Search News

New Facebook Feature May Help Businesses

Last week, we told you about some of the new changes coming to Facebook and now a new feature, which opened today, may be appealing to businesses who have profiles on the popular social networking site.  Facebook has said that nearly 2 billion items are shared each week through the site and the newly expanded share option will  include a live counter and analytics for shared items.  This means that when a user clicks the new share feature, they will be able to look at the number of views, shares, likes, and clicks to from that site. 

An unidentified spokesperson for Facebook, who spoke with Web Pro News said, “Share analytics bring new opportunities to show how content is being shared on Facebook, such as Techmeme for selecting top stories and bit.ly for analyzing URL traffic.  The new Share button is among the easiest Facebook Connect widgets to install and can be added to any website with just a few lines of code.” (more…)

This Week In Social Media – October 23, 2009

iePlexus “Week in Social Media” October 23, 2009 from iePlexus on Vimeo.

iePlexus “Week in Social Media” October 23, 2009 from iePlexus on Vimeo.

-The Web 2.0 Summit took place this week in San Francisco. Some of the biggest news from the event came out on Wednesday.  Both Microsoft and Google announced they would be teaming up with Twitterto bring real-time search updates to the search engines.  Microsoft’s Qi Lu first announced that Bing.comwould be getting get the real time twitter searchs updates, up on their site, which happened just minutes after the announcement.  Twitter’s blog said that they want to make twitter a search tool to help find people what they need in current time. Surprisingly, just a few hours after Microsoft’s big announcement, Google announced they would also be teaming up with Twitter to bring real-time search.  Neither of the companies would release the financial terms of their deals but are expected to bring more traffic to the search engine sites. There are also rumors the sites are trying to team up with Facebook as well. To watch the announcement’s in their entirety, visit Web 2.0 Summit’s website. (more…)

Say What? There’s An App For That

Going from Twitter to Digg to your best friend’s blog and searching for what’s happening and trying to keep up with the latest gossip can be quite challenging. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was some search tool that would search all the social media sites and let you know what’s happening with topics I was curious about? Well now there’s an app for that. iCrossing, a digital media agency released an application for iPhones on Monday called “Say What?.” The app is easiestly described as a search engine for social media sites and finds the most recent postings for that topic.

The app is actually very user friendly and simple to use. Let’s say you want to know the latest news or gossip on a certain celebrity. Let’s take Taylor Swift for example. You open the app, and up pop’s the search menu, where you’ll type in “Taylor Swift” and then hit search. Within a matter of a few seconds, a list of the latest tweets, diggs, blogs, and comments in forums that have Taylor Swift in their text appears. The app is broken down into the four social media categories where you can go further and not only read more of what that user or blog is saying but also find other tweets, diggs, etc on the same topic, Taylor Swift in our case. If you want to actually read the blog or see more tweets from a certain user that shows up on the search, Say What? actually links you to that person’s page. (more…)

Microsoft and Yahoo Strike a Search Deal

In the last 48 hours the web has been buzzing with the news of a Microsoft-Yahoo search deal that could potentially change the landscape of search forever. Although not final and more importantly, not approved by the regulatory commission, the deal would essentially make Microsoft’s search technology, Bing, the engine that powers all Yahoo search. There are other stipulations to the deal and a lot of technical specifics, but both companies feel they benefited from the deal and are looking forward to implementing the change as early as the beginning part of 2010. Google, however, might have something to say about the deal, as this essentially removes a search competitor from the market and makes it a two-horse race in the very lucrative game of search.

Here’s the basics of the deal and some links to more information:

The main component of the agreement involves search technology. Both Microsoft and Yahoo currently have their own search technology, or engine, that powers both the organic or natural search results and the paid or sponsored listings. Google of course has these technolgies as well. The deal gives Microsoft exclusive rights to Yahoo’s technology and puts Microsoft’s Bing as the driving engine behind all Yahoo search results. You’ll still be able to search on Yahoo just like before, but all the results will say “Powered by Bing”. Microsoft gets this technology for at least 10 years and is paying Yahoo for it.

Yes, this means Yahoo is giving up on search. Their CEO, Carol Bartz, would like us to think that Yahoo will do better if it can concentrate on its online properties like mail, news, sports, etc. It’s expensive to run search and Yahoo is now going to lease it from Microsoft so they don’t have to. With this deal, they’ll be two main choices in engines. Google, who has about a 70% market share, and Bing, which will power Bing, and all Yahoo search properties, with about a 30% market share. Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, is considered a genius for pulling off a deal that eliminates a search competitor at a very low cost.
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Blogs and Search Engine Optimization

Ten Tips For Optimizing Your Blog For Search Engines

It’s not breaking news that blogs are great for search engines. Since blogs became popular and were documented in the main stream media, back around early 2004, the merits of their marketing reach and search engine prowess has been well-covered by the search and marketing industry. It’s almost as if blogs were specifically designed to appeal to search engines, in that they fulfill so many specific criteria search engines look for when determining ranking. Fresh, content-based websites with clean architecture, simple navigation and keyword-rich page titles are like honey to a bear, search engines are naturally attracted to them and once they get sticky, they keep coming back.

But getting your blog to really communicate well with the engines isn’t something that comes built in; there are some essential steps that you need to take in order to make it easy for engines to discover your site and subsequently, rank it higher. Follow these ten tips to optimizing your blog for search engines, and you’ll be well on your way.
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Google Expands Algorithms to the Employee Sector

While Google has made a name for itself by implementing its trademark algorithms into its search engine rankings, they have recently taken this number crunching one step further. Now they are applying algorithms to…their employees?

That’s right. Google has had some problem retaining the most creative and influential members of its staff, and they are starting to worry that this will have a negative impact on their long term ability to compete in the online market.

As such, Google has turned to what they know best. They created a multi-element algorithm that incorporates factors such as results from employee reviews, pay history, promotion history, and much more. Still in the testing stages, Google is remaining relatively tightlipped about the exact details of this algorithm.

But, in general, the algorithm is meant to identify employees that are likely to quit for any number of reasons. Google officials have noted that it’s already worked to identify people who say they felt underutilized within the company.

While it remains to be seen how effective this algorithm is for retaining employees, it’s certainly a smart move by Google to identify key employees who may be unhappy and considering leaving. By offering them incentive packages or other benefits, they might just keep the very people that will help them remain a dominant online force.

Swine Flu Research Indicative of New Information Trends

Although some of the initial swine flu hysteria has seemed to subside, search trends indicate that it’s still very much in the public consciousness. After hearing multiple stories and stats from both the local and national news, people fired up their computers and turned to the search engines.

People, of course, turned to their most trusted search engine—Google. Within that engine, queries such as “swine flu symptoms” and “swine flu” rose as quickly as the hysteria itself. The following is a list of the top ten visited websites based on these search terms.

1. CDC.gov
2. Wikipedia.com
3. News.Google.com
4. News. Yahoo.com
5. MySpace.com
6. CNN.com
7. Yahoo.com
8. PandemicFlu.gov
9. Facebook.com
10. WHO.int
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Google Search Algorithm Exploited

Relevant. Fast. Spam-free. These were adjectives that described the Google search engine and were the foundation behind the reason Google has a massive chunk of the search market share. But could that stellar reputation be in jeopardy? Recently, it’s been discovered that spammers have taken advantage of the Google ranking algorithm and used it to their benefit, utilizing black-hat SEO techniques to have malicious sites rank predominantly under certain keywords. After repeated requests and many documented examples of this activity, Google has finally officially responded and plans to adjust their algorithm to combat these techniques, an exploit that seemingly is a by-product of Web 2.0 and what is called “link velocity”.
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Twitter All Kinds of Popular

Twitter, the micro-blogging site that allows users to post updates in 140 characters or less, has garnered a ton of attention lately due to rumors of acquisition talks by the search giant Google. With it’s impressive user base and over 8 million visits per month, Twitter has some serious bargaining chips, especially when it comes to real-time search. This may be where Google has interest in Twitter, due to the potential real-time search tools Twitter offers and what this could mean to the future of search. Basically, indexing the feed of updates would allow engines like Google to tap into the collective conscious of Twitter users, and therefor a microcosm of the web’s user base, with instant results. Although all the talk has been speculation, and it’s been downplayed by Twitter to just a conversation about products and search, the service is certainly on the block.
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XML Sitemaps and Search Engine Marketing

I’ve always held the belief that XML sitemaps are an important technical aspect to an effective marketing campaign, especially when it comes to blog and search engine marketing. However, this belief was only supported in theory. Sure, every piece of marketing advice and documentation pointed to why XML sitemaps were beneficial, but there wasn’t any data to back up that claim. It was a search engine optimization assumption, in that because this technology was supported by Google and all the other major engines, it made sense to include it in a comprehensive marketing campaign. The question is, does this actually help the engines index your site better or faster? Or is this just a myth pushed by myself and the rest of the SEO community to justify the addition? Couldn’t search engines find and index your site or blog easily on their own?
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