In this site you'll find plenty of information about search engines, directories, internet promotion and marketing, and spider-friendly website design. All of it written in an accessible no-nonsense manner so you can gain a good understanding of the issues involved and the processes required to get your site well ranked while remaining within the guidelines of the major search companies.
Despite being portrayed in some quarters as something of a black art, the fundamentals of good Search Engine Optimisation are easily understood. While it's certainly a complex subject and its exact application is often unique to individual websites, we don't believe in clouding the issues. Rather we prefer you to be comfortable with the subject and encourage you if possible to learn as much from this site as time permits before contacting us. We can then discuss your site in an informed manner and get down to helping you as quickly as possible.
If there is a specific aspect of your site that needs attention or if for some reason you don't require the standard procedure then we will be happy to discuss custom SEO services, although it should be stressed that successful SEO is generally dependent on all aspects of a site workinig in harmony.
Search engine optimisation audits are also available, which will give you a full understanding of the issues involved in applying optimisation to your particular site. Full details on the SEO Audits page.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Dreamcast
The Dreamcast (ドリームキャスト, Dorīmukyasuto?, code-named White Belt, Black Belt, Dural, Dricas, Vortex, Katana, Shark, and Guppy during development) is Sega's last video game console and the successor to the Sega Saturn. An attempt to recapture the console market with a next-generation system, it was designed to supersede the PlayStation and Nintendo 64. Originally released sixteen months before the PlayStation 2 (PS2) and three years before the Nintendo GameCube and the Xbox, the Dreamcast is part of the sixth generation of video game consoles. Dreamcast was widely hailed as ahead of its time, and is still held in high regard for pioneering online console gaming. Nevertheless, it failed to gather enough momentum before the release of the PlayStation 2 in March 2000. Sega discontinued the Dreamcast in March 2001,[citation needed] and withdrew entirely from the console hardware business; however, support continued in Japan where consoles were still sold until 2006 and new licensed games were still being made by companies of the arcade market until 2007, as well as the huge and current worldwide support of the homebrew community.
Yahoo! Video
Yahoo! Video began as a video search engine and re-launched in June 2006 with the ability to upload and share video clips. A new site was launched in February 2008 with a new design and move away from crawled video content. The site now consolidates all premium video from across Yahoo! properties with user-generated uploads and premium partner content. A new comedy network sponsored by Butterfinger was launched on April 1, 2008.
The free service provides users with a means to search and play videos directly from Yahoo! Video, save them to their 'favorites' page, subscribe to partner networks, create playlists, and embed videos and playlists on web pages and blog posts. The homepage contains editorially-featured videos that change daily and skew towards comedy, viral videos, talented users, odd stuff, animation, and premium entertainment content.
StupidVideos, the Onion, JibJab have a business relationship with Yahoo! Video with a branded network on the site.
The free service provides users with a means to search and play videos directly from Yahoo! Video, save them to their 'favorites' page, subscribe to partner networks, create playlists, and embed videos and playlists on web pages and blog posts. The homepage contains editorially-featured videos that change daily and skew towards comedy, viral videos, talented users, odd stuff, animation, and premium entertainment content.
StupidVideos, the Onion, JibJab have a business relationship with Yahoo! Video with a branded network on the site.
Copyright issues
Organizations used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to demand that Google remove references to allegedly copyrighted material on other sites. Google typically handles this by removing the link as requested and including a link to the complaint in the search results.
There have also been complaints that Google's Web cache feature violates copyright. However, Google provides mechanisms for requesting that caching be disabled. Google also honors the robots.txt file, which is another mechanism that allows operators of a website to request that part or all of their site not be included in search engine results. The U.S. District Court of Nevada ruled that Google's caches do not constitute copyright infringement under American law in Field v. Google and Parker v. Google.
On September 20, 2005, the Authors Guild, a group that represents 8,000 U.S. authors, filed a class action suit in federal court in Manhattan against Google over its unauthorized scanning and copying of books through its Google Library program. Google states that it is in compliance with all existing and historical applications of copyright laws regarding books. The publicized contract between Google and the University of Michigan makes it clear that Google will provide only excerpts of copyright text in a search. The contract says that it will comply with "fair use", an exemption in copyright law that allows people to reproduce portions of text of copyrighted material for research purposes.
Google and Viacom, on July 14, 2008, agreed in compromise to protect YouTube users' personal data in the $ 1 billion (£ 497 million) copyright lawsuit. Google agreed it will make user information and internet protocol addresses from its YouTube subsidiary anonymous before handing over the data to Viacom. The privacy deal also applied to other litigants including the FA Premier League, the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organisation and the Scottish Premier League. The deal however did not extend the anonymity to employees, since Viacom would prove that Google staff are aware of uploading of illegal material to the site. The parties therefore will further meet on the matter lest the data be made available to the court.
There have also been complaints that Google's Web cache feature violates copyright. However, Google provides mechanisms for requesting that caching be disabled. Google also honors the robots.txt file, which is another mechanism that allows operators of a website to request that part or all of their site not be included in search engine results. The U.S. District Court of Nevada ruled that Google's caches do not constitute copyright infringement under American law in Field v. Google and Parker v. Google.
On September 20, 2005, the Authors Guild, a group that represents 8,000 U.S. authors, filed a class action suit in federal court in Manhattan against Google over its unauthorized scanning and copying of books through its Google Library program. Google states that it is in compliance with all existing and historical applications of copyright laws regarding books. The publicized contract between Google and the University of Michigan makes it clear that Google will provide only excerpts of copyright text in a search. The contract says that it will comply with "fair use", an exemption in copyright law that allows people to reproduce portions of text of copyrighted material for research purposes.
Google and Viacom, on July 14, 2008, agreed in compromise to protect YouTube users' personal data in the $ 1 billion (£ 497 million) copyright lawsuit. Google agreed it will make user information and internet protocol addresses from its YouTube subsidiary anonymous before handing over the data to Viacom. The privacy deal also applied to other litigants including the FA Premier League, the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organisation and the Scottish Premier League. The deal however did not extend the anonymity to employees, since Viacom would prove that Google staff are aware of uploading of illegal material to the site. The parties therefore will further meet on the matter lest the data be made available to the court.
Copywriters
Most copywriters are employees within organizations such as advertising agencies, public relations firms, web developers, company advertising departments, large stores, broadcasters and cable providers, newspapers and magazines. Copywriters can also be independent contractors freelancing for a variety of clients, at the clients' offices or working from home.
A copywriter usually works as part of a creative team. Agencies and advertising departments partner copywriters with art directors. The copywriter has ultimate responsibility for the advertisement's verbal or textual content, which often includes receiving the copy information from the client. (Where this formally extends into the role of account executive, the job may be described as "copy/contact.") The art director has ultimate responsibility for visual communication and, particularly in the case of print work, may oversee production. Either person may come up with the overall idea for the ad or commercial (typically referred to as the concept or "big idea"), and the process of collaboration often improves the work.
Copywriters are similar to technical writers, and the careers may overlap. Broadly speaking, however, technical writing is dedicated to informing readers rather than persuading them. For example, a copywriter writes an ad to sell a car, while a technical writer writes the operator's manual explaining how to use it.
Because the words sound alike, copywriters are sometimes confused with people who work in copyright law. The careers are unrelated.
Famous copywriters include David Ogilvy, William Bernbach and Leo Burnett. Many creative artists spent some of their career as copywriters before becoming famous for other things, including Dorothy L. Sayers, Viktor Pelevin, Eric Ambler, Joseph Heller, Terry Gilliam, Salman Rushdie, Don DeLillo, Lawrence Kasdan and Shigesato Itoi. (Herschell Gordon Lewis, on the other hand, became famous for directing violent exploitation films, then retired to become a very successful copywriter.)
The Internet has expanded the range of copywriting opportunities to include web content, ads, commercial emails and other online media. It has also brought new opportunities for copywriters to learn their craft, conduct research and view others' work. And the Internet has made it easier for employers, copywriters and art directors to find each other.
As a result of these factors, along with increased use of independent contractors and virtual commuting generally, freelancing has become a more viable job option, particularly in certain copywriting specialties and markets. A generation ago, professional freelance copywriters (except those between full-time jobs) were rare.
While schooling may be a good start or supplement in a budding copywriter's professional education, working as part of an advertising team arguably remains the best way for novices to gain the experience and business sense required by many employers, and expands the range of career opportunities.
A copywriter usually works as part of a creative team. Agencies and advertising departments partner copywriters with art directors. The copywriter has ultimate responsibility for the advertisement's verbal or textual content, which often includes receiving the copy information from the client. (Where this formally extends into the role of account executive, the job may be described as "copy/contact.") The art director has ultimate responsibility for visual communication and, particularly in the case of print work, may oversee production. Either person may come up with the overall idea for the ad or commercial (typically referred to as the concept or "big idea"), and the process of collaboration often improves the work.
Copywriters are similar to technical writers, and the careers may overlap. Broadly speaking, however, technical writing is dedicated to informing readers rather than persuading them. For example, a copywriter writes an ad to sell a car, while a technical writer writes the operator's manual explaining how to use it.
Because the words sound alike, copywriters are sometimes confused with people who work in copyright law. The careers are unrelated.
Famous copywriters include David Ogilvy, William Bernbach and Leo Burnett. Many creative artists spent some of their career as copywriters before becoming famous for other things, including Dorothy L. Sayers, Viktor Pelevin, Eric Ambler, Joseph Heller, Terry Gilliam, Salman Rushdie, Don DeLillo, Lawrence Kasdan and Shigesato Itoi. (Herschell Gordon Lewis, on the other hand, became famous for directing violent exploitation films, then retired to become a very successful copywriter.)
The Internet has expanded the range of copywriting opportunities to include web content, ads, commercial emails and other online media. It has also brought new opportunities for copywriters to learn their craft, conduct research and view others' work. And the Internet has made it easier for employers, copywriters and art directors to find each other.
As a result of these factors, along with increased use of independent contractors and virtual commuting generally, freelancing has become a more viable job option, particularly in certain copywriting specialties and markets. A generation ago, professional freelance copywriters (except those between full-time jobs) were rare.
While schooling may be a good start or supplement in a budding copywriter's professional education, working as part of an advertising team arguably remains the best way for novices to gain the experience and business sense required by many employers, and expands the range of career opportunities.
Web analytics
Web analytics is the study of online behaviour in order to improve it. There are two categories; off-site and on-site web analytics.
Off-site web analytics refers to web measurement and analysis irrespective of whether you own or maintain a website. It includes the measurement of a website's potential audience (opportunity), share of voice (visibility), and buzz (comments) that is happening on the Internet as a whole.
On-site web analytics measure a visitor's journey once on your website. This includes its drivers and conversions; for example, which landing pages encourage people to make a purchase. On-site web analytics measures the performance of your website in a commercial context. This data is typically compared against key performance indicators for performance, and used to improve a web site or marketing campaign's audience response.
Historically, web analytics has referred to on-site visitor measurement. However in recent years this has blurred, mainly because vendors are producing tools that span both categories.
The remainder of this article concerns on-site web analytics.
Off-site web analytics refers to web measurement and analysis irrespective of whether you own or maintain a website. It includes the measurement of a website's potential audience (opportunity), share of voice (visibility), and buzz (comments) that is happening on the Internet as a whole.
On-site web analytics measure a visitor's journey once on your website. This includes its drivers and conversions; for example, which landing pages encourage people to make a purchase. On-site web analytics measures the performance of your website in a commercial context. This data is typically compared against key performance indicators for performance, and used to improve a web site or marketing campaign's audience response.
Historically, web analytics has referred to on-site visitor measurement. However in recent years this has blurred, mainly because vendors are producing tools that span both categories.
The remainder of this article concerns on-site web analytics.
Internet marketing
Internet marketing, also referred to as online marketing, Internet advertising, or eMarketing, is the marketing of products or services over the Internet. When applied to the subset of website-based advertisement placements, Internet marketing is commonly referred to as Web advertising (also Webvertising) and Web marketing.[citation needed] The Internet has brought many unique benefits to marketing, one of which being lower costs for the distribution of information and media to a global audience. The interactive nature of Internet marketing, both in terms of providing instant response and eliciting responses, is a unique quality of the medium. Internet marketing is sometimes considered to have a broader scope because it refers to digital media such as the Internet, e-mail, and wireless media; however, Internet marketing also includes management of digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM) systems.
Internet marketing ties together creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including design, development, advertising, and sales. Internet marketing does not simply entail building or promoting a website, nor does it mean placing a banner ad on another website. Effective Internet marketing requires a comprehensive strategy that synergizes a given company's business model and sales goals with its website function and appearance, focusing on its target market through proper choice of advertising type, media, and design.
Internet marketing also refers to the placement of media along different stages of the customer engagement cycle through search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), banner ads on specific websites, e-mail marketing, and Web 2.0 strategies. In 2008 The New York Times working with comScore published an initial estimate to quantify the user data collected by large Internet-based companies. Counting four types of interactions with company websites in addition to the hits from advertisements served from advertising networks, the authors found the potential for collecting upward of 2,500 pieces of data on average per user per month.
Internet marketing ties together creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including design, development, advertising, and sales. Internet marketing does not simply entail building or promoting a website, nor does it mean placing a banner ad on another website. Effective Internet marketing requires a comprehensive strategy that synergizes a given company's business model and sales goals with its website function and appearance, focusing on its target market through proper choice of advertising type, media, and design.
Internet marketing also refers to the placement of media along different stages of the customer engagement cycle through search engine marketing (SEM), search engine optimization (SEO), banner ads on specific websites, e-mail marketing, and Web 2.0 strategies. In 2008 The New York Times working with comScore published an initial estimate to quantify the user data collected by large Internet-based companies. Counting four types of interactions with company websites in addition to the hits from advertisements served from advertising networks, the authors found the potential for collecting upward of 2,500 pieces of data on average per user per month.
Latitude Group
The Latitude Group is a UK search engine marketing agency that specialises in pay-per-click advertising and search engine optimisation. It was founded in 2001 by Dylan Thwaites and is headquartered in London with offices in Cheshire, with more than 100 employees.
Latitude’s stated aim is to help companies achieve the best possible position on search engines’ results pages and obtain high click through rates and ROI from online marketing. Latitude’s services are underpinned by COBRA, a unique bespoke bidding, reporting and tracking software product that has Microsoft Gold Accreditation, and include Latitude Organic, a specialist search engine optimisation offering, and Latitude White, a self-managed search marketing service for companies with limited online marketing budgets.
Latitude was a 2006 Media Momentum Award winner and a top 20 finalist in 2007, was a Sunday Times Tech Track top 10 company and a Red Herring 100 Europe Finalist. Its CEO, Dylan Thwaites, was also named Ernst & Young Technology & Communications Entrepreneur of the Year 2006.
Latitude’s stated aim is to help companies achieve the best possible position on search engines’ results pages and obtain high click through rates and ROI from online marketing. Latitude’s services are underpinned by COBRA, a unique bespoke bidding, reporting and tracking software product that has Microsoft Gold Accreditation, and include Latitude Organic, a specialist search engine optimisation offering, and Latitude White, a self-managed search marketing service for companies with limited online marketing budgets.
Latitude was a 2006 Media Momentum Award winner and a top 20 finalist in 2007, was a Sunday Times Tech Track top 10 company and a Red Herring 100 Europe Finalist. Its CEO, Dylan Thwaites, was also named Ernst & Young Technology & Communications Entrepreneur of the Year 2006.
Search Engine Watch
Sullivan started Search Engine Watch in June 1997 after he posted research about search engines, called A Webmaster's Guide To Search Engines, in April 1996. Search Engine Watch was a website with tips on how to get good search engine results. Shortly after beginning in November that year, he sold it for an undisclosed amount to MecklerMedia (now Jupitermedia). He stayed on to maintain the site, and be the editor-in-chief. In 2006, it was sold to Incisive Media for $43 million. Search Engine Watch was considered by Matt Cutts, Google, as "must reading," and Tim Mayer, Yahoo!, as the "most authoritative source on search."
He has also staged the Search Engine Strategies conference six times each year, attracting 1,500 to 6,000 attendees each time. On August 29, 2006, Sullivan announced he would be leaving Search Engine Watch on November 30, 2006, he later came to an agreement with Jupitermedia to continue participating in SES through 2007.
Search Engine Land is a news web site that covers search engine marketing and search engine optimization. It was founded in 2006 by Sullivan after he left Search Engine Watch. Search Engine Land stories have been cited numerous times by other media outlets.
Search Engine Land reports that it attracted 95,000 unique users in February, 2007, representing 15% of the world market for search advertising. This user group spends approximately US$1.5 billion per annum.
He has also staged the Search Engine Strategies conference six times each year, attracting 1,500 to 6,000 attendees each time. On August 29, 2006, Sullivan announced he would be leaving Search Engine Watch on November 30, 2006, he later came to an agreement with Jupitermedia to continue participating in SES through 2007.
Search Engine Land is a news web site that covers search engine marketing and search engine optimization. It was founded in 2006 by Sullivan after he left Search Engine Watch. Search Engine Land stories have been cited numerous times by other media outlets.
Search Engine Land reports that it attracted 95,000 unique users in February, 2007, representing 15% of the world market for search advertising. This user group spends approximately US$1.5 billion per annum.
SEO Contest
An SEO contest is an activity awarding prizes that challenges search engine optimization (SEO) practitioners to rank themselves among the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN using certain keyword(s). This type of contest is controversial because it often leads to massive amounts of link spamming as participants try to boost the rankings of their pages by any means available.
The organizing body of an SEO competition may hold the activity without promotion of a product or service in mind; or they may organize a contest in order to market something on the Internet. Participants can showcase their skills and potentially discover and share new techniques for promoting websites.
The first recorded SEO Contest was Schnitzelmitkartoffelsalat by German webmasters, started on 2002 November 15 in the German-language usenet group de.comm.infosystems.www.authoring.misc. In the English-language world, the nigritude ultramarine competition by SearchGuild and DarkBlue (Dark Blue Sea Ltd) is widely acclaimed as the mother of all SEO contests[citation needed]. It was started on May 7, 2004 and was won two months later by Anil Dash. On September 1 of the same year, webmasters were challenged to rank number 1 on Google in three months' time for the search phrase seraphim proudleduck.[citation needed]
In the first quarter of 2005, people were competing for the term loquine glupe, spawning web sites ranging from shampoo advertising to holiday resorts.
Internationally, in 2005 two major contests took place in Europe. In Germany the Hommingberger Gepardenforelle by the computer magazine c't spawned almost 4 million results. The goal was to find out how search engines rank sites. In Poland almost at same time the Polish SEO community organized the msnbetter thangoogle contest. It topped the 4 million but failed to reach its goal to promote SEO in Poland and to get search engines companies' attention for the Polish market. Currently at least one contest is taking place in France.
A competition ran from January 1, 2006 to March 1, 2006 and carried the term redscowl bluesingsky, another set of made-up words. It was sponsored by SEOLogs. Shoemoney won this contest, and since he contributed the winner's money, he donated it to the number 2 winner.
The organizing body of an SEO competition may hold the activity without promotion of a product or service in mind; or they may organize a contest in order to market something on the Internet. Participants can showcase their skills and potentially discover and share new techniques for promoting websites.
The first recorded SEO Contest was Schnitzelmitkartoffelsalat by German webmasters, started on 2002 November 15 in the German-language usenet group de.comm.infosystems.www.authoring.misc. In the English-language world, the nigritude ultramarine competition by SearchGuild and DarkBlue (Dark Blue Sea Ltd) is widely acclaimed as the mother of all SEO contests[citation needed]. It was started on May 7, 2004 and was won two months later by Anil Dash. On September 1 of the same year, webmasters were challenged to rank number 1 on Google in three months' time for the search phrase seraphim proudleduck.[citation needed]
In the first quarter of 2005, people were competing for the term loquine glupe, spawning web sites ranging from shampoo advertising to holiday resorts.
Internationally, in 2005 two major contests took place in Europe. In Germany the Hommingberger Gepardenforelle by the computer magazine c't spawned almost 4 million results. The goal was to find out how search engines rank sites. In Poland almost at same time the Polish SEO community organized the msnbetter thangoogle contest. It topped the 4 million but failed to reach its goal to promote SEO in Poland and to get search engines companies' attention for the Polish market. Currently at least one contest is taking place in France.
A competition ran from January 1, 2006 to March 1, 2006 and carried the term redscowl bluesingsky, another set of made-up words. It was sponsored by SEOLogs. Shoemoney won this contest, and since he contributed the winner's money, he donated it to the number 2 winner.
Friday, August 29, 2008
Specialized search engines
Google Scholar works well for fields that are paper-oriented and have an online presence in all (or nearly all) respected venues. Most papers written by computer scientists will show up, but for less technologically current fields, representation in Google Scholar is less reliable. Even the journal Science only puts articles online back to 1996. Thus, Google Scholar should rarely be used as proof of non-notability.
Medline, now part of Pubmed, is the original broadly-based search engine, originating over four decades ago and indexing even earlier papers. Thus, especially in biology and medicine, Pubmed "associated articles" is a Google Scholar proxy for older papers with no on-line presence. E.g., The journal Stroke puts papers on-line back through the 1970's. For this 1978 paper ,Google Scholar lists 100 citing articles, while Pubmed lists 89 associated articles
There are a large number of law libraries online, in many countries, including: Library of Congress, Library of Congress (THOMAS), Indiana Supreme Court, FindLaw (USA); Kent University Law Library and sources (UK).
Medline, now part of Pubmed, is the original broadly-based search engine, originating over four decades ago and indexing even earlier papers. Thus, especially in biology and medicine, Pubmed "associated articles" is a Google Scholar proxy for older papers with no on-line presence. E.g., The journal Stroke puts papers on-line back through the 1970's. For this 1978 paper ,Google Scholar lists 100 citing articles, while Pubmed lists 89 associated articles
There are a large number of law libraries online, in many countries, including: Library of Congress, Library of Congress (THOMAS), Indiana Supreme Court, FindLaw (USA); Kent University Law Library and sources (UK).
Search engine limitations
Many, probably most, of the publicly available web pages in existence are not indexed. Each search engine captures a different percentage of the total. Nobody can tell exactly what portion is captured.
The estimated size of the World Wide Web is at least 11.5 billion pages[2], but a much deeper (and larger) Web, estimated at over 3 trillion pages,[citation needed] exists within databases whose contents the search engines do not index. These dynamic web pages are formatted by a Web server when a user requests them and as such cannot be indexed by conventional search engines. The United States Patent and Trademark Office website is an example; although a search engine can find its main page, one can only search its database of individual patents by entering queries into the site itself.[3]
Google, as all search engines should, follows the robots.txt protocol and can be blocked by sites that do not wish their content to be indexed or cached by Google. Sites that contain large amounts of copyrighted content (Image galleries, subscription newspapers, webcomics, movies, video, help desks), usually involving membership, will block Google and other search engines. Other sites may also block Google due to the stress or bandwidth concerns on the server hosting the content.
Google has also been the victim of redirection exploits that may return more results for a specific search term than exist actual content pages.
Google and other popular search engines are also a target for search engine "search result enhancement", also known as search engine optimizers, so there may also be many results returned that lead to a page that only serves as an advertisement. Sometimes pages contain hundreds of keywords designed specifically to attract search engine users to that page, but in fact serve an advertisement instead of a page with content related to the keyword.
Search engines also might not be able to read links or metadata that normally requires a browser plugin, Adobe PDF,or Macromedia Flash, or where a website is displayed as part of an image. Search engines also can not listen to podcasts or other audio streams, or even video mentioning a search term.
Forums, membership-only and subscription-only sites (since Googlebot does not sign up for site access) and sites that cycle their content are not cached or indexed by any search engine. With more sites moving to AJAX/Web 2.0 designs, this limitation will become more prevalent as search engines only simulate following the links on a web page. AJAX page setups (like Google maps) dynamically return data based on realtime manipulation of javascript.
The estimated size of the World Wide Web is at least 11.5 billion pages[2], but a much deeper (and larger) Web, estimated at over 3 trillion pages,[citation needed] exists within databases whose contents the search engines do not index. These dynamic web pages are formatted by a Web server when a user requests them and as such cannot be indexed by conventional search engines. The United States Patent and Trademark Office website is an example; although a search engine can find its main page, one can only search its database of individual patents by entering queries into the site itself.[3]
Google, as all search engines should, follows the robots.txt protocol and can be blocked by sites that do not wish their content to be indexed or cached by Google. Sites that contain large amounts of copyrighted content (Image galleries, subscription newspapers, webcomics, movies, video, help desks), usually involving membership, will block Google and other search engines. Other sites may also block Google due to the stress or bandwidth concerns on the server hosting the content.
Google has also been the victim of redirection exploits that may return more results for a specific search term than exist actual content pages.
Google and other popular search engines are also a target for search engine "search result enhancement", also known as search engine optimizers, so there may also be many results returned that lead to a page that only serves as an advertisement. Sometimes pages contain hundreds of keywords designed specifically to attract search engine users to that page, but in fact serve an advertisement instead of a page with content related to the keyword.
Search engines also might not be able to read links or metadata that normally requires a browser plugin, Adobe PDF,or Macromedia Flash, or where a website is displayed as part of an image. Search engines also can not listen to podcasts or other audio streams, or even video mentioning a search term.
Forums, membership-only and subscription-only sites (since Googlebot does not sign up for site access) and sites that cycle their content are not cached or indexed by any search engine. With more sites moving to AJAX/Web 2.0 designs, this limitation will become more prevalent as search engines only simulate following the links on a web page. AJAX page setups (like Google maps) dynamically return data based on realtime manipulation of javascript.
Search engine test
Search engine allow users to examine Web pages on the Internet, which in turn allows checking of when and how certain expressions are used. This is helpful in identifying sources, establishing notability, checking facts, and discussing what names to use for different things (including articles).
This page documents how to use search tools to best advantage, and covers useful search tools, examples/tutorial, pitfalls and traps to avoid, and common biases and limitations.
Search engine tests may return results that are fictitious, biased, hoaxes or the like. It is important to consider whether the information used derives from reliable sources before depending upon it. Less reliable sources may be unhelpful, or need their status and basis clarified, so that other readers gain a neutral and informed understanding to judge how much reliance to place upon them.
Google (and other search systems) do not aim for a neutral point of view. Wikipedia does. Google indexes self created pages and media pages which do not have a neutrality policy. Wikipedia has a neutrality policy that is mandatory and applies to all articles, and all article-related editorial activity.
As such, Google is specifically not a source of neutral titles -- only of popular ones. Neutrality is mandatory on Wikipedia (including deciding what things are called) even if not elsewhere, and specifically, neutrality trumps popularity.
Raw hit count is a very crude measure of importance. Some unimportant subjects have many "hits", some notable ones have few or none, for reasons discussed further down this page.
Hit count numbers alone can only rarely "prove" anything about notability, without further discussion of the type of hits, what's been searched for, how it was searched, and what interpretation to give the results. On the other hand, examining the types of hit arising (or their lack) often does provide useful information related to notability.
Additionally, search engines do not disambiguate, and tend to match partial searches. While Madonna of the Rocks is certainly an encyclopedic and notable entry, it's not a pop culture icon. However, due to Madonna matching as a partial match, as well as other Madonna references not related to the painting, the results of a Google or Yahoo search result count will be disproportionate as compared to any equally notable Renaissance painting.
This page documents how to use search tools to best advantage, and covers useful search tools, examples/tutorial, pitfalls and traps to avoid, and common biases and limitations.
Search engine tests may return results that are fictitious, biased, hoaxes or the like. It is important to consider whether the information used derives from reliable sources before depending upon it. Less reliable sources may be unhelpful, or need their status and basis clarified, so that other readers gain a neutral and informed understanding to judge how much reliance to place upon them.
Google (and other search systems) do not aim for a neutral point of view. Wikipedia does. Google indexes self created pages and media pages which do not have a neutrality policy. Wikipedia has a neutrality policy that is mandatory and applies to all articles, and all article-related editorial activity.
As such, Google is specifically not a source of neutral titles -- only of popular ones. Neutrality is mandatory on Wikipedia (including deciding what things are called) even if not elsewhere, and specifically, neutrality trumps popularity.
Raw hit count is a very crude measure of importance. Some unimportant subjects have many "hits", some notable ones have few or none, for reasons discussed further down this page.
Hit count numbers alone can only rarely "prove" anything about notability, without further discussion of the type of hits, what's been searched for, how it was searched, and what interpretation to give the results. On the other hand, examining the types of hit arising (or their lack) often does provide useful information related to notability.
Additionally, search engines do not disambiguate, and tend to match partial searches. While Madonna of the Rocks is certainly an encyclopedic and notable entry, it's not a pop culture icon. However, due to Madonna matching as a partial match, as well as other Madonna references not related to the painting, the results of a Google or Yahoo search result count will be disproportionate as compared to any equally notable Renaissance painting.
Page Ranking
Many websites and published web articles will give you many diverse explanations of what page ranking (PR) is! In a nutshell all you need to know is that PR is a score search engines allocate to your website between 0 – 10 to depict how important they consider your website to be.
Again this is a subjective issue and again many different websites and articles argue the exact determination of measuring PR! We believe that the “importance” of your website is measured and influenced by how many websites link to your web pages but that are of the same theme or subject.
t is generally agreed that websites that have a higher than 0 page ranking, tend to gain higher results in search engines for their given phrases. In our opinion a page rank above 3 is enough to gain effective SEO positioning. It is near impossible to gain a PR of 10, however Google.com does boast this score.
As part of our SEO services, we action back linking campaigns with relevant directories and other sources to achieve higher page ranking for the websites we market. This influences the positioning of our marketed websites in search engine results. Although a higher Page Ranking is essential in SEO, just a higher PR will not result in successful search engine positioning for your phrases.
Page Rank is only allocated to a websites indexed primary domain name!
A website is not allocated a PR, only an indexed domain name associated with a website is allocated a PR. An example of this is with our own website: this is indexed in all major search engines with our www.vnm.co.uk domain name (primary). This is currently showing a PR of between 4 and 6, yet if you look at the page rank of domain name www.virtualnet.co.uk this only has a PR of 4 yet its destination is the same website.
Again this is a subjective issue and again many different websites and articles argue the exact determination of measuring PR! We believe that the “importance” of your website is measured and influenced by how many websites link to your web pages but that are of the same theme or subject.
t is generally agreed that websites that have a higher than 0 page ranking, tend to gain higher results in search engines for their given phrases. In our opinion a page rank above 3 is enough to gain effective SEO positioning. It is near impossible to gain a PR of 10, however Google.com does boast this score.
As part of our SEO services, we action back linking campaigns with relevant directories and other sources to achieve higher page ranking for the websites we market. This influences the positioning of our marketed websites in search engine results. Although a higher Page Ranking is essential in SEO, just a higher PR will not result in successful search engine positioning for your phrases.
Page Rank is only allocated to a websites indexed primary domain name!
A website is not allocated a PR, only an indexed domain name associated with a website is allocated a PR. An example of this is with our own website: this is indexed in all major search engines with our www.vnm.co.uk domain name (primary). This is currently showing a PR of between 4 and 6, yet if you look at the page rank of domain name www.virtualnet.co.uk this only has a PR of 4 yet its destination is the same website.
Website Design
Website Design is very important in the life span of a website. It determines how a website can be viewed, interacted with and also the feel it generates can mean the difference between a visitor and an enquirer. At Virtualnet Marketing the process of design is taken very seriously, that is why we have adopted the following process in designing clients’ websites:
1. Project Meeting (to discuss design, layouts, clients media rules etc)
2. Draft Design Production (static visuals of the design options)
3. Draft Approval
4. Design Signoff
5. Website Template Build/Animation production
6. Website Content Propagation
7. Website Functionality (CMS etc)
8. Website Testing
9. Website Live Date
By following the above process we are able to produce a website the client wants to the specification they envisage. In addition, we design sites to work in search engines to accompany our SEO process.
All design and development work is carried out internally by professional employees of Virtualnet Marketing.
1. Project Meeting (to discuss design, layouts, clients media rules etc)
2. Draft Design Production (static visuals of the design options)
3. Draft Approval
4. Design Signoff
5. Website Template Build/Animation production
6. Website Content Propagation
7. Website Functionality (CMS etc)
8. Website Testing
9. Website Live Date
By following the above process we are able to produce a website the client wants to the specification they envisage. In addition, we design sites to work in search engines to accompany our SEO process.
All design and development work is carried out internally by professional employees of Virtualnet Marketing.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Yorkshire Engine Company
he Yorkshire Engine Company (YEC) was a small independent locomotive manufacturer in Sheffield, England. The Company was formed in 1865 and continued to produce locomotives and carry out general engineering work until 1965. Mainly known for shunting engines for the British market, but also built main line engines for overseas customers.
They built steam locomotives from 1865 to 1956 and diesel locomotives from 1950 to 1965.
Yorkshire Engine Company should not be confused with the Yorkshire Patent Steam Wagon Co. of Leeds.
Early YEC locomotives produced for the UK market consisted mainly of 0-4-0STs and 0-6-0STs. The style of these was typical of small locomotives of the time with the so-call ‘ogee’ tanks and very little protection for the driver. That did not stop early locomotives surviving with industrial users until the 1950s.
Not surprisingly, the collieries and steelworks of Yorkshire were regular customers, but UK sales were not limited to the such a narrow area with 5 narrow gauge locomotives going to the Lodge Hill and Upnor Railway, a military railway in Kent.
The 1890s saw YEC building locomotives to much further a field and the start of long term relationships with railways in Chile, Peru and India. They also built a single electric locomotive for the British War Office.
It is said they the first locomotive to be built in Britain with Walschaerts valve gear was a product of Yorkshires.
They built steam locomotives from 1865 to 1956 and diesel locomotives from 1950 to 1965.
Yorkshire Engine Company should not be confused with the Yorkshire Patent Steam Wagon Co. of Leeds.
Early YEC locomotives produced for the UK market consisted mainly of 0-4-0STs and 0-6-0STs. The style of these was typical of small locomotives of the time with the so-call ‘ogee’ tanks and very little protection for the driver. That did not stop early locomotives surviving with industrial users until the 1950s.
Not surprisingly, the collieries and steelworks of Yorkshire were regular customers, but UK sales were not limited to the such a narrow area with 5 narrow gauge locomotives going to the Lodge Hill and Upnor Railway, a military railway in Kent.
The 1890s saw YEC building locomotives to much further a field and the start of long term relationships with railways in Chile, Peru and India. They also built a single electric locomotive for the British War Office.
It is said they the first locomotive to be built in Britain with Walschaerts valve gear was a product of Yorkshires.
High ranking on search engines
Apart from the conventional site optimisation techniques, there are various ways of getting your site to show up well on search engines.Hook pages (NOT doorway pages) can be a good idea. They are pages related to your site through a topic, rather than the main subject - Rockbase, the definitive music database, has a 'UK Radio Station' list which introduces potential customers.A recent development has been for many search engines - especially the major ones - to insist on paid submissions. A word of caution though, some are more effective than others! We know which ones are worth paying for.Search engines get their content and results from several sources, Inktomi provides information to 126 different engines, like MSN; AOL and Yahoo use Google information and many add in results from Overture. This is the tip of the iceberg. It's part of my work as a Search Engine Optimiser to know about these links and to exploit them for the benefit of my customers.
It's all too easy to relax when you're high but if you do, you are likely to fall. If you believe that the work is done once the summit is in site, there are plenty of others eager to knock you off the pinnacle. We offer a Ranking monitoring and Position Maintenance service to make sure all the hard work of the climb is not lost.
It's all too easy to relax when you're high but if you do, you are likely to fall. If you believe that the work is done once the summit is in site, there are plenty of others eager to knock you off the pinnacle. We offer a Ranking monitoring and Position Maintenance service to make sure all the hard work of the climb is not lost.
Search Engines and Directories
Once you have a Website design company build your site and we would recomend anyone looking to try web design Salisbury, based just outside the historical city, you must help people to find it. The internet is like a library, but the books are in no order and someone's turned the light off. How can you find what you want? This is where search engines come in. They catalogue the library and deliver relevant topics when asked. There are over 6 billion pages on the Web. That's SIX BILLION - or one for nearly every person on the planet today. Search engines and directories are the means that people use to find what they're looking for. They scour their index for sites that mention the keywords (the topics) that have been typed in, and display the results.
There are two different types of Search Engine. To put it simply, they are Directories (like Yahoo) and Search Engines like AltaVista or Google.The directories are compiled by humans and split their subjects into categories whilst the search engines 'crawl' the web and index what they find. In either case, you need to tell it where to find your site in the first place - this is called Search Engine Submission.
For a site to be successful, it must be listed with the Search Engines. It must also use wording that will show up well in searches. Building a search engine friendly website is an art in itself. This rather arcane art is called Search Engine Optimisation
There are two different types of Search Engine. To put it simply, they are Directories (like Yahoo) and Search Engines like AltaVista or Google.The directories are compiled by humans and split their subjects into categories whilst the search engines 'crawl' the web and index what they find. In either case, you need to tell it where to find your site in the first place - this is called Search Engine Submission.
For a site to be successful, it must be listed with the Search Engines. It must also use wording that will show up well in searches. Building a search engine friendly website is an art in itself. This rather arcane art is called Search Engine Optimisation
Search Engine Optimisation
Employ a Search Engine Optimiser, a specialist who makes sure that the relevant words and phrases appear in the best positions on the pages. There are many other considerations, complicated by the engines modifying their preferences on a monthly basis. The trick is knowledge and experience. Part of the effort is to research what people are looking up. We pay for access to a database listing over 350 million searches carried out over the last eight weeks. That way, we make sure that we are constructing the page in such a way that people will find it. There are those who try to fool search engines. If they are detected, the site will probably be penalised, either shifted down the rankings or, in many cases, removed from their listings completely. And it's worth noting, search engines all use different means to look for sites. Most read the text on the page. That's one reason you found this page. Some use meta tags although most now ignore these. Some use the description tag and some even use what is called 'alt text', the text you see when your cursor is over an image on a page. Oh, and don't forget relevant links in from related sites. Many don't like frames and dynamic pages. They can't follow the links properly so don't index frames and dynamic sites deeply.The rules are constantly changing - which is why we work full-time on them.
Search Engine Strategies
Search Engine Strategies (SES) is a conference series focused on search engine marketing and search engine optimization. These events teach the ins-and-outs of search engine marketing from top experts in the field, along with information from the search engines themselves.
The conference was created by Danny Sullivan, founder and former lead editor of Search Engine Watch. The first SES conference was on November, 18 1999 in San Francisco, California and marked the first formal occasion that site owners had met with search engines.
The conference expanded internationally in 2000 when the first SES UK was held in London, England on April 27, 2000, followed by Denmark in 2001, Germany in 2002, and France, Sweden, Canada Italy and China until 2006. The growth of the industry caused the creation of special niche SES Conferences such as SES Multimedia & Mobile Edition and SES Latino.
The conference is hosted by Incisive Media since 2005 who purchased Search Engine Watch from MecklerMedia (now Jupitermedia) for $43 million year.
Just over a year after the purchase, Sullivan announced his resignation from guiding the series on August 29, 2006 after a contract dispute but later agreed to run two further shows in the US and speak at a third during 2007.
On June 7, 2007, Kevin Ryan was named as vice president and global content director for the series.
The conference was created by Danny Sullivan, founder and former lead editor of Search Engine Watch. The first SES conference was on November, 18 1999 in San Francisco, California and marked the first formal occasion that site owners had met with search engines.
The conference expanded internationally in 2000 when the first SES UK was held in London, England on April 27, 2000, followed by Denmark in 2001, Germany in 2002, and France, Sweden, Canada Italy and China until 2006. The growth of the industry caused the creation of special niche SES Conferences such as SES Multimedia & Mobile Edition and SES Latino.
The conference is hosted by Incisive Media since 2005 who purchased Search Engine Watch from MecklerMedia (now Jupitermedia) for $43 million year.
Just over a year after the purchase, Sullivan announced his resignation from guiding the series on August 29, 2006 after a contract dispute but later agreed to run two further shows in the US and speak at a third during 2007.
On June 7, 2007, Kevin Ryan was named as vice president and global content director for the series.
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