The Rank Magic Blog

Brief Hiatus on the Blog

January 19, 2006 ::: There won't be any new entries in the blog until February -- I'm going in for a total knee replacement tomorrow and will be out of commission for a little while. See you all in February!

Feds Seek Google Records On Porn

January 19, 2006 ::: The Bush administration, seeking to revive an online pornography law struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, has subpoenaed Google for details on what its users have been looking for through its popular search engine. Privacy advocates are understandably concerned. Here's one report.

20 Billion and Counting

January 18, 2006 ::: "A few months back, Yahoo said that its search engine index had topped 20 billion items. 20 billion! To put that in perspective, 20 billion seconds ago, Columbus had yet to make his controversial journey. [...] I know it's trite to say, but we are surrounded by a cacophony of media. [...] This cacophony is why search marketing is so successful." <more ...>

In Google We Trust?

January 16, 2006 ::: If Google is a religion, what is its God? It would have to be The Algorithm. Faith in the possibility of an omniscient and omnipotent algorithm appears to be what Messrs Page and Brin have in common. <more ...>

First Impressions Count

January 13, 2006 ::: When people find your web site through search engines, you have to keep them on your site and you need to  convince them. A new study that was recently published in the journal Behaviour and Information Technology shows how important it is to make a good first impression.

The first impression is very important

A new study that has recently been published in the journal Behaviour and Information Technology shows that the snap decisions Internet users make about the quality of a web page have a lasting impact on their opinions.

It is very important that your web pages look good and that they have a trustworthy design.

You have 50 milliseconds

As reported in the BBC News, The study was conducted by Dr. Gitte Lindgaard of Carleton University in Ottawa. Lindgaard and her colleagues showed volunteers briefest glimpses of web pages previously rated as being either easy on the eye or particularly jarring, and asked them to rate the websites on a sliding scale of visual appeal.

Although the images were shown for just 50 milliseconds, the ratings were very similar to the judgments made after a longer examination of a web site.

Psychologists call this the halo effect. If people continue to use a web site that gave a good first impression they "prove" to themselves that they made a good initial decision.

What does this mean to your web site?

It's crucial that your site makes a good first impression. Otherwise, people might go to the next web site in the search results before finding out that you have something great to offer.

Make your web pages easy to read. Use a clear web site design and make it easy to find out what your web site is about.

Don't put everything you can on a single page. Focus on a clear message on each and every page and tell your web site visitors what's in it for them when they visit your site.

November Search Engine Share

January 10, 2006 ::: Google pulled away from Yahoo in search engine usage during November in a major way, according to comScore Networks Inc. Google nabbed almost 40 percent of all searches in the U.S., a commanding lead of more than 10 percentage points over Yahoo, which took second place.

ITWorld.com reports these figures:

• Google 39.8%, up from 34.6%

• Yahoo down to 29.5% from 32%

• MSN dropped to 14.2% from 16%

• All three add up to 83.5% of all searches

Good Writing Is Important

January 8, 2006 ::: The web pages actually at the top of Google have only one thing clearly in common: good writing. Don't get so caught up in the usual SEO sacred cows and bugbears, such as PageRank, and keyword density, that you forget your site's content. We have copywriting services that can help if you find yourself with writer's block when you need to update the content on your web site! Here's a good article by UpMarketContent.com.

Some A-List Web Sites Use Hidden Text to Try to Fool Google, Yahoo! and MSN

January 6, 2006 ::: An interesting article reveals some spamming techniques used by Fortune 500 companies. It seems that some of them  use techniques that for lesser sites entail the very real risk of being banned from the search engines. There's also a related forum thread with opinions from a number of search engine experts.

Google's the 800 lb Gorilla.
But For How Long?

January 5, 2006 ::: Google recently announced it would pay $1 billion for a 5% stake in America Online (AOL). The deal solidifies a partnership between two of the most popular websites, with the two expecting to generate more online advertising revenue together than they could apart. In the process, Microsoft lost its long effort to partner its MSN Internet service with AOL.

Google is the most ubiquitous presence on the Internet, and its threat to high-tech giants such as Microsoft is very real indeed.

But built into this dominance is a dilemma: Google's very success opens it up to new criticism. Google's growth prospects are vast, but in the ever-changing realm of high-tech, one lesson is that monopolistic power is rarely as real or permanent as it may seem. <Full story from the Christian Science Monitor>

Google to Sell Cheap PCs?

January 4, 2006 ::: Google may start selling cheap PCs through Wal-Mart. One way they plan to make them so cheap is that they won't be running Windows! Here's an interesting article from Marketing Shift.

Future History of the Media

January 2, 2006 :::  The Museum of Media History has recently produced a short film which charts the evolution of media from 1984 up until 2014, the date the history was supposedly written. It chronicles the changes we've seen to date plus future changes, including the merger of Google and Amazon to form "EPIC", the Evolving Personal Information Construct. EPIC will be able to connect, filter and prioritize information for every media consumer on the planet, using a single source of media content that contains everything that anyone could possibly ever want to know about. Are you ready for the future?