The Rank Magic Blog
Search Engine Market Share Figures for June, 2005
July 28, 2005 ::: Search engine market shares in June 2005: Google - 47%, Yahoo! - 22%, MSN - 12% by ZDNet's ZDNet -- According to Nielsen//NetRatings, 47% of Internet searches in June 2005 went to Google, 22% to Yahoo! and 12% to MSN. Search engine market shares in June 2005 Engine Searches Share Google 2032227 47.00% Yahoo! 965644 22.00% MSN 540687 12.00% AOL 237408 5.00% My Way 78821 2.00% Source:
Nielsen//NetRatings
Mimic the Google Logo
July 27, 2005 ::: There's a neat site that
will format the text of your choice in the style of the Google logo. Not
horribly useful, but fun. And if you do the same text twice, it doesn't come out
quite the same. Go to
www.Logogle.com.
Sandbox Behavior Found in All Major Search Engines
July 21, 2005 :::
SEO News has recently
done a test to see how or whether the major search engines delay indexing and
listing new web sites for a period of time. Google has been known to do this,
and that behavior has been unofficially termed "the Google Sandbox".
SEO News reports discovering that all engines seem to delay indexing (including
in their results) of new domain names for at least thirty days.
Google so far has delayed
indexing their new test web site for at least 60 days since first crawling it
(the site is still not indexed).
AskJeeves has crawled thousands of pages, while indexing none of them.
MSN indexes faster than all
engines but requires a robots.txt file (more on this soon!).
Yahoo's spider crawls on
again off again for 60 days, but indexes only six of total 15,000 or more pages
crawled to date.
You'll find their full story here.
This may be of concern to owners of brand new web sites, but take heart! A
client of ours, a
wedding celebrant in the NYC/NJ area, got a call from someone who found her
in a search engine within two weeks of when we launched her web site and
submitted it to the search engines!
Google License Plate Frame
July 17, 2005 ::: The Google Store now sells
Google license plate frames. Cute.
MSN Ranking Algorithm Changes
July 12, 2005 ::: There's a lot of talk
among SEO consultants about changes to the algorithm that
MSN uses to rank pages. It
seems that on-page factors are now more important. That's good news for smaller
sites with less than remarkable link popularity. Link popularity is still
critical, but if your site is well optimized with on-page factors like keyword
placement and keyword density, then you may rank higher on MSN than you did
before.
Also, it seems that MSN Search prefers web pages that are listed higher in the
web site directory structure. For example, www.yoursite.com/widgets.htm
is preferred over a web page that's deeper in the directory structure like
www.example.com/products/large/red/waterproof/widget.htm.
It also seems that MSN Search likes static pages better than dynamically
generated web pages (pages generated on the fly by a database, such as is common
in e-commerce sites).
None of this is really surprising, and our on-page optimization has always taken
these factors into consideration. The rule of thumb, when you hear about
algorithm changes is Don't Panic. Ethical
SEO like we do at Rank Magic will never cause your site to be hurt by these
changes.
Rumor No Longer: Google Toolbar for Firefox WAS Released Yesterday
July 8, 2005 ::: The new Google Toolbar for
Firefox was released on schedule yesterday, as anticipated. We've been playing
with it since then and so far we love it. You can download it
here.
Rumor: Google Toolbar for Firefox to be Released Today
July 7, 2005 ::: According to
The Inquirer, the Google toolbar for Firefox will be released
later today, "around noonish".
The Firefox toolbar is reported top have all the functionality of the
Internet Explorer version except for popup blocking and browse-by-name
functionality, which Firefox already has without the toolbar.
The Firefox toolbar should be available on
the Google
Downloads page.
Humor: The Google Song
July 7,2005 ::: There's a really funny
flash animation on how you can use Google:
The Google Song.
RUMOR: Google Toolbar for Firefox
July 5, 2005 ::: Ever since
The U.S.
government's Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT)
encouraged users to abandon Internet Explorer for Internet browsing
because of security issues,
Mozilla's Firefox browser has been gaining market share rapidly.
Unfortunately for those of us who have switched (and really HATE to have to
use Internet Explorer on those rare occasions it's required), the
Google Toolbar
only works in Internet Explorer. After four years, it appears Google may be
ready to release a new toolbar, this time for Firefox.
Industry rumors say the release date is this Thursday, July 7, with press
announcements scheduled for tomorrow, July 6.
Stay tuned!
SEO is "IN" for Law Firms
July 5, 2005 ::: In a recent issue of
Law Technology News, columnist Larry Bodine wrote about a panel discussion
at a legal conference in Las Vegas. He wrote:
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The panel focused on small and medium size law firms, and discussed
what's "in" and what's "out" in online legal marketing, in a seminar
entitled "Web Marketing: How to Hit the Jackpot." Here are some of the
highlights:
IN: Search engine optimization:
"If you have a great website that no one can find, do you exist as a
business?" asked MicroLaw's Kodner (The implied answer is "no"). ["Kodner"
is Ross Kodner, president of Milwaukee's MicroLaw Inc.]
"If a prospect Googles your firm and you don't show up on the first
hit page, you're invisible. If a prospect Googles your area of
practice and your location and you don't show up on the first hit
page, you're not getting hired or ever considered.
Search engine optimization is no longer optional, it's absolutely
essential, says Kodner. "The object is to skew hits to your site. Your
firm needs a professional search engine optimization consultant if you
expect to get top results in your promoted practice areas." |
Google Sandbox
July 3, 2005 ::::: Thanks to Jill Whalen
of HighRankings.com for this clear discussion.
Purgatory for Brand New Sites
For those who aren't familiar with the aging delay and the sandbox,
you'll want to note that there is a lot of disagreement over what
causes a site to be thrown in the sandbox. However, based on my own
observations and the experiences of some trusted SEO friends, it's my
belief that the sandbox is basically a purgatory database where Google
places certain URLs based on a variety of predetermined criteria.
(Much of this is spelled out in the first part of the patent
application.)
Basically, if you have a brand new domain/website, it will
automatically land in the sandbox regardless of anything that you do
with it. Your new website will be stuck there for an unspecified
period of time (averaging around 9 months these days) and it will not
rank highly in Google for any keyword phrases that might bring it any
decent traffic. Yes, it can sometimes rank highly for the company
name, or the names of the people who run the company. It may also show
up in Google for a few additional phrases that other sites are not
focusing on within their content. But new domains will not show
up in Google's natural results for even slightly competitive keyword
phrases until they are removed from the sandbox. |
The full discussion of this topic can be found in Jill's
really informative newsletter, a copy of which can be found in her
archives at
www.highrankings.com/issue142.htm.
Twingine Replaces YaGoohoogle
July 1, 2005 :::::
Back in April, we
reported about a neat search engine comparison site called YaGoohoogle, but
that site now seems to have bitten the dust. If it was something you found
useful or fun, you'll be pleased to know there's a replacement. Check our
Twingine. [Sorry
if you have trouble reaching this site; it's been down occasionally.]
Which Search Engine Wins Trivial Pursuit?
July 1, 2005 ::::: There are lots of
ways to evaluate which search engine returns the most relevant results for a
given query, and each method yields different results. Here's a new twist.
Michael Liedtke, an AP business writer, decided to play a game of
Trivial Pursuit using a number of search engines including
Google,
Yahoo,
MSN Search,
Ask.com, and
Answers.com. Surprisingly or not,
Ask.com (Ask Jeeves) and Answer.com beat out the "big three".
WebProNews
reported on the results recently.
See Christ Richardson's article here.
Google Releases Search for Mobile Phones
July 1, 2005 :::::
Google has released
a special search engine for web sites that are optimized for display on
small screens like PDAs and mobile phones.
Beta News broke the story a couple of weeks ago.
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July
2005
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