee Odden on Jun 25th, 2007 in Online Marketing, Keyword Research

The poll is closed and the results are in with 154 votes for the most recent TopRank OMB Reader Poll: Best Keyword Research Tools. The two long standing tools of choice for many search marketers, Keyword Discovery and Wordtracker, battled it out and in the end, tied.
What surprised me was how popular the old Overture tool continues to be despite not being updated since January 2007. Perhaps that should spell an opportunity for Yahoo to somehow use the url for a new and improved keyword tool with ads for Panama on it.

Keyword Discovery (18%)
Wordtracker (18%)
WordZe (15%)
Google Keyword Tool (14%)
SEO Digger (12%)
Overture Keyword Selector (6%)
SEO Boook Keyword Tool (3%)
KeywordSpy (3%)
SpyFu (3%)
Digital Point Keyword Suggestion Tool (3%)
NicheBOT (2%)
Hitwise Search Intelligence (2%)
Google Suggest Scraper (1%)
comScore qSearch (0%)
AdGooRoo SEM Insight (0%)

AOL News goes web 2.0 - revamped as blog

AOL Revamps News as Blog

Article from: http://www.imediaconnection.com/news/15556.aspAuthor
Author: By Dawn Anfuso

AOL today launched a completely redesigned version of AOL News that adopts an innovative blog format, combining traditional news sources, AOL programming and social news, all in an easy-to-use single-page experience.

The new AOL News site homepage features regularly updated top news stories selected by AOL's editorial news staff, delivered in a blog-style format that lets users vote and comment on each story. There's also embedded video, photos and polls that let users watch and interact with the news without leaving the site.

The homepage also runs updated news headlines, photos and breaking videos from major news sources, including The Associated Press, ABC News, CBS News, CNN and others, as well as links to AOL's roster of news bloggers, including Mo Rocca, Dinesh D'Souza, The Young Turks and Power Line.

Read the rest of this article here

The Advantages of Web Page Template Designs: Tips and Guides on Which To Choose

The use of website templates has come a long way since the early days of the internet. Early site where usually either hands synchronized or employed a method of dynamic scripting or frames.
In all of the above situations, problems arose. Whether the issue was a broken link not getting updated on certain pages, or search engine visibility problems like issues crawling dynamic URLs or frame sets without the proper navigation, the use of templated systems needed to evolve.

Since then we have seen evolution progress to server side includes, the old #include tag, and the PHP include tag. Even proprietary programs have developed their very own include tags.

Modern web site take advantage of templates in the form of ASCX and MASTER pages in asp.net 1.1/2.0 respectively, xml configuration files in Microsoft Share Point Portals and even allow for user specific themes and skins like those in the DNN portals and PHP forums.

Regardless of which technology used the use of includes allow web developers to design a consistent look and feel, in a search engine friendly manner that contributes to branding and extends usability.

There are number of great web sites on the internet for templates. Of particular interest are site that offer PSD templates, HTML templates, and even the king of the MYSPACE template. It is important to note that for proper search engine marketing, templates should be optimized by a search engine optimization expert for issues like indexability, crawability, and cross-broswer compatibility issues, particulary like those caused by FrontPage.

In Today’s article by Jay Peterson, we’ll review the benefits of using templates in website design and development, as published in white papers and marketing advice section the template benefits article on Affordable Web Designs web site .


The Advantages of Web Page Template Designs: Tips and Guides on Which To Choose
by: Jay Peterson

Building and creating a website is a nightmarish task especially if you don't have the slightest idea on what you are suppose to do. Staring on an empty screen and waiting for some creative ideas to pop up can be quite frustrating and disappointing especially if nothing really comes to mind. But why over exert yourself, when you can simply download a web template that is available online that comes in vast array of designs.

Here are the advantages of using web page templates designs:

• A web template or web page template provides web sites with ready-made frames that project a professional and classy look. Plus, with the use of web templates, web sites are created in a very short amount of time.
• Web templates are also ideal for building personal web pages as well as enormous corporate site, online shops or business that serves as online counterparts for their brick and mortar shops. Aside from that, web templates may even provide as a design for any developed software.
• Web page templates or web templates are ideal especially for people who are not familiar with web designing. Web templates provide them with the initial elements to create noteworthy web site designs. Professional web designers who are equipped with the skills as well as the experience in creating astounding web page template designs create these web templates. Likewise, web page
  template designs play an important role in creating people's impression of the
  company or of the business.

The advantages of customizing web page template designs:

• In addition, there are also various web page template designs which may also be customized for added flare. Customizing the designs of web page templates requires for the addition of some elements like text, logos and images.
• Customized web page template designs are ideal for businesses who want to portray a strong and effective online presence. It is also excellent in
  providing businesses with the usability, the visual impact, and assists in building consumer trust as well as provides businesses with an effective branding solution that will surely leave a mark in the mind of consumers.

How to acquire custom web page template designs online?

There are phases or stages that are involved in acquiring for custom web page template designs online. The initial phase or stage involves the filling up or the completion of a design questionnaire where customers are asked about designs that they want. The second stage involves outlining of objectives based on customers' expectations that will guide the designers in creating the design. The third and final stage is the implementation of the chosen design ayout. The design layout will be uploaded to the web site of the customer where adjustments are going to be made to match the color as well as the font scheme of the site.

Important considerations in choosing web page template designs

In choosing a web page template design, it is important to consider its usability. The usability of the web design is an essential element that influences the site's conversion rate. An effective web design is one that quickly loads and presents the content of the web site in a way that would be easily understood by web visitors.

Web page templates may either be bought or be downloaded free online. There are so many downloadable web page template designs that may be used as basis for fast and high quality web sites. These templates are completely customizable and are ready for immediate use. And to ensure that you get only the best quality web page templates, choose only those providers that have a good track record on their sleeves complete of course with their portfolios that will serve as proof of their expertise for creating web templates that really creates an impact.

About The Author

Jay Peterson writer, web designer, marketer. www.TicTacWebsites.com is the easiest do-it-yourself website builder on the web No programming or design skill required. Get your small business online in just 5 minutes with www.TicTacWebsites.com loaded with 30+ business features.

How to recover data from a hard drive with destroyed MBR

I just read this post on Craigslist.org

"All my work was on HD of the laptop that died and MBR was destroyed. Who can help me and restore it? I am an artist (exhibited in NYC) so if you can restore it, I will offer you a signed archival print of my work! I would very much appreciate your help!"

Since I used to support desktop engineering in a major pharmeceutical company, this was something I am familiar with so I sent this response.

Re: Lost data on hard drive.

Hi,

It sounds like your in a pickle. How do you know the issue the MBR? Is the problem here the PC just wont boot, or are you getting some other error message?

If it is the MBR (Master Boot Record) here are two viable solutions that can allow your recover your data even though the MBR has been destroyed.

Option A Remove the hard drive and attempt to access the files from another PC.

You can attempt to get files from that hard drive by removing the hard drive from the laptop. Then puchase a usb to hard drive adapter like this one http://www.newertech.com/products/products_univ_adptr.php

You should then be able to plug the USB into another computer and access files of the drive.

Option B Fix the MBR using the windows recovery console. Another option is attempting to repair the MBR of the hard drive. To do this (assuming your hard drive has windows installed) follow these steps:

• Use the Windows Setup floppy disks or the Windows CD-ROM to start your computer.
• At the "Welcome to Setup" screen, press F10 or press 'R" to
  repair.
• After you start the Windows Recovery Console, you receive
  the following message:

  Microsoft Windows(R) Recovery ConsoleThe Recovery
  Console provides system repair and recovery functionality. Type EXIT to quit the
  Recovery Console and restart the computer.1: C:\WINDOWS Which Windows
  Installation would you like to log on to (To cancel, press ENTER)? After you
  enter the number for the appropriate Windows installation, Windows will then
  prompt you to enter the Administrator account password.

• After logging type in fixmbr and hit enter to fix the master boot
  record.
• Type exit to restart the computer.
  

Hope This Helps. For more information on how to use the windows recovery console visit http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058