Could anything be more unlikely than AlltheWeb becoming the search engine champion? AlltheWho? The current kingpin, Google, has become synonymous with search, to the point where its intellectual property attorneys have to police the use of “google” as a generic term for web search. And doesn’t AlltheWeb just regurgitate Yahoo results, along with its step-sibling and one-time search leader, AltaVista? Two things prompt this speculation: a new study by PC World, and my own experience with Livesearch from AlltheWeb.
Apr 262007
Companies have been aware of the need for online reputation management, but today individuals need to be concerned as well. Just about every hiring manager will check out a prospective employee on Google and other search engines; indeed, failing to do so might be considered negligent if important and easily accessible information about an applicant was missed. It’s not just employers that may be checking on individuals – businesses may look up individuals hoping to provide products or services, and singles often Google their dates. While individuals hoping to manage their online reputation need to look first at themselves – do you really want those party photos that show you in a boozy stupor on your MySpace page? While such self-inflicted wounds are common enough, it’s also a good idea to watch for online impersonators that could hurt your reputation. With so much emphasis on Web 2.0 and user-created content, would-be impersonators have never had so many tools and opportunities to pretend to be someone else.
Apr 202007
“The SEO Playbook – Welcome to the Rabbit Hole Alice” is a must-bookmark post by Todd Malicoat, aka Stuntdubl, that compiles a massive list of search engine optization resources that shed light on every area of SEO. From content to links, from site structure to general SEO, Todd has compiled a ton of links to informative blog posts, articles, and forum discussions. Read all of those articles, and you’ll test out of SEO 101 and be ready for the advanced class.
Comments by senior Google engineer Matt Cutts often spark discussion in the webmaster community, and particularly among search engine optimization folks, but I can’t recall ever seeing a reaction like the one he created with his call for webmasters to identify paid links. While discussing hidden links, Matt suggested that webmasters needed to identify paid links on their own sites, both for human visitors and robots (e.g., with a “nofollow” attribute). Just in case all site owners didn’t immediately implement this suggestion, he further recommended that webmasters should report any paid links they found on other sites to Google. There was no real carrot associated with helping Google in this way, but the implied stick was that a site that failed to properly identify paid links might have all of their links discounted by Google. Since link juice is the lifeblood of the Web, losing a site’s linking power would be a bad thing indeed.
Apr 162007
Entomologists have been buzzing about a strange decline in bee populations around the world. The phenomenon, known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), is characterized by older bees dying prematurely and leaving the colony unable to sustain itself. A study at Landau University in Germany proposes that cell phone signals may interfere with bee navigation:
Apr 092007
Book Review: The Corporate Blogging Book. Many companies, both large and small, still aren’t blogging. In our experience, a big reason for this is fear. In talking to corporate clients, I find they often hate the idea of engaging in a conversation with their customers and/or the world. This fear now has an antidote. The Corporate Blogging Book by Debbie Weil is subtitled, “Absolutely Everything You Need to Know to Get It Right.” We might have opted for, “Blogging for Corporate Dummies.” Still, the book fills an important need: telling clueless corporate-types why they should be blogging, and how to go about it without creating an embarrassing spectacle. The book is written in easy-to-understand language that is almost completely free of techie jargon.
Apr 082007
Web 2.0 may sound like a utopia where faceless corporations morph into feeling, interacting entities composed of many humans who talk to other humans (like customers) via the Web, enriching both parties to the conversation. That sounds nice, but of course there’s a downside: sometimes, your company may get trashed on the Web. Business Week has an interesting article, Web Attack, that discusses how companies are dealing with reputation management issues. Continue reading »
Apr 032007
Search technology has been marked by a few big leaps in its history. What began with relatively crude algorithmic analysis of the content of individual pages was improved dramatically by Google’s sophisticated use of off-page criteria, notably PageRank and link anchor text analysis. While refinements continue – Google now reportedly uses more than a hundred or two criteria in its rankings, held together by complex weighting schemes – the basic nature of search technology hasn’t changed much lately.
Apr 022007
I’ve been an Infoworld reader since the early days of the PC era, and the demise of its print version didn’t come as a gigantic surprise. Of late, the magazine was as thin as a supermarket circular, a dramatic contrast to the chunky tomes of yore. Watching the shrinkage of Infoworld was kind of like watching a cancer victim become impossibly emaciated. Were it not for columnist Bob Cringely, who definitely knows how to turn a humorous phrase, I probably would have let my free subscription lapse.