Archive for the ‘Search Engines’ Category

With a nod to Charles Darwin, who meant the phrase Survival of the Fittest as a metaphor for “better adapted for immediate, local  environment,” it will be interesting to us and of great importance to Search Engine Optimization gurus to follow the ongoing struggle for survival and dominance by Google and Bing and the “anti-spam” search engine, Blekko.

Right from the first days of the Internet and search engines called Excite and Webcrawler, the idea of search engines has been to help people find what they are looking for. Google rose above the rest with a complex algorithm that traced which websites liked others by linking to them.

This was better for websites than for people. Keywords and titles factored in and evolved continuously, but links were the name of the game.

Webmasters who excelled at the game could stand tall in the jungle of algorithms, beat their chests and boast, “me rank higher than you.” Website owners had to prove themselves by adhering to Google’s tastes and standards. Trickier sites found ways to use Google’s secret formula by playing at being a good site without having to create useful input. Spammers did well for themselves and searchers found increasing numbers of irrelevant results in their searches. Search engines had increasing complaints.

So the battle for survival and dominance keeps search engines constantly evolving. Google’s abrupt “Panda Update” earlier this year changed the game considerably, wiping out many well established rankings. New search engines pop up on a regular basis with the intent of out-doing Google. Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, has climbed to 30% of the market since it was started in 2009. Blekko, an “anti-spam” search engine has reached a million searches a day since its inception in 2007.

And now the game changes again. There is an astounding amount of data out there in the ever-growing world of social media and this is now factoring in as the search engines belatedly reach the conclusion that if people share your content, it’s probably quite good. Users were unable to vote for content with links, but they are now able to vote for content with clicks, bookmarks, tags and ratings, and they are sending strong signals to the search engines about who they consider the fittest for survival.

Links play a critical roll in the placement of your websites in the search engines.

Avoid Buying Links

Some companies provide “link services” for money. Too often these are what the industry calls “link farms” and are becoming more recognizable by the search engines as bogus elements. They do no more than link to your website from a page with thousands of other non related links.

Look For Industry Connections

The best place to get a link is from a website that is related to your industry. For example, Starnes Jewelers gets links to its website from its vendors and trade organizations. This helps them come up in the quality ranking phrases like Albemarle china and Albemarle crystal.

You’ve got several industry contacts, now get them to link to you website.

If you need help getting your website ranking improved in the search engines then call me, Huck Huckabee, at 704-438-2910

Business Website Building Class In Monroe, NC

Huck Huckabee

Learn the basics of building a website at South Piedmont Community College in Monroe, North Carolina. I, Huck Huckabee, will be teaching a class on the subject on Tuesday, October 19th at 5:30 PM.

Contact Vince Holloman

To sign up for the class contact Vince Holloman. Call 704-289-8588 or send an email to vholloman@spcc.edu. Class size is limited so call now.

Huck Huckabee

“Google Caffeine”

That’s the name of the new and improved indexing system that now powers the world’s largest search engine. The project to make this improvement began back in August of 2009. It was implemented a few weeks ago.

The Number 1 Search Engine

Google is the most popular search engine and has been for years. And there is no sign of that changing anytime soon. So your Internet marketing needs to be oriented toward Google mechanics. But Google does have competition at it’s heels. Bing has made significant changes in it’s search engine in the last year. This competition is good for all of us and will insure that the search engines get even better.

Internet content is being generated faster than ever. And all indications are that the growth will continue. Google Caffeine is designed to handle this growth.

Here’s what they had to say:

Our old index had several layers, some of which were refreshed at a faster rate than others; the main layer would update every couple of weeks. To refresh a layer of the old index, we would analyze the entire web, which meant there was a significant delay between when we found a page and made it available to you.

With Caffeine, we analyze the web in small portions and update our search index on a continuous basis, globally. As we find new pages, or new information on existing pages, we can add these straight to the index. That means you can find fresher information than ever before—no matter when or where it was published. – Google

Things on the Internet are getting better and faster. How are improvements impacting you?

Google has announced that it’s new search engine has gone live.  The project, dubbed “Caffeine”, was initiated to make significant improvements to Google’s search engine.

Google updated the indexing system of the world’s largest search engine by increasing the speed, accuracy, temporal relevance, and the index size of each search.

Search Speed Has Increased

Search speed is incredibly important to the search engines. Tests have shown that Google is producing results at twice the speed it was producing them before the improvement.

Accuracy Has Improved

Google’s new search engine appears to show more preference for page titles and keywords than it previously did. Less emphasis is now given to graphics in the primary searches.

Temporal Relevancy

The change in how soon breaking news is recognized in Google appears to be minimal, although, it has improved slightly.

Index Size

A significant change you will notice in the new searches is how many total results are showing up. What this is telling us is that Google is referencing more sites for each search. We are not going to look at all of those results, but it is less likely that a site is just overlooked by Google.

The Value Of Competition

We should probably thank Bing for this improvement. Search engine improvements made by Microsoft when they released Bing, their search engine, have served as a threat to Google. Now what will Bing do?