Yahoo, MSN, Ask Jeeves & MTV Merger Speculation The year opened with two major items regarding Yahoo. The first involves Microsoft, the second, MTV. The LATimes, yes, the same publication that made a false start on rumours of Google computers, is reporting that Microsoft made an offer to buy Yahoo for $80 - $90 Billion. This is another thing that probably never happened. While highly unlikely, the rumour does shed light on a particular...
Google Ranking & Indexing Lesson from Matt Cutts Matt Cutts has given librarians and school teachers an early Christmas present. In an article published in Google's Newsletter for Librarians, Cutts gives a basic explanation of how Google ranks and sorts documents found in its index. Along the way, he offers search engine marketers a bit of advice on what Google is examining when looking at specific websites. The document is written so that school children...
Usability Strategy and Search Engine Optimization Usability is already a critical component of successful online ventures but with the advent of Google Analytics and the implementation of the Jagger algo update, user-activities and behaviours are going to play an influencing role in search engine rankings. How people act when they visit a website or document is being measured and accounted for, even for sites without Google Analytics tracking codes in the [head] section of the document...
Google's Jagger Update Completing Cycles Ever since Google introduced its latest algorithm update in September, a fair amount of column space has been dedicated to telling webmasters and small business owners to wait until the update is complete. In so much as it can be said that the Jagger Update will ever be complete, the final cycle of the immediate update appears to be playing out. Jagger was a different sort of algorithm update for Google. Its...
Yahoo and Google Go Venture Capital Business is funny sometimes. Massive amounts of capital, planning and commitment can be marshaled, administered and suddenly put to use backing a project or initiative that even surprises close contacts. A funny thing happened in London yesterday. John Battelle, author of "The Search", blogger extraordinaire, founder of Federated Media Publishing, and suspected confidant of Google founders Larry and Sergey, learned something about Google he didn't know before. Google...
Google Analytics : Branding and Packaging Results Google has scored a major coup with the release of Google Analytics. In the spirit of helping webmasters and search marketers move site visitors into converted site users, Google is offering its enormously useful site analytics tool, Urchin, free of charge under the re-branded name Google Analytics. The software is designed to help webmasters and marketers understand site visitors and their behaviours. Last year, it cost almost...
Google, Yahoo and Microsoft in Revolution 2.1 The second Internet revolution has clearly started to take shape. Remember the massive changes forecast by hundreds of tech-writers, including myself, for the past two years? While slower in coming than expected, the last critical stage for their mass adoption of these changes, their introduction, appears to have begun. Welcome to Revolution 2.1. Revolution, according to one definition offered by Princeton University’s WordNet is, “a drastic and far-reaching...
Village Voice to Develop Portal The best known of all weekly alternative newspapers, New York's Village Voice has been purchased by New Times Media. New Times owns eleven other large alternative weekly papers including The Pitch (Kansas City MO) and the Houston Press. The two publishing companies will be merged into a new firm, Village Voice Media. A part of the merger plan calls for the development of an Internet portal to compete with Yahoo and...
Google Jagger Update is Official In case you haven't noticed, there is a fairly significant update happening at Google right now. As with all other major updates, Brett Tabke from WebmasterWorld has given it a name, Jagger. Jagger is keeping true to previous Google updates and is wreaking havoc on the nerves of many webmasters, SEOs and small businesses who's placements seem to have vanished overnight. Starting sometime over the weekend, Google started showing results that looked...
LookSmart to be Booted from NASDAQ Late yesterday, LookSmart reported that they received a delisting notice from NASDAQ staff on October 13. Stating that shares in the search company had failed to remain above the $1.00 level, NASDAQ began the process of removing LookSmart from its stock-board under MarketPlace Rule 4450(a). LookSmart is allowed to request an appeal which will delay delisting pending a decision from the NASDAQ Listing Qualifications Panel. In a press release issued by...
Loren Baker
+Ann Smarty
Alan Bleiweiss
David Harry
