Latest News from Search Journal

Get To The Top of Google in Five Easy Steps

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:15:00 EDT

Learn how the professionals get their web pages to the top of the search engines for the keywords they target.

IT Lessons from the King of Pop

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 10:45:00 EDT

CIOs and IT professionals can take a few pages from the Michael Jackson playbook. By looking at some of the best practices the King of Pop used to change the face of music, IT managers might find inspiration to change perceptions about IT in their organization.

WebMail Pro v4.6 Is Out

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:00:00 EDT

Why are we so confident about the first point? Because IMAP support in WebMail Pro now includes quotas for automatic mailbox size management, direct search on IMAP server, and new easy-to-use approach to deleting e-mails. And what's so special in cPanel support? Because it's now really easy for the server admin to add WebMail Pro into the list of applications available for installation by domain admins. And, for the domain admin, it's just a matter of typing URL and license key for the application in order to have it installed for the particular domain.

HP Expands Telco Line

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:00:00 EDT

HP has added to the telecom versions of ProLiant, BladeSystem, and Integrity server families as well as its StorageWorks portfolio. It says the customer has become “king” and that telecom operators are racing to streamline their networks. Proprietary technologies are giving way to open, modular IP solutions. HP figures to cash in.

‘Great Firewall of China’ Lands on Google

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:45:00 EDT

The Chinese government has come down like a ton of bricks on that American icon Google, basically branding it a smut merchant, ordering it to block links to foreign sites and apparently disabling – at least sporadically – Google Search, Google Apps, and Gmail if not all Google services.

I Spent A Year Adding Content & My Competitors Nicked My Rankings

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 08:00:00 EDT

A quick follow up to my SEO fight club article, and somewhat tongue in cheek. I just spent a year adding original content which people have told me is really useful, getting relevant links from those [...]

USGBC to Require Building’s Performance Data for LEED Certification

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:30:00 EDT

The US Green Building Council sent a press release out today announcing that all buildings seeking LEED certification will be required to provide energy and water usage data on a recurring basis as a precondition to certification. The new requirements will be part of LEED v.3, which all registered projects will be required to follow starting June 27.

How to Lead on Search Engine Result Pages in 2009

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 07:52:00 EDT

Since there are lot many websites that are activated on the internet on the daily basis, it has become to market them regularly. The search engine marketing and SEO are the tools generally used to do the marketing of the websites on the internet. However, the online market is also as dynamic as the real stock market. There are new standards and upgrades everyday in the field of SEM and SEO. Yet so there are certain factors that remain consistent no matter whatever changes occur. Let’s just lo...

Bodrum Mess and a Mayor Missing in Action

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 17:30:00 EDT

I thank you very much for taking the time to bring to everyones attention the mess in Bodrum and the lack of action from the Mayor of Bodrum, Kocadon. I live in Chicago and have a summer/retirement home in Yalikavak and I have to admit I have been amazed at how much the Mayor of Bodrum is getting away with. He is only available for photo shoots and media blitz but when it comes to hard work the man is a ghost...

Can Bing Hold That Note?

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:30:00 EDT

Bing hasn’t exactly broken Google’s stranglehold on search but Microsoft’s scores are inching up thanks to it. According to comScore, Microsoft captured all of 9.1% of U.S. Internet searches the week before Bing was released, 9.1% Bing’s first week out and 12.1% last week and its share of search penetration went to 16.7% last week up from 13.7% two weeks before.

Google Product Search Tips

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:07:00 EDT

Google has recently launched a new video, to help e-commerce store owners increase their products visiblity in Google Search Results. For those who do not know about this, Google has a service called Google Product Search, to facilitate online shopping. Also Google maintains a plateform, Google Base, where you can submit your products to be included in Google Product Search.

Google Wave Is Wikis 25 Years Later, Not Email

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 06:15:00 EDT

For the past 8 years I've been a great fan, user and evangelist of wikis. Wave picks up the original idea from old-time Smalltalker Ward Cunningham and moves it 25 years into the present. Wave is what Ozzie's Groove always wanted to be, but Ozzie missed the Internet, so it found a good home with Microsoft. Wave is the Facebook for more closed groups, but also the MySpace for all the social stuff you want to share with your friends, but may be not with the world.

Why What Google Is Doing Affects You

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 08:21:00 EDT

We are still a few months away from the unbridled combination of Google Wave and Google's Open Social, but it can really make one's head spin with the possibilities. This could dramatically upgrade the entire social experience for Internet users since Google is creating a platform in social platform with Wave and so many developers are already working with Open Social. The tight integration of a robust pl…

Nearly All Archiving Projects Use PDF/A

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:15:00 EDT

Awareness of the ISO standard for long-term archiving, PDF/A, has spread throughout Europe to the point that it is considered in nearly all projects. This was revealed in a survey performed by the PDF/A Competence Center at the end of 2008. A comparison with the results of the 2007 survey showed a steady increase in the number of users. About 400 persons in companies and public institutions were questioned; approximately half of these intend to introduce PDF/A in the next twelve months. At the same time, the number of those working with older archiving formats such as TIFF, JPEG or simple PDF decreased by about five percent. Moreover, the survey clearly showed that PDF/A is used with increasing frequency for e-mail archiving.

How To Change Domain Names & Keep Your Rankings in Google

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 06:30:00 EDT

We’ve all been there. Sometimes when you rebrand, you want to transfer your old domain to a shiny new web address. Many don’t realise though that you should actually ensure you transfer the age, authority and trust your site has in Google to this new web address.

Which Search Engine Is Really Your Fav?

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:00:00 EDT

As consumers, we’re loyal to our brands. Whether it’s Mac vs. PC, Nike vs. Adidas, or Starbucks vs. Dunkin Donuts, we like what we like. And it’s tough to convince us that some other product/service/website is as good as our favorite. Companies go to great lengths and expense to try and alter our preferences (who could forget the Pepsi Challenge?), but all too often, we walk away feeling marketed to (read as: manipulated).

Lose the I, Gain a Buyer

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 23:00:00 EDT

The workplace can be a very rewarding place for our egos. It does not really care if the reviews are good or bad as long as it gets all the attention. It is rewarding because your ego is put in the position to win or lose everyday. “Who likes me?” “Who is going to help me?” “Am I the best in everyone’s opinion?” And of course, when it really gets control of the internal conversation, “who is out to get me?” Notice the omnipresent “I” or “Me” in this dialogue.

Google Takes Another Crack at Enterprise Search

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:00:00 EDT

Google has hauled out a next-generation yellow enterprise Search Appliance based as usual on a customized firewall-protected Dell PowerEdge rack server. The Linux-based widget is supposed to have a new architecture and new software as well as new hardware but is still years behind being avant-garde.

Damn You Google, Damn You Yahoo! Why D'Ya Do This to Us?

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 08:00:00 EDT

A strange dynamic has taken hold on the internet. Just as people expect sunshine and air to be free, they also expect internet based software applications to be free. Ok, maybe not completely free… they agree someone should pay, just not them. Damn you Google, damn you Yahoo! why did you do this to us?

Cyber-Crooks Use Twitter to Infect Users

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 23:00:00 EDT

Criminals have created accounts in Twitter and published thousands of comments in them under the topic 'PhishTube Broadcast' to push them into the ranking of most popular topics. These comments contain links to a spoof Web page used to propagate the PrivacyCenter fake antivirus. This new attack on one of the most popular Web 2.0 networks is similar to previous ones against similar sites such as Digg.com, YouTube, etc.

Catching Up On a Few Things

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:20:00 EDT

A few interesting things happening out there, most of which I've not had time to think about it. Electrograph going down has been chronicled by others. All I can add is that being a hardware distributor means working on really thin margins ... and anybody trying to run a DS business based on hardware markups is ignoring that little pricing research tool called Google. Rumors of PRN ditching people is hardly surprising given the twists and turns of that company, and while I'm sure things have changed, what stuck in my head when meeting PRN people in their better days was one word: smug.

SEO Bridges Gap Between Search Engine Optimization and Web Development

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 06:00:00 EDT

Search Engine Optimization bridges the gap between search engine optimization and web development with their search engine friendly web design & development service that not only engages the user but ensures high visibility and traffic to client sites.

Google's Out to Catch a Wave

Sat, 30 May 2009 16:15:00 EDT

Google has a new open communications and collaboration platform up its sleeve that the public won’t see for a few months called Google Wave. It combines features of e-mail, instant messaging and document sharing. Conversations, so to speak, wouldn’t be conversations any more; they’ll be near-real-time “waves” that users invite their ever-widening circle of contacts to join and share all kinds of content.

AJAX Over XMPP: Google Jumps into the Cloud Wave

Sat, 30 May 2009 16:15:00 EDT

Busy day for cloud interoperability related news. Google just announced a new service called Google Wave, described as an open communication and collaboration platform & protocol based on hosted XML documents (called waves) supporting concurrent modifications and low-latency updates.

Google Wave Is Much Better Than Twitter

Sat, 30 May 2009 15:45:00 EDT

Although Google Wave is not open for public yet but after a preview at the features just introduced by Google I think Google Wave is much better, interactive, fun and less-hectic than some of today's top social media tools.

More on Google Wave

Sat, 30 May 2009 15:30:00 EDT

From Shannon Clark, from a mailing list, with permission (and a very few light edits because of its original mailing list context): I just got back from Google IO - but couldn't hangout as long as I wanted to this afternoon, but I did talk with some of the Wave team.

Discussing Business Search with Robin Johnson, CEO of FT Search

Fri, 29 May 2009 06:16:00 EDT

The supply of vertical search solutions tailored to particular business niches remains a lucrative and important area, even in these days of Google's apparently unstoppable growth in generic search market share. Many of the products and companies involved are almost invisible to the general web user, either surfacing only inside the firewalls of large enterprise [...]

Surefire Ways To Increase Google Pagerank

Thu, 28 May 2009 22:00:00 EDT

There seems to be a Google Toolbar Pagerank update underway. Instead of the normal announcement, I thought I’d list what I think Google PR is actually good for because for most, it’s totally useless information. Oh, and of course, how to increase your PR if you won’t be persuaded otherwise. For the purposes of this quick article I’m very much muddying the line between Toolbar and REAL PR - two different, unsynchronised mechanisms as I understand them.

Intel Indulges in RISCy Saber Rattling

Wed, 27 May 2009 12:15:00 EDT

On the eve of AMD delivering Istanbul, its first six-core chip, months ahead of schedule, Intel did a bit of thunder-stealing and started talking up its coming eight-core MP chip, the Nehalem-EX, which won’t be available in systems until early next year. That’s around the time AMD is supposed to start shipping a 45nm Opteron part called Magny-Cours with eight to 12 cores, figuring that OEMs could have 2P and 4P systems out in the first half of next year.

Will Microsoft’s Spider Have Any Sting?

Thu, 21 May 2009 11:45:00 EDT

By all accounts – including the Wall Street Journal – Microsoft’s fabled remake of its search engine is supposed to make its public debut at the Journal’s D7 coffee klatch next week in California. Code named Kumo, Japanese, we’ve been led to believe, for both spider and cloud, Microsoft has been testing the thing internally since early March.

UK Search Engine Optimization Company Hobo Updates Free SEO Guide

Wed, 20 May 2009 11:05:01 EDT

UK Search engine optimization company Hobo Web have updated their beginner guide to SEO. Still free to use online, it's been updated with links to the best free SEO tools on the web, as well as introducing a few new topics to the guide. The SEO guide was well received by the SEO community when published last month, with even a Google employee giving it a 'thumbs up' on Sphinn, the social media platform for search engine marketers.

ChannelWeb : LeapFish Tries To Make A Big Splash

Wed, 20 May 2009 01:35:00 EDT

With all the publicity around WolframAlpha's engine there has been a lot of buzz in the search space around what the next successful search engine will look like. It was great to get some coverage today from ChannelWeb as they covered WolframAlpha, LeapFish and the Search space.

Prevent Google Indexing Internal Search Results Pages?

Mon, 18 May 2009 08:45:00 EDT

Google says to do it using Robots txt. Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don’t add much value for users coming from search engines. Google Webmaster Help. Perhaps it comes down to how much value these pages [...]

WolframAlpha’s Big Problem

Sun, 17 May 2009 11:22:00 EDT

After a day of poking at the awesome WolframAlpha and watching some of the reactions around the Web, a major problem has emerged. WA is fantastic if it has what you're looking for. But if it doesn't, it looks like it's failed, as in: "What? It can't tell me how ...

Cloud Company to Launch at Cloud Computing Expo 2009 Europe in Prague

Sat, 16 May 2009 21:00:00 EDT

eazybusiness is a suite of online business applications, hosted in the eazybusiness cloud, that you and your employees can use to manage and run your business. All applications are made available in a consolidated view through a web browser (webtop) accessed securely via a single username and password for each user. eazybusiness is the ideal suite of online software applications for startup companies and small and medium size business owners. If you are a startup company, before you decide to spend on expensive inhouse software and the associated support give us a try, we might be able to provide a lot of your IT requirements from the eazybusiness cloud at a fraction of the cost of any other provider. Why not outsource your IT department to eazybusiness?

Google Crashes Again on Friday

Fri, 15 May 2009 19:00:00 EDT

Google went down for hours Thursday morning. It’s better now but people couldn’t get or could barely get search Gmail, Google Apps, Google News, Google Reader, Google Maps, Google Analytics, heck, even google.com and YouTube. The latest message from Google was “The issue affecting some Google services has been resolved. We’re sorry for the inconvenience, and we’ll share more details soon.”

Has Google Gotten Too Big to Fail?

Fri, 15 May 2009 05:00:00 EDT

Lately we've been on a roll within the cloud interoperability movement. With the recent inclusion of interoperability & portability guidelines within the new Federal Government's cloud computing mandate or the long list of supporters publicly speaking / advocating for interoperability. The topic has become a central issue within the emerging cloud technology scene. Yet one problem still remains, it's what I'm calling the "Fear Of God" (FOG) effect.

Google Causes Widespread Problems for Thousands

Thu, 14 May 2009 22:00:00 EDT

"The impact of Google's problems demonstrates the complexity of today's web sites and their susceptibility to performance issues when third party content or service providers experience problems," said Imad Mouline, Gomez's CTO. "Many web properties were probably unaware of today's situation, because traditional monitoring solutions would not detect the issue or isolate the root cause. But every Gomez customer who was affected was immediately alerted. Any organization that depends on their web presence needs a system that can pinpoint, diagnose and resolve web performance problems across the entire web 2.0 application delivery chain. The only way to do this is by testing and monitoring from the outside-in."

In Memory of Harvey Houtkin

Wed, 13 May 2009 23:00:00 EDT

In July 1999, a man opened fire and killed 22 people at a day trading office in Atlanta. The firm was owned by Harvey Houtkin and that was the first time I saw him - on CNN during the news coverage. That day I realized Harvey's office was located in Montvale, New Jersey, the town next to Pearl River, New York, where SYS-CON's headquarters were located.

Wolfram Alpha: Clever Algorithms and Heuristics

Mon, 11 May 2009 10:00:00 EDT

"It's certainly the most complex project I've ever undertaken," wrote Stephen Wolfram, of Wolfram Alpha fame, recently. Wolfram Alpha involved "far more kinds of expertise - and more moving parts - than I've ever had to assemble before," Wolfram continued; "And - like Mathematica, or NKS - the project will never be finished," he added.

Covario Releases v2.0 of Patent-Pending Audit Score for SEO Health

Wed, 06 May 2009 08:08:00 EDT

Covario, Inc., has announced the availability of the latest upgrade to its patent-pending Covario Organic Search Insight solution which includes Audit Score v2.0 -- a measure of the alignment of an advertiser's website with the methods used by search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN to display natural search results. Natural search drives 75%+ of the traffic to websites -- making search engine optimization (SEO) a key determinant in the value an advertiser realizes online.

AJAX World RIA Expo: Google Apps Now Syncs with Active Directory

Tue, 05 May 2009 04:00:00 EDT

The widgetry is called Google Apps Directory Sync and lets Google Apps tap into existing repositories of user account information in hopes of eventually moving them to Google Apps permanently of course.

Using the Amazon Cloud to Research Swine Flu (H1N1)

Mon, 04 May 2009 23:45:00 EDT

Amazon just keeps on amazing me. Jeff Barr from Amazon Web Services has just told me that they have releases Influenza Virus (including updated Swine Flu sequences) using their Public Data Sets utility. This data set includes database and sequence data from the NIAID Influenza Genome Sequencing Project and Genbank. This data set is being updated regularly to include new sequences of swine influenza A (H1N1) submitted by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Effective SEO Strategies to Gain Search Engine Rankings

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:29:00 EDT

SEO strategy is based on behavior of internet users, who type specific keywords while searching for websites on a particular subject. For example, a user who seeks information on hotels in California would typically type “best hotels California” or “best hotels CA” in search box, and within seconds the search engines will show the first SERP containing a list of ten websites answering to the user’s inquiry. The next page will show next ten sites and so on. Behavioral studies of Net users indi...

New SEO For Dummies Book

Thu, 30 Apr 2009 02:00:00 EDT

Search engine optimization and Internet marketing company Bruce Clay, Inc. has partnered with For Dummies Publications to produce the all-in-one desk reference guide for SEO. The "Search Engine Optimization All-in-One Desk Reference For Dummies" by Bruce Clay and Susan Esparza is currently available from Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and Borders.com and will soon be available in bookstores nationwide.

VMware’s Wearing Green Today

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:30:00 EDT

VMware’s worked it out and says that its customers have virtualized more than nine million workloads since 1998. That means an estimated energy savings of 105 billion kilowatt hours of electricity, or roughly $11.6 billion. And according to the CIA World Factbook, that’s equivalent to all the power consumed in the US in 10 days.

SEO Company Secures $10 Million in Series B Financing

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:30:00 EDT

Conductor is the industry leader in developing products and solutions designed to address the largely untapped natural search market. Given the industry's lack of dependable data and intelligent tools, enterprise marketers frequently neglect the significant opportunities in natural search -- investing only 11 percent of their search marketing budget, despite the fact that nearly 85 percent of all search activity occurs in the natural space. Conductor's technology empowers online marketing professionals to gather reliable data on their SEO efforts, make better decisions on capturing search market share, and accurately measure the ROI of these efforts.

My Homepage on the Brand-new Ulitzer Platform!

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 23:00:00 EDT

Today I've discovered my new home page on the brand-new Ulitzer platform: http://marcocasario.ulitzer.com It's a new service (still in beta) that allows users to create their own magazine. Goggling on the net I found the following information about the service: Ulitzer titles will be published under the Creative Commons license. Launching a magazine at Ulitzer.com, which is currently in pre-beta, is designed to be as easy as boiling an egg and doesn't take much longer. For details of how to become a Ulitzer user, please contact editorial (at) SYS-CON.com. Once you've been handed the keys, you will be able to associate your future Web presence to whichever Topic or Topics suit you best.

There’s Gonna Be 700 Fewer Yahoos in the World

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 03:15:00 EDT

Yahoo, as expected, is going to fire another roughly 700 people, 5% of its workforce, in the next couple of weeks. CEO Carol Bartz, there now about a hundred days, said the cuts wouldn't be like the across-the-board ~10% cuts Yahoo did in Q4 in response to the macro environment. These are going to be more like scalpel cuts to streamline the corporate structure and its product portfolio. There has already been talk of whole units falling to the blade.

Will Ulitzer Dominate News Content on The Web? -Gartner

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 11:15:00 EDT

'Will Ulitzer and SocialYell Dominate News Content on The Web (Eventually)?' is the blog title of Gartner's Anthony Bradley. In his blog entry, Bradley writes: "Hype around Ulitzer.com (the social-journalism news magazine site) is climbing. At one point they were offering authors 200% of their Google AdSense revenue... I am convinced that the only way to change the world is through collectively determining how we spend our money and our votes. Will Ulitzer be this vehicle?"