"If your site is appearing as two different listings in our search results, we suggest consolidating these listings so we can more accurately determine your site's PageRank."¹

Why leave it to chance? With a few lines of code you can make sure all your URLs use consistent domain names. When we have multiple domain names on one site, we set up a permanent 301 redirect for any extra domains, as well as the www subdomain or the non-www domain. If you have an Apache web server, add the following code to a .htaccess file in the top level directory, replacing the test domain name with yours:

          Options
   +FollowSymlinks RewriteEngine on RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.test\.com RewriteRule
   ^(.*) http://www.test.com/$1 [L,R=301]
        

If you are using a Microsoft IIS web server, we recommend using ISAPI_rewrite to simulate Apache's .htaccess feature. To begin, you or your hosting provider needs to install ISAPI_rewrite on the server. Then you would create a httpd.ini file in the top level directory as follows, replacing the test domain name with yours.

          RewriteCond
   Host: (?!^www\.test\.com$).* RewriteRule (.+) http\://www.test.com$1 [RP,I]
        

These solutions assume you prefer to use the www subdomain for your website. If you would rather have a non-www URL, simply remove each instance of "www\." and "www." from the rewrite conditions and rules. As with all code, please test thoroughly before deploying to your live server.

If your host does not offer ISAPI rewrite you could create a second IIS entry and redirect all the similar names to the primary (i.e.) www.domain.com. This method does take two IIS entries but will certainly achieve the same thing without the need for ISAPI rewrite if your host does not offer it.

Many businesses are blind to the possibilities that emerging online trends such as blogs can offer them. The challenge lies into how you use them and integrate them into your business. Someone once said that blog stands for Better Listings On Google! However there are many other business advantages which we will look at. The challenge is in determining how a blog best fits your business goals. Your goals may be marketing focused, or they may be about project management, or they may be about customer relationships. Whatever your business goals are you should determine whether a blog can help you meet them.

A blogs or 'weblog’ is a regularly updated internet journal of organized personal thoughts made usually by an individual. In the business world this may be either as an official corporate blog or in an unofficial capacity. Business blogs usually incorporate news, issues, and ideas and speak to customers, vendors and employees. What makes blogs unique is that they link with other blogs and websites and solicit comments making them the ideal platform for an ongoing dialogue. Blogs are inexpensive, easy to set up and use, and require no technical skills such as HTML. The collective term for blogs is the blogosphere.

The blogosphere continues to grow. Technorati the leading web search engine is currently tracking 19.6 million blogs. About 70,000 new blogs are tracked every day. The total number of blogs continues to double every 5 months or so. There are between 700,000 and 1.3 million blog posts made every day. Both Google and Yahoo are introducing blogs search engines. Yahoo is currently showing a beta version of blog search results alongside their news results.  "Full Article"

Ben Edelman has again made some damning claims about Yahoo and its relationship with spyware vendors. Have your Overture campaigns seen behavior that looks like click fraud? Tell us more at WebProWorld.

When that click is paid, according to spyware researcher Ben Edelman, Yahoo and the spyware vendor split the revenue. Edelman has followed up his August 2005 research into spyware receiving payments from Yahoo's Overture by noting an increase in this possible syndication fraud.

"In my August syndication fraud examples, an advertiser only pays Yahoo if a user clicks the advertiser's ad. Not so for three of today's examples. Here, spyware completely fakes a click -- causing Yahoo to charge an advertiser a "pay-per-click" fee, even though no user actually clicked on any pay-per-click link. This is "click fraud," Edelman wrote.   "Full Article"

Microsoft Corp. is launching a revamped Internet search engine it says will help computer users find information faster, view it more easily and organize it better.

Debuting in test form Wednesday, Windows Live Search is Microsoft's latest move in a major strategy shift that has the world's largest software company focusing more heavily on Internet-based software and services.

The goal of the shift, which includes initiatives dubbed Windows Live and Office Live, is to create online products to complement its main cash cows: the Windows operating system and Office business software.

Windows Live Search will power queries on live.com, Microsoft's Windows Live Web site, beginning Wednesday. Once the technology has been fully tested, Windows Live Search will replace the existing search engine that powers MSN.com. MSN spokesman Adam Sohn said the company has not determined how long it will run Windows Live Search as a test.

A key goal with the new search engine will be to give people more control over how they search for information and how they put it to use once they get it, said Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of information services at MSN, the division that's working on Windows Live.

"A lot of people think, 'Hey, ... Didn't Google become the popular search engine? And don't they just do a great job? And there's no room for improvement.'" Mehdi said. Once people get a feel for Windows Live Search, Mehdi said, "They're going to say, 'Holy cow, I had no idea that search could get this much better!'"

The new search engine includes features such as support for tabbed Web browsing, which lets people keep several search panes open in a single window. Microsoft said other features will include:

_A search slider bar that offers previews of data in various forms, perhaps just the Internet address of a Web site, or maybe a snippet of text. As the slider is adjusted, more or less information appears.

_A "smart scroll" function that displays all search results at once rather than on separate pages.

_Various ways to view pictures, say, as small "thumbnail" shots or full-sized images, without leaving the search page.

_An ability for users to save their search parameters as macros that can be run to perform the same search in the future. Microsoft said people will also be able to publish their search macros so people with similar interests can use them.

The Stanford guidelines for web credibility:

• Make it easy to verify the accuracy of the information on your site.
• Show that there's a real organization behind your site.
• Highlight the expertise in your organization and in the content and services you provide.
• Show that honest and trustworthy people stand behind your site.
• Make it easy to contact you.
• Design your site so it looks professional (or is appropriate for your purpose).
• Make your site easy to use -- and useful.
• Update your site's content often (at least show it's been reviewed recently).
• Use restraint with any promotional content (e.g., ads, offers).
• Avoid errors of all types, no matter how small they seem.

Google has announced a major update that will affect the ranking of web pages in Google's index. In contrast to the usual algorithm updates, this update will be much bigger because it changes the way Google works behind the scenes. Google has given the update the name "Bigdaddy".

What is Google's Bigdaddy update?

Google uses a network of data centers with different IP addresses to answer search queries. These decentralized servers share the workload of indexing web sites.

The upcoming Bigdaddy update is not an algorithm update but a change in Google's data center infrastructure. It contains new code for sorting and examining web pages. According to Google's search engineer Matt Cutts, the update will be live in February or March.

Less spam, more content and a new Google spider?

Google is updating the data center infrastructure to handle potential spam problems such as 302 redirections or canonical URLs more efficiently. In addition, the new infrastructure will allow Google to develop more advanced algorithms and larger databases.

Another reason for the new data center infrastructure is that Google wants to be able to index different content types. Google is now testing a new search engine spider that is based on the Mozilla browser.

The new spider should be able to index more than traditional search engine spiders, possibly links within images, JavaScripts or Flash files.

How can you test how Bigdaddy will affect your rankings?

Some Google data centers that use the new Bigdaddy system are already online. For example, if you go to 66.249.93.104 you can test Google's new data center.

Google even wants your feedback. Click the "Dissatisfied? Help us improve" link at the bottom right of the result page. Enter your feedback and use the keyword bigdaddy so that Google knows that your feedback is about the new data center.

It's hard to tell how the Bigdaddy update will affect your web page rankings. If you have a spam free web site with good content and many incoming links, the update should have a positive effect on your Google rankings.

Everyone knows GoDaddy is pushing the multiple year domain registration:

Google recently filed United States Patent Application 20050071741. As part of that patent application, Google made apparent its efforts to wipe out search engine spam, stating:

‘Valuable (legitimate) domains are often paid for several years in advance, while doorway (illegitimate) domains rarely are used for more than a year. Therefore, the date when a domain expires in the future can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain and, thus, the documents associated therewith.”

Domains registered for longer periods give the indication, true or not, that their owner is legitimate. Google uses a domain’s length of registration when indexing and ranking a Web site for inclusion in their organic search results.

So to prove to everyone that your site is the real deal, register for more than one year and increase your chances of boosting your search ranking on Google.

I have read the doc beginning to end and honestly this is some of the driest garbage since my last RFC reading. The new GoDaddy sales technique, is one of the smartest examples of marketing seen from registars in some time. Then I have been around long enough to remember when longer domain names came out in 1999. That spawned a mad rush for hyphenated domain names that to me never really paid off for people. But a lot of domain names were sold.

What is described in the patent looks like a "method" rather than a new Google's algorythm add-on. As the patent's title implies, it's about a method to retrieve informations filtering them on an historical basis. "Google" name NEVER appears in patent contents. It seems spammers registers domains for just one year, often providing false admin and contact details. Domains registered for more that one year may get a higher score. The Patent does not refer to any historical data related to domain age: it seems to focus on domain expiration rather than domain creation. Therefore if your domain is 5 years old, and this would mean you're serious about it, you could even be penalized because you renew it yearly. When we all know that either or both can be collected at the same time.

While Information retrieval based on historical data is (or may be) a great method to leave spammers out of the door, there are some indicators Google actually uses to catch spammer sites.

1. Multiple domains with the same contents. Not uncommon to see many similar websites ranking high for certain keywords then disappear from index after a certain period of time (usually one month)
2. Google's ABUSE service. Based on users' input. Users can report a website they suspect it's spamming the search engine to Google abuse service. The website will be investigated (by a human) and, if it's caught on some spamming activities is banned.
3. Keyword Stuffing. Pages that present same keyword repeated over and over usually rank high for a short period of time then disappear from index. Keyword Stuffing infact is considered the most annoying spam practice.
4. Don't forget the so-called Sandbox effect (read about it on Google Sandbox effect)

Closing: I would have to question Godaddy scare tactics as a method for sales though it is proven to be effective. Logic would say Google would not use any single method like this to pollute a algorythm they have worked so hard to develope. If someone is registering a fresh domain name for the first time, it might be in their best interest to do so for more than one year. Or untill a history is established. Though logic would also say the same, to those search spam people after all the gain is great and the investment small.

The new Google Base (beta) service means you can add all types of information that they will host and make searchable online. Describe any item you wish to post with attributes, which will help people find it when searching Google Base, which may also be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle and Google Local.

Its free and all types of online and offline information and images are accepted. Interesting items already posted include non-profit organisations and recipes for tikka masala.

Google have also set out guidelines for what is prohibited such as product endorsing, gambling, illegal goods and hacking.

For more information visit: http://base.google.com/base/default

A 301 permanent redirect is the redirection method recommended by the major search engines. Using a 301 redirect you are in effect telling the search engines the page has moved and to update their index. It also has the nice side benefit of redirecting the benefit of inbound links to the new page.

Implementing a 301 permanent redirect is different depending on the operating system and/or programming language you are using on your server:

IIS Redirect
In internet services manager, right click on /old-file.htm
Select the radio titled "a redirection to a URL".
Enter the redirection page.
Check "The exact url entered above" and the "A permanent redirection for this resource"
Click on 'Apply'
Apache Redirect
Create a file called .htaccess in your root directory and add the following line:

Redirect 301 /current.htm http://www.domainname.com/blabla.htm
ColdFusion Redirect
Edit the file /current.htm and put the following code:

<cfheader statuscode="301" statustext="Moved permanently">
<cfheader name="Location" value="http://www.domainname.com/blabla.htm">

PHP Redirect
Edit the file /current.htm and put the following code:

<?php
Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" );
Header( "Location: http://www.domainname.com/blabla.htm" );
?>
ASP Redirect
Edit the file /current.htm and put the following code:

<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status="301 Moved Permanently"
Response.AddHeader "Location", " http://www.domainname.com/blabla.htm"
%>
ASP .NET Redirect
Edit the file /current.htm and put the following code:

<script runat="server">
private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e) {
Response.Status = "301 Moved Permanently";
Response.AddHeader("Location","http://www.domainname.com/blabla.htm");
}
</script>
HTML Redirect
Edit the file /current.htm and put the following code:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>Your Page Title</title>
<meta http-equiv="REFRESH" content="0;url=http://www.domainname.com/blabla.htm">
</HEAD>
<BODY>Optional page text here.

MSN Launches Paid-Search Service in France and Singapore

NEW YORK — Sept. 26, 2005 — Today, Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of the MSN^® Information Services & Merchant Platform division, opened the second annual Advertising Week 2005 in New York City by announcing the official launch of adCenter in France and Singapore. adCenter powers a paid-search service from MSN that provides advanced audience intelligence and targeting capabilities to help advertisers improve their return on investment when it comes to paid-search advertising.

The official launch of adCenter in France today and Singapore on Aug. 31 follows successful pilot programs in both countries. U.S. testing of adCenter is set to begin in October.

“adCenter is helping us apply more flexibility and control in our paid-search advertising campaigns because it gives us the tools to learn so much more about the kind of people who are searching on MSN,” said Stuart Larkins, vice president of Search for Performics Inc., a division of DoubleClick Inc., which participated in the test.

Powerful campaign management tools and deep audience intelligence unique to MSN make it easy for advertisers to optimize and refine their campaigns to reach a specific audience. Some of those tools include the following:

•	Keyword Selection allows advertisers to indicate whom they want to reach based on geographic location, gender, age range, time of day and day of week, and suggests keywords based on the desired audience.
•	Site Analyzer assists advertisers by suggesting keywords based on the content of their Web site, rather than on another keyword.
•	Audience Profiler provides advertisers with an expected profile of those customers who are most likely to search for specific keywords.
•	Cost Estimator helps advertisers remain within their budget by estimating rank, traffic and cost per month per keyword.
•	Campaign Optimization allows advertisers to respond quickly and decisively throughout the campaign to easily refine budget allocations and keywords, as well as apply targeting filters such as geographic, demographic and dayparting.
•	Post Sales Audience Intelligence & Reporting provides advertisers with detailed reports on campaign performance and audiences reached including click-through rate, estimated position and spending levels. In the near future, adCenter will become a one-stop shop from which advertisers can manage all their MSN advertising campaigns, end to end, including display and direct ads. In addition, advertisers will be able to use advanced targeting tools and audience intelligence data to reach their desired audiences across the MSN network. Advertisers interested in learning more or signing up for adCenter can go to http://advertising.msn.com .

Lets use this example of anchor text:

You run a web design site, and that you want it to rank high with the search engines for the search term "web design". If you had 100 links pointing to your homepage, and the anchor text of all of them said "click here". This wouldn't tell the search engines a whole lot about your site. The search engines will not give you a good ranking.

However, if instead of "click here", the anchor text on those links said "web design", the search engines would easily conclude that your site is an authority on web design, and will give your site a high ranking.

Adding a bullet can give you yet another kick in position.  "Web Design" Doing this you can add image alt tag to the link as well as anchor text.

Example of Anchor Text:
<a href="http://blog.activeservers.com/SEO/" title="Internet SEO Articles">Articles</a>

While blogs arguably make up the majority of RSS content, many news sites also syndicate content via RSS—for example, Search Engine Watch is available via RSS feeds.

But RSS feeds are increasingly being used for other types of content. For example, you can get RSS feeds with weather forecasts, company news and financial information, package tracking and lots of others. Even the venerable Yahoo Directory is available now through RSS feeds.

Although there are literally millions of feeds available, finding those that are appealing and relevant to you isn't always easy. The major search engines are all dabbling with feed search, but none offer a robust service as yet. And while there are a number of smaller, specialized blog and feed search engines, their lack of resources and the problem of blog and feed spam means their search results are often useless. So finding relevant feeds, at least for the time-being, often remains a hit-or-miss affair.

"Full article here"

Google penalizes page rank when content is duplicated by other sites

Have your rankings slipped? It is possible that your page contents have been duplicated causing a duplicate content penalty. Google doesn't want multiple copies of the same content. So they will devalue all but one of the copies of the content based on the age of the page.

It has been a chore to check for duplicated content. This chore is easier now - www.copyscape.com. Just by entering the URL of the page you want to check, Copyscape will return a list of pages in the Google index that contain text also present on your site.

Google, Yahoo! still dominate search; MSN gains ground

"Google maintained its lead in the United States with 36.5 percent of all the searches in the month of July--followed by Yahoo! at 30.5 percent and MSN at 15.5 percent [...]

Microsoft's MSN earned the greatest search volume gain among any of the top search engines, rising 30 percent year-over-year and accounting for 744 million domestic searches."

Google stealthily monitoring clickthroughs from search-results

"There's some very subtle clickthrough tracking going on at Google. Just before you click on a link on a search-results page, at the 'on mousedown' event, Google rewrites the links in its search results with a long redirector URL that is presumably being used to track which search results are being selected most often."

Google ad display increases

"In more searches, particularly queries with commercial intent, Google now displays three paid PPC links instead of the traditional one or two."

Courts signal that Google's keyword policy is lawful

"We believe our current policy strikes a good balance between advertisers, users and trademark owners, don't be surprised if our policy evolves over time. We believe it is possible for an advertiser to create an ad that uses a trademark in a legal and non-confusing way - after all that is what comparative advertising is all about."

There are many unique terms associated with search engine optimization and search engine marketing . Keyword Effectiveness Index – A WordTracker term that refers to the number of times a Keyword has appeared in WordTracker’s database compared with the number of competing Web pages.

DETAILED EXPLANATION

The KEI for a keyword should increase if its popularity increases. Popularity is defined as the "Count" or number of times it appears.

The KEI for a keyword should decrease if it becomes more competitive. Competitiveness is defined as the number of sites which a search engine e.g. Google displays when you search for that keyword using exact match search.

Exact match search means that a search engine searches for only those sites which use the keyword exactly as typed in by the user. It is the equivalent of entering:

 

Partial match search means that a search engine also searches for sites which contain the individual words of the keyword but not necessarily occurring together or in the order typed in by the user. It is the equivalent of entering:

 

Partial match search presents a distorted picture of the competitiveness of a keyword because when you optimize your site for a particular keyword, you are actually competing with sites which have used the keyword exactly as typed in by the user.

I have personally found Word Tracker a great resource for everyone who really understands the importance of market speak. It really can profoundly effect the outcome of any web enterprise. Today in the news I also found this article  provides some insight. It might make the experienced SEO pro say no kidding. Though when discussing the topic of KEI, the object is to remove as much of the ambiguity as possible.

	Some Questions for your developer. Make sure before you decide who will develop your website you have a good idea that the money is well spent. There are massive differences between developers. Everything about a web site does not hinge totally on their ability to write dynamic content. Though this is a important factor it is but one.
	Doing a search the Internet you see it for yourself.  Note the difference in the designs of the sites you visit. Some look like they were created by expensive media agencies while others look like a 12-year-old did it for his school project. Which might be the case.

Here are 5 questions your web site developer might not want you to ask. Click Here

Have you noticed your search engine rank slipping? Perhaps it is due to the fact that people are copying your content. How can you find out about this and track down who is using your content?

Well I have found that the easiest way is to simply go to this link and you run your domain name.

http://www.copyscape.com/

Below are some of the most useful options set and in their suggested order: If your developer is does not use these on your site, or if this is not part of any development costs then make sure they are. Also make sure to be aware of who will be defining the keywords for your web site. Having this established before hiring a developer is important. You also want to know what their SEO experience is. I have seen quoted prices for doing this part, ranging from $10.00 per page to $300.00 per page. With many things in life you get exactly what you pay for. It does not mean that the developer is trying to dupe you but in most cases it is only fair to compare what you get for your money evenly. This is the best way to make sure that the developer doing this work is being compared openly and fairly.

<title>Whatever Items for Sale</title>
<meta name="description" content="Description">
<meta name="keywords" content="keywords">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css">
<meta http-equiv="expires" content="30 days">
<meta name="author" content="John Doe">
<meta name="copyright" content="Copyright 2004 www.domainname.com">
<meta name="distribution" content="global">
<meta name="robots" content="index, follow">
<meta name="rating" content="Safe For Kids">