Pada kesempatan kali ini saya akan berbagi sedikit tips buat temen-temen bloggeryg lagi males atau gak punya banyak waktu untuk write and posts. Sesuai denganjudul posting "Semi Generated Content" yg bisa diartikan dengan setengahdari "Auto Generated Content (AGC)". Maksudnya adalah kita hanya perlu edit sedikitposting yang secata otomatis masuk dalam "Daftar Entri" Blog kita masing-masing. Berikut ini peralatan yang temen blogger harus sediakan :
1. Account Blogger
Dalam hal ini harus jelas blog Semi Generated Content yang akan temenbuat tema dan isinya kemana [Tema Blog]

2. Account Yahoomail
Digunakan sebagai sumber artikel yang mengisi secara otomatis nantinyadalam "dafta Entri" Blog Semi Generated Content kita.

Langkah-langkahnya adalah sebagai berikut :
1. Buat satu blog dengan tema tertentu, misalnya ttg "Islam"
2. Pada tab "pengaturan" pilih sub menu "email and Selluler" seperti gambardibawah ini :


3. Pada Opsi pengeposan isikan alamat email yg saudara inginkan, email inimerupakan Subdomain dari Email Google,, saudara bisa lihat padagambar. Pada gambar diatas email google nya adalah rppsilab[at]gmail.com dengan sub email yang saya isikan arimatematika. Jadiemailnya adalah rppsilab.arimatematika[at]blogger.com. Perlu diingatpada bagian bawah gambar diatas tandai "simpan email sebagai entrikonsep" agar kita rapikan dahulu sebelum di terbitkan. [inilah yang sayamaksud dengan Semi Generated Content For Blogspot, artikelnyamasuk secara otomatis, tetapi masih perlu edit manual agar rapi ketikakita tampilkan dalam postingan.

4. Setelah itu saudara tinggal gabung disalah satu YahooGroups denganaccount YahooMail yg telah temen buat. [makin banyak groups yg diikuti,makin banyak artikel yg masuk dalam daftar entri blog kita]. Bergabungdengan groups yg sesuai dengan tema Blog Semi Generated Content ygakan saudara buat. Ketika saudara bergabung isikan email yg telah kitabuat pada langkah 3. Lihat screen shoot dibawah ini


Bayangkan saja dalam waktu yg relatif singkat, daftar entri blog saya mencapai346 daftar postingan. Bisa lihat screenshoot dibawah ini pada blog saya ygberjudul "BACALAH" yang saya mulai dari 09 desember 2010.


Tetapi blog initidak saya kelola dengan baik, karena saya ingin focus pada blog saya yg tentangpendidikan, ngeblog harus focus dan sebaiknya focus ke tulisan konten orisinil itu akan lebih baik. Semoga bermanfaat :)

Hallo Sobat,

Kamu baru saja meminta email berlangganan ke O-OM.COM melalui FeedBurner.
Agar bisa segera berlanggan silakan konfirmasi terlebih dahulu dengan
mengklik Link dibawah ini:

http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailconfirm?k=nQXnQLQsH8YT_NkDHIMEROdCrnU

(Jika link di atas tidak muncul ketika diklik atau tidak membuka jendela
browser ketika Kamu klik, Silahkan copy dan paste ke Lokasi bar di web
browser kamu ya.)

Salam saya,
Agus Ramadhani
http://www.o-om.com

--
This message was sent to you by FeedBurner (feedburner.google.com)
You received this message because you requested a subscription to the feed,
O-OM.COM | Blogger Tutorial Plus Blogger Templates.
If you received this in error, please disregard. Do not reply directly to
this email.

Halo sobat blogger dan sahabat pebisnis online. Mencari uang di internet sudah merupakan suatu trend bagi seorang blogger. Artinya di mana ada blog maka 90% bisa dipastikan ada space atau tempat untuk menghasilkan uang. Maksud saya blogger tidak hanya menjadi blogger. Tapi ia akan menjadikan blognya sebagai sumber uang. Lazim di internet disebut work from home artinya bekerja dari rumah, work at home artinya bekerja di rumah dan lain-lain. Yang lebih keren lagi make money online. Apa artinya itu? Itu bahasa Inggris yang artinya membuat uang secara online. Membuat uang...bukan mencari uang. Itulah bedanya bisnis online dengan bisnis offline. Jadi kita yang membuat uang bukan mencari uang.
Dalam melakukan apa saja termasuk Make Money Online perlu ilmu untuk menjalankannya. Ibarat kata bijak manusia tanpa ilmu maka akan sesat. Jadi ketika anda mendengar tentang bisnis internet ( dengan sederet istilahnya seperti work at home dll ), maka jangan tergiur dan menghayal melampaui batas. Jika melampau batas atau mengimpikan terlalu tinggi nanti malah bisa jatuh dan tak bangun-bangun lagi. Itu tadi, anda perlu mermiliki ilmunya untuk bisa mencetak pundi-pundi uang di internet. Dengan ilmu itulah maka anda memiliki strategi dan jurus ampuh untuk segera bergelut di dalam bisnis online. Jadi kunci untuk bisa mencetak uang di internet adalah :

Belajar

Ya. Hanya dengan belajar orang bisa mencapai yang diharapkan. Untuk belajar bisnis online medianya cukup banyak di internet. Salah satu guru terbaik kita adalah om google. Google adalah kamus terbesar kita untuk belajar bisnis online. Silahkan di bukawww.google.co.id lalu di kolom pencarian masukkan kalimat ( lazim disebut kata kunci atau keyword ) misalnya belajar bisnis online. Maka akan tampil sederet hasil pencarian dengan daftar web yang merekomendasikan bisnis online. Tinggal klik sakah satu yang paling cocok dengan anda. Tapi jangan lupa tetap harus selektif dan berhati-hati karena di internet banyak hal yang kelihatannya baik padahal isinya sampah atau jelek.

Selain itu, anda belajar dari blogger yang sudah pengalaman untuk memulai bekerja dengan make money online. Di internet ( baik dari Indonesia atau luar negeri ) banyak bertebaran blogger-blogger yang telah sukses menjalankan bisnis online. Termasuk anda bisa belajar pada master blog kita ini, mas .... pemilik o-om.com. Walaupun ia termasuk blogger yang mengkhususkan dalam tutorial blog, tapi saya lihat daftar web afiliasinya juga ada dan patut kita jadikan "guru" untuk belajar make money online. Setujuuuuuu?? Yang lain, bisa dicari juga di mesin pencari google dengan kata kunci belajar bisnis online, belajar cari uang di internet, atau make money online.


Jangan Malu Bertanya

Karena kita sedang belajar maka salah satu tipsnya adalah jangan malu bertanya. "Malu bertanya sesat di jalan", begitu khan kata pepatah? Bertanya itu adalah separuh dari ilmu pengetahuan. Bertanya bisa kepada blogger yang telah makan asam garam bisnis online. Bisa melalui email atau blognya. Setiap pebisnis online mayoritas memiliki blog personal yang khusus untuk membahas hal hal penting berkenaan dengan make money online. Di blog mereka itulah kita bisa berinteraksi dengan cara bertanya kepada mereka hal-hal yang tidak kita mengerti.

Forum online sudah ada sejak pertama kali internet dibangun dan sudah banyak blogger pula yang menjadikan forum sebagai media untuk menjaring trafik bagi blog mereka. Walaupun tidak sebaik dan sebagus web 2.0 seperti twitter dan facebook, forum tetap menjadi media yang menggiurkan untuk mendatangkan trafik tertarget untuk blog Anda. Tips di bawah ini merupakan 8 hal yang harus Anda ingat untuk mendatangkan trafik tertarget dari sebuah forum.

Pilih forum yang tepat.
Memilih forum yang tepat merupakan salah satu hal yang sangat penting. Saya berharap Anda sudah bergabung dengan satu ataupun dua forum yang sesuai dengan niche dan konten blog Anda. Jika Anda belum bergabung sama sekali dengan forum online, Anda bisa mencari forum-forum yang sesuai dengan niche Anda dengan mengetikkan "niche Anda forum", contohnya "SEO online forum" di mesin pencari Google.
Jika Anda bergabung dengan lebih dari satu forum, hendaknya Anda memusatkan konsentrasi pada satu forum dahulu untuk aktif dalam forum tersebut sehingga Anda menjadi salah satu member terbaik. Dengan begitu, Anda akan terkenal dalam forum tersebut. Dan jika Anda telah terkenal dalam sebuah forum, Anda bisa beranjak ke forum selanjutnya.
Pilih username yang baik.
Username Anda merupakan brand dalam forum tersebut karena username merupakan hal yang pertama kali dilihat dalam profil seorang member di sebuah forum. Sehingga Anda perlu untuk melakukan pemilihan kata yang sesuai untuk username Anda. Sebaiknya sesuaikan username Anda dengan niche blog Anda sehingga terlihat lebih profesional. Contohnya adalah "kangmusa.pakarseo".

Letakkan alamat blog Anda di signature
Signature merupakan teks, link atau gambar yang akan muncul di bagian bawah setiap post Anda. Meletakkan alamat blog Anda di bagian signature merupakan tulang punggung agar Anda mendapatkan limpahan trafik dari forum tersebut. Hal ini dikarenakan setiap pengunjung forum yang membaca posting Anda pasti akan melihat alamat blog Anda juga di akhir post. Maka dari itu, sebaiknya Anda membuat posting yang menarik dan sesuai sehingga trafik bisa langsung diarahkan untuk mengunjungi blog Anda.

Bangun profil Anda dengan baik.
Profil merupakan bagian yang akan dilihat pengunjung jika menekan username Anda. Dan biasanya sebuah profil akan menampilkan avatar Anda, biografi singkat, dan sebuah link ke blog Anda. Pada umumnya avatar digunakan untuk menampilkan potongan foto diri Anda. Anda bisa meletakkan foto wajah Anda di avatar tersebut. Namun jika Anda lebih suka menjadi pribadi yang anonim di sebuah forum, sebaiknya avatar Anda diisi dengan gambar yang mewakili niche blog Anda.
Sedangkan biografi singkat berisi cerita mengenai diri Anda secara keseluruhan. Buat bagian ini terlihat profesional, tidak membosankan dan multidimensi. Anda bisa menceritakan pengalaman Anda di bidang keahlian Anda. Pada intinya buatlah setiap orang yang melihat profil Anda ingin untuk berinteraksi lebih lanjut dengan Anda.

Jangan melakukan tindakan spamming
Ketika Anda berinteraksi dengan orang lain di forum online, berinteraksilah dengan baik. Jangan langsung memberikan kartu bisnis Anda kepada orang lain yang baru Anda ajak berjabat tangan dan berkenalan. Berinteraksilah dengan orang lain sewajarnya. Jangan melakukan tindakan-tindakan spamming di forum. Ingat tujuan Anda bergabung dengan forum bukan semata-mata untuk mempromosikan blog Anda, tapi berbagi ilmu dan berinteraksi dengan orang lain di forum tersebut.

Sediakan konten yang berkualitas
Anda pasti tahu bahwa nyawa sebuah blog adalah konten. Dan kontenlah yang akan membawa trafik ke blog Anda dengan sendirinya. Hal ini juga berlaku di forum online. Sebagai contoh, balaslah sebuah pertanyaan dari orang lain dengan sebuah jawaban yang jelas, runtut dan bermanfaat. Jangan hanya membalas dengan kata "ya" atau "tidak".
Salah satu taktik lain adalah meletakkan posting blog Anda di forum. Tentu posting yang benar-benar berkualitas dan bermanfaat. Dan di akhir posting, Anda bisa meletakkan kalimat seperti ini, "jika Anda rasa posting ini informatif dan bermanfaat, Anda bisa mengunjungi blogAnda.com untuk mendapatkan posting lainnya."

Buat thread baru
Jika seseorang membuka sebuah thread, maka orang tersebut akan melihat posting pertama. Posting pertama akan lebih banyak dibaca dibandingkan posting kedua, ketiga dan seterusnya. Maka dari itu, menjadi thread starter yang memberikan posting pertama sangatlah penting. Anda bisa memulai sebuah thread dengan pertanyaan karena akan membuat orang lain penasaran. Atau jika Anda tidak mempunyai pertanyaan, Anda juga bisa meminta opini orang lain mengenai suatu hal. Contohnya adalah "apa yang akan Anda lakukan jika Anda mempunyai penghasilan $500 per hari?" Hal itu akan membuat orang lain tertarik dan berpartisipasi di thread yang Anda buat.

Lakukan posting sesering mungkin
Hal ini juga penting untuk mendukung aktivitas Anda mempromosikan blog Anda di forum online. Semakin sering Anda melakukan posting, maka semakin sering Anda dilihat oleh orang lain. Semakin sering Anda dilihat, maka semakin sering alamat blog Anda ditampilkan. Dan semakin sering blog Anda ditampilkan, maka semakin banyak pengunjung yang datang ke blog Anda.

Itulah 8 Tips untuk Mendapatkan Trafik dari Forum Online. Lakukan yang terbaik di forum online yang sesuai dengan blog Anda, praktekkan 8 tips ini dan pastikan blog Anda kebanjiran trafik.
 

Memilih topik yang tepat dan benar adalah langkah awal dari membangun blog adsense bahkan sebelum menentukan keyword adsense yang mahal. Setelah anda menentukan topik / niche yang benar baru kemudian menentukan keyword-keyword yang mahal untuk postingan / halaman artikel anda.

High Paying Niche / Topik Bayaran Mahal

Topik adsense bayaran mahal maupun Topik adsense  bayaran rendah sebetulnya sama saja, bedanya hanya sedikit, karena kedua jenis topik adsense tersebut juga memiliki pemasang adsense yang mahal dan juga mempunyai advertiser yang murah pula. Hanya saja pada Topik-topik  bayaran mahal akan lebih mudah menemukan keyword-keyword yang bayarannya mahal sehingga kemungkinan dapat iklan adsense dengan payout mahal lebih mudah dan lebih sering.
Berikut beberapa topik adsense yang memiliki potensi bayaran mahal :
1. Asuransi
Banyak topik-topik adsense yang memiliki bayaran lebih dari $1 per klik namun sainganannya juga berat-berat. Kalau gak jago SEO dan gak punya dana besar sebaiknya pikir-pikir dulu untuk mengambil topik ini. Salah satu cara memilih niche dari lahan asuransi dengan mempersempit niche menjadi kategori tertentu atau untuk kawasan daerah tertentu misalnya New york Life insurance, dan long tail keyword yang lain.
2. Law / Hukum

Dalam dunia nyata orang kalau sudah masuk urusan hukum akan berani membayar berapapun. Hal ini juga terjadi pada bisnis online, Bisnis online yang berkaitan dengan masalah hukum biasanya juga memiliki persaingan ketat dan biaya besar.
Orang yang sedang butuh pengacara karena kasus tertentu tidak akan langsung meminta pertimbangan dari orang-orang disekitarnya karena malu, atau dianggap aib. Sehingga mereka lebih suka mencari informasi di internet atau konsultasi online. Dari sinilah peran iklan adsense mulai berperan. Seperti halnya asuransi, persaingan di niche ini juga lumayan ketat.
3. Pendidikan / Education
Banyak para publisher yang sukses mengambil topik ini untuk blog adsense. Hampir setiap bidang topik education memiliki nilai klik yang banyak, Terutama education yang terkaita dengan pekerjaan profesional, training profesional, sertikat, perguruan tinggi. Contoh keyword umum yang masuk dalam education seperti : Financial aid, student loans, Pell Grants, admission essays, online colleges, nursing training, medical school, law schools, online degree, Master Degree in Psychology.
4. Kesehatan
Tidak semua topik kesehatan memiliki potensi bayaran yang besar, biasanya topik permasalahan yang menyangkut penyakit berat, dan butuh biaya besar. Penyakit-penyakit yang mudah kambuh dan sulit disembuhkan beberapa di antaranya juga memiliki nilai iklan yang besar. beberapa contoh niche kesehatan antara lain : Acid Reflux, Prostate cancer, Heartburn, Surgery, weight loss, teeth whitening, skin care .
4. Finance
Topik finansial juga bagus seperti halnya topik hukum dan education. Banyak topik yang bisa digali dari masalah finance. Topik-topik yang populer seputar finance antara lain , loan, debt problem, credit card, investment.
6. Travel
Setiap orang pasti suka traveling dan liburan. Biaya liburan tentu tidak murah, dan biasanya para turis mencari informasi dulu  mengenai tujuan travelingnya seperti motel, hotel, sewa mobil, tempat restoran, tours. Selain itu bagi yang belum punya tujuan para calon turis akan mencari informasi tentang obyek-obyek wisata dengan topik tertentu contohnya, beach vacation, ski vacation, Bali beach, dll. Topik-topik mengenai liburan dan traveling memiliki potensi yang banyak dan beberapa diantaranya memiliki nilai klik yang besar.
7. Home improvment
Biaya perumahan sangat mahal, bukan saja di negeri sendiri bahkan di luar negeri lebih mahal. Bukan saja mengenai rumah pribadi tetapi juga menyangkut sewa rumah, apartement. Pemilik rumah juga membutuhkan informasi tentang seseorang profesional perawatan rumah seperti plumbers, roofers, decks, floor layers and cabinet installers.
8. Relation
Topik relation yang paling populer antara lain , dating, wedding, marriage.
Topik yang berhubungan dengan pembiayaan perumahan, perawatan rumah, jual beli rumah sangat bagus untuk dijadikan adsense.
Salah satu trik yang bisa dipakai untuk mempersempit topik sehingga lebih spesifik adalah dengan menggabungkan dua topik sekaligus. Misalkan Pendidikan Kesehatan, training profesi perawat, Pendidikan hukum, kredit perumahan, masalah hukum perumahan.
Karena persaingan di luar sangat ketat, sebaiknya memilih tema yang lebih spesifik selain itu keuntungannya juga lebih bagus karena keyword yang ada di blog juga akan semakin spesifik sehingga iklannya juga semakin sesuai dengan topik yang anda pilih. Kalau tema blognya terlalu lebar beberapa iklan yang muncul juga terkadang tidak berkaitan dengan tema blog anda.
Kelanjutan artikel ini hanya bisa dibaca oleh Member, silahkan login melalui form login di sidebar

(Source) Finally, Google has integrated Picasa Web Albums into Google Image Search. Public albums can be enabled for a public search option, meaning your images will be more likely to come up in Google image results. And that's a huge improvement, because previously images on Picasa (and Blogger, and Google Docs) were not searchable at all. The other Google applications are still missing out on all the fun, but Picasa images are now searchable. This is limited, however, to a Google image search.

Proof that Google Universal is becoming more universal. While the majority of searchers won't be able to see Picasa images, this is just the first step to moving in that direction. Google has already rolled several verticals into its Universal Search feature. Now it's just a matter of time before the search engine incorporates them all. Google images is currently available to some searchers. The next step is to get Picasa images to appear for those users then, when Google Universal rolls out of beta, everyone can benefit.

Do you know where you show up on the search results for any of your keywords at each of the search engines? You should.
There are several tools that you can use to search this out, but there is one that I'd recommend as you can also compare your competition in one move. Searchboth.com is a search engine that allows you to search two search engines at the same time and compare the results. What you'll get is a split screen with each search engine's SERP for the keyword that you searched.
Search engines you can search through Searchboth.com include:

• Google
• Yahoo
• Ask
• MSN
• DogPile
• MetaCrawler
• AltaVista
• LookSmart
• WebSearch

You can also compare the following verticals through Searchboth.com:

• Web
• Images
• Videos
• News
• Shopping
• Directory
• Answers
• Blogs

Not only can you compare organic listings, but you can also compare the sponsored listings and PPC ads. This tool gives you a chance to compare your standing in the search engines while scoping out your competition. You don't have to go to every single search engine. You can cut down the time it takes you to do your research. The company that owns Searchboth.com, InternLabz, also has similar versions in other countries:

• SearchBoth.com
• SearchBoth.co.uk
• SearchBoth.com.au
• SearchBoth.ca
• SearchBoth.fr
• SearchBoth.nl
• SearchBoth.be
• SearchBoth.ru
• SearchBoth.dk
• SearchBoth.com.mx
• SearchBoth.it
• SearchBoth.co.il
• SearchBoth.at
• SearchBoth.se
• SearchBoth.es
• SearchBoth.cz
• SearchBoth.ch
• SearchBoth.ie

Or, you could just use WebPosition.

It looks like Google is changing its priorities. This is evidenced by the placement of "Products" on its menu bar at the time of the search page and the movement of "Videos" to the drop down menu where the other, less important links are. I think there are two primary reasons why Google would make this change.
First, since purchasing YouTube, Google Video is not really necessarily. Many of us in the Internet marketing realm have wondered why the search engine doesn't just roll Google Video into the more popular YouTube product and merge the two into one. No need to promote video services when the majority of video uploaders head to YouTube anyway.
The second reason I think Google made this change is even more significant. It's a realization that eCommerce is here to stay and the fact that Google now allows users to search for Products, and in fact encourages them do so with this link in a more prominent location, is to give everyone who sells any product online a bit more legitimacy. Of course, recent changes in the paid links policy at Google has met with some backtalk from many SEOs who have criticized the policy and accused Google of not caring for people who are online to make money. This move seems to indicate otherwise.
Google is clearly not anti-commerce. I think their main concern is creating a fair playing field for all businesses and websites at various levels and stages of development. Google Products makes it easier for online retailers to market their products to the right markets. Now if we can just get them to include this vertical search in its Universal Search platform then consumers who look for the same or similar products often can have a personalized marketplace of trust websites that will make shopping easier for them.

Matt Cutts has another SEO related video presentation where he discusses what Google did for webmasters in 2008 and what he sees happening more and more in 2009. To spoil the movie, future predictions mostly deal with where blackhat search engine optimization is headed and it looks really nasty. Think Al Capone and his scuzzy buddy Bugsy.
At any rate, the video is interesting and if you can sit through 23 minutes of Matt Cutts boring you with dry talk of what Google has done then I'd recommend taking a look just to see if you find anything you didn't already know. A small recap – and this isn't everything he discusses – appears below. These are just a few of the topics that are worth mentioning because Google actually did produce something worth talking about:

• Optical Character Recognition for PDF files
• Google Trends
• Android
• Flash crawl
• List of sites that link to 404 pages
• Google Chrome
• Google Analytics advertiser segmentation

These are products and services that Google rolled out in 2008 that are worth looking into more. If you haven't heard of these then you should look into more information about them. There is plenty more that Matt Cutts talks about.
The top 3 most important Google developments, in my opinion, in the last year are:

• Google Trends
• OCR for PDF files
• Android

I think these are important because Google Trends will allow advertisers to monitor important trends in a variety of industries, but the tool can also be used by journalists, researchers, and anyone who has an interest in measuring aggregated human behavior. OCR for PDF documents is important because now Google can actually crawl PDFs, whereas before they couldn't. This will become more important for SEO as the technology is improved. Android is an open source developer's tool that allows anyone to create mobile applications and because of this technology and some others entering the market today I think mobile advertising will pick up speed.

I'm amazed at how many people get so fixated on seeking high search engine optimization Google rankings that they completely forget about Yahoo!, MSN Live, or Ask.com. Or even one of the thousands of other smaller search engines. I've seen healthy traffic come from places like Dogpile or some obscure search engine that I'd never heard of and didn't exist (and have often wondered how I got listed there in the first place).

Don't get me wrong, Google will likely be your main source of traffic (if you do your SEO right). But there's no rational reason to not attempt to get listed and ranked everywhere you can. You can still pick up a good 20% increase in search traffic just by having moderate to high rankings in the next three highest traffic search engines – Yahoo!, MSN Live, and Ask.com.
Search engine marketing and optimization is not an exact science. You can target one search engine and still find yourself listed higher in another. Be vigilant about checking your rankings in all the search engines and if you don't see your website listed in a certain search engine after awhile, take some time to submit your site to that search engine or find out what it takes to get crawled by its robots. Don't get so fixated on Google that you forget everything else.

While Google may have the wraps on general search and YouTube, the second most popular search engine overall, is the clear leader in video search, there has not yet emerged a clear victor in image search. But the race is on.
Last month, MSN announced some upgrades to its image search vertical. But Google was really the first search engine to roll out anything meaningful with its Image Search vertical even though it has never really caught on. But Yahoo! just recently announced its own added image search features.
While many of the new features each of the search engines are adding to their image search verticals aren't new or lead stretching in any real sense, Yahoo! has come out with a little bit of an edge over MSN and Google with its most recent development. You can now search through Flickr photos exclusively through Yahoo!
OK. So what? Big deal!
Well, it is a big deal actually. Since Yahoo! owns Flickr there is a real incentive to keep its traffic on its own properties. This could mean that Yahoo! will soon start monetizing Flickr in a big way. But if you look at who competes with Flickr, Google's Picasa comes nowhere close and the only real competitor in the photo sharing space is Photobucket, which is not owned by any of the search engines, though the search feature at Photobucket is powered by Ask.

Flickr and Photobucket have been competing for dominance in the photo sharing arena. Until now it's been Photobucket, but Flickr is mighty close and taking over. If Yahoo! does a good enough job of promoting its brand then Flickr could very well pull into a big lead. There is a sort of symbiosis there between these two properties that could give Yahoo! a big edge over Google in the long run, since Google has yet to leverage Picasa into anything meaningful. The next logical step for Yahoo! and Flickr is for Flickr to start using Yahoo! search exclusively, allowing Flickr users to access the wider web. If that happens, Flickr could itself become a big enough search engine in its own right to dominate the space of image search. The question is, does Yahoo! have the mojo to pull it off?

WebProNews has an interesting story about a Google employee who quit because he was exhausted from having to run so many tests at Google. Among the items he was asked to spend his anal retentive time on were 41 different shades of blue and whether or not a border should be 3, 4, or 5 pixels wide.
Too much or is that what search engine optimization is leading to?

According to this Googler, "I can't operate in an environment like that." Could you?
It might seem like such details are a bit too much, but if a 3-inch border leads to more sales than a 4-inch border, you might as well hang it up. Facts are facts. If the slightly-darker-than-Navy-blue shade converts more traffic than the slightly-lighter-than-Navy-blue then it makes sense to run those tests, doesn't it? Maybe that's why Google offers webmasters a Website Optimizer.
When it comes to beating the competition you want every edge you can. Maybe such detailed testing is the reasons Google has such a large lead over its competitors.

Aaron Wall lambasted Google this morning on his blog. I can't say it's not justified, but he hit Google hard. Is Google really all that bad?
Quoting Danny Sullivan, Aaron Wall makes the point that if you are just a search engine optimization person then you are the scum of the earth in Google's eyes. But if you've written a book and achieved a certain level of success doing something else then you get a great big nod from the search engine dudes. Of course, he's quoting Danny from a comment he made on a Sphinn story.

Question: Are we going to start seeing celebrity flame wars sparked by professional jealousy now that the old-time SEOs have some competition from cross-overs from other areas?

OK. Pardon the sidebar. Now back to the main attraction. Is Google fracking, jacking, and hacking up the universe?

Google's war on spam hurts. It not only hurts spammers. It hurts all of us. On this I agree with Danny and Aaron. It's like the U.S. War on Drugs. Let's say one thing and do another. Why should the celebrities get a free pass when you and I get kicked in the chin? Spam schmam, Google.

Well, many of us have predicted that the search engine optimization industry would splinter off into verticals before too long. Google has done a good job of leading in the general search field and has seen some moderate success in the vertical search department. But they can't do all things.
UK searchers now have their very own search engine for films. It's called FindAnyFilm.com.
Actually, you'll be able to access this search engine from anywhere in the world, but it's headquartered in the UK.
My question for the owners of this search engine (The UK Film Council) is this, Why just market a dot com vertical search engine to a country-specific audience? Why not call it a search engine for films and leave it at that? I mean, it's a dot com, not a dot co dot uk (.co.uk). I think I know the answer. The UK Film Council wants to test its new product on a market that it is familiar with and with products that they themselves are familiar with. Presumably, there are many films in the UK that you may not get in the U.S. because of distribution rights or economic reasons. By focusing on a product to fit what it knows closer to home they can leverage the power to later roll out separate search engines for film in other countries like the U.S., China, Australia, and Russia. That's just a guess.
Then again, maybe The UK Film Council just wants to remain The UK Film Council.
Whatever the case, FindAnyFilm.com looks like a good place to find films available in the UK. And it looks like a good place to market your film to if you are a film producer in the UK or you have films in distribution in the UK.

I found something that MSN Live beats Google at. It's Image Search. If you'll watch this video by Stefan Weitz of the MSN Live Search team, you'll see the cool features offered by MSN Live on its Image Search feature.

Stefan isn't Matt Cutts and there are some weaknesses in the video presentation, but it does do a decent job of highlighting some of the cool features of MSN Live's Image Search, such as:

• Search by image size
• Aspect Ratio
• Image Style (photograph or illustration)
• Color or black and white
• Face shots, head and shoulder, or other image effects

I think this is getting closer to the way that searching for images should be done. I would like to see one other feature added – the ability to search by creative commons license and/or copyright license. If I'm looking for images to use that are public domain then I'd like to be able to search for those images. If I'd prefer images that I can purchase the exclusive rights to then I'd like to be able to search for those. Otherwise, MSN Live's Image Search feature beats Google's.
What I can't speak to right now, however, is whether MSN Live competes with Google on image optimization. Currently, none of the search engines are close to where image optimization could be and even Google has a long way to go to satisfy the needs of webmasters who want to target Image Search through search engine optimization tactics. But a good starting place is by making it easier for searchers to find images that they may be looking for and MSN Live clearly has Google beat on that front.

The race is on for semantic language search. Already, some search engines are employing this technology. Google is one of them. But will semantic language ever replace keyword-based content?
First, let's define semantic language indexing. This is a form of indexing that allows search engines to determine what a web page is about just by looking at other elements on the page. Usually, related words and phrases will give clues. For instance, if you are writing about screwdrivers then the search robots will be able to tell whether you are referring to handyman tools or mixed drinks based on the rest of your content. Do you mention orange juice? How about ice cubes? Then it's mixed drinks. But if your web page doesn't contain either of those two phrases but does use phrases like Phillips and "flat head" then you're talking about tools.
Google, and a few other search engines, are already doing this. But will this ever be the norm or will keyword-based content always be necessary?
Some people are trying to push for semantic language to be the primary indexing technique because it will eliminate spam. Supposedly. But I think some aspect of keyword-based content will always be necessary. You will always need to ensure that your content uses keywords that are related to your subject matter. No matter how adept the search engines become at semantic language, keywords will be a help, not a hindrance.

Search trends can be enlightening, funny, or downright scary. While fanning through my RSS reader this morning I came across a blog post at Live Search that gives some insight into search trends for 2007 and 2008. It seems that Americans really love turkey (and have serious love-hate relationships with their spouses). This paragraph from the blog post had me laughing:

Last year people in the U.S. were learning to cook turkeys and to brine them. To argue with their spouses (maybe about whether to cook or brine the turkey) and to improve their marriages (probably after getting too worked up about the turkey). They wanted to learn how to make money and how to save it, how to lose weight both in general and in specific places, and how to lose their tan lines.

The 2008 Live Search search trends were no less funny than the previous year's search trends. Without detailing the entire list, here are a few of the searches that Live Search users spent time on last year:

• How to lose back fat
• How to tie a tie
• How to avoid tan lines
• How to improve your marriage
• How to cook a turkey
• How to pronounce palahniuk
• How to brine a turkey
• How to argue with your spouse
• How to reduce stress in your life
• How to be happy at work
• How to make gravy

I don't know what the fascination is with arguing with your spouse, but it seems that Americans are really interested in doing it. Maybe the folks conducting those searches are married to turkeys. That would explain the fascination with cooking and brining.
I'd hazard a guess that reducing the stress in your life is probably related to arguing with your spouse and whether or not you cook or brine your turkey. And learning how to make gravy makes sense for this year's list considering the pre-occupation with America's favorite bird.
The search trend I found most interesting is "how to avoid tan lines". Last year, it seems, Americans wanted to lose them. Now they want to avoid them. First things first, as they say.
When it comes to spouses, turkeys, and tan lines, it all boils down to the pursuit of happiness, which is why so many Americans are concerned with being happy at work. And if you can tie it all together with a good windsor, I suppose that would just put a little perspective into one's life. The rest, as they say, is all gravy.
What does all of this say about us? I don't know, maybe search engine optimization is playing a stronger role so that more savvy readers will be able to pull some nugget of value out of this list to capitalize on. At least, I sure hope so.

If you were tied up or hung over on New Year's Eve and weren't watching your toolbar (we weren't) then you might not have noticed that Google updated its toolbar PageRank. Matt Cutts actually Twittered it.

If you've got questions about how Google figures its PageRank, Matt's the guy to ask. It's rather complicated and he's actually on the record for saying he doesn't understand every little nuance either. In a cool little Q&A format, Matt Cutts answers some of those niggling questions we all have about PageRank and its importance. I like one user's attitude:

viggen says: "Do i need to know that? What does it tell me when i know it? Why would i care? Meaning, what purpose has the Pagerank for the mom and pop site out there?"

And what's was Matt's response?

viggen, I think that's a perfectly healthy attitude. If you don't care about PageRank and your site is doing well, that's fine by me.

Quite frankly, that's how we feel too. Many webmasters spend too much time worrying about PageRank. You should just focus on building a quality website and working on getting conversions. It's not that PageRank isn't important; it's just not the most important thing and in terms of relative importance I wouldn't even put it in the top 10. It's nice to know information and can be a guide to how your site's reputation is doing over all, but even then there are better indicators of reputation than PageRank. Still, we all like to know Google does its update. Don't we?

Matt Cutts is asking what the Google webspam team should focus on. He's getting quite a few responses to the question and you'd think there'd be more thought put into some of them. For instance, here's the second comment on the blog thread:

I think a paid link reporting firefox plugin would be helpful. Right click on the suspect link, select report and report – the plugin could then pass you extra detail like the location on the page, etc, and might save your team time and encourage more reports.

Perhaps this commenter isn't aware that Google isn't responsible for creating Firefox plugins. Or maybe they expect Googlers to stop what they are doing and start creating them. Come on, how about a real answer to Matt's question?
OK, glad you asked:

Google should greatly punish the webspam through decreasing their PR.

You mean, like how they're doing that with paid links? How would that work exactly? Who's going to judge to determine whether one search result is spam or not? I think a better solution is to fix it so that spam doesn't show up in the search engines at all.
But I do concur with this comment from Chris Bartow:

As far as results go, better local business results. If I search for [pizza small town, usa], the results are usually 90% full of yellow page, directory and review type sites. I think it would be more useful to show the "official" web sites of the businesses first.

I don't know how many times I've conducted a local search and ended up getting the Yellow Pages or Yelp ahead of everything else. I've even seen the results that I was looking for on page 2 or 3. I'd definitely like to see better local results.
Here's another comment I agree with:

My comment is mostly on being a new business with a ton of great content that gets stuck behind older businesses with less and perhaps more out of date content. It appears that PageRank trumps content in many instances (though not all).

I don't know that I agree that PageRank trumps content, but I definitely agree that some older search results should not be there. Google's age factor needs tweaking to eliminate information that is out of date and incorrect. This is particularly true in the SEO industry where out of date information can rise to the top simply because it is older and exists on an "authority" site. There needs to be some allowances for more recent information to outrank older information.
If you'd like to put in your 2 cents worth and tell Matt Cutts what you think the webpam team at Google should focus on, drive by Matt's blog and drop a note.

Two days ago I wrote about 7 tools that webmasters can use to improve their search engine optimization efforts. What I didn't find at the time was a tool similar to Google Hot Trends and Yahoo! Buzz at MSN Live. Wouldn't you know it? The day before, the MSN Live crew had written a blog post just about that. So make it 8 tools.
MSN Live's useful tool is called Xtreme Movers. It's only available in the U.S. and it tracks the search queries that are moving up the fastest in MSN Live's search database. In the same way that you can use Technorati, Google Hot Trends, or Yahoo! Buzz to discuss the latest hot topics, you can target MSN's hot topics too. It looks like MSN might make it to the 21st century after all.

Google Base is an often overlooked tool for webmasters and business owners. Even if you don't have a website you can use Google Base to sell your products online. The types of products and services that you can promote through Google Base include:

• Events and Activities
• Housing
• Personals
• Hotels
• Jobs
• Products
• Recipes
• Vehicles
• Vacation rentals
• Services
• Reviews
• People profiles

That's quite a list. And it's pretty simple to up on Google Base and list your items. Plus, there is no limit to the number of items you can promote. You can actually list your entire inventory. Here's what you do:

• Sign into your Google Account
• Click on "one at a time" if you have a few items or "data feed" if you have a lot of items

For the rest of the process I'm going to assume you only have a few items to promote and clicked on "one at a time."

• Choose an existing type of item or create your own
• Complete the form for the type of item you are creating
• In your description, be sure to give as much detail as possible and write your description with search engine optimization in mind; that is, use keywords and link to a page on your website where people can get more information about what you are offering. Use anchor text.

This is wonderful news (I think), but did it improve search at all?
For once I'd like Microsoft to come out and say we've made sweeping changes to our search engine indexing algorithms that will improve the results in our search engine for searchers. Everyone will benefit. Searchers will benefit by getting better results, which will lead to more people using the search engine and more people advertising in return. More advertisers will lead to more revenue for Microsoft, which will lead to more money available for use in research and development. But it looks like Microsoft has found another way to get the money for R&D. Instead of improving search they've decided to go the route of capitalizing on the needs of advertisers. Therefore, searchers lose; advertisers win.
This is the exact opposite of the way that Google has approached search. Of course, now that Google has secured top spot in search and PPC, it looks like their advertising policies are becoming more and more favorable toward advertisers than searchers. Good thing their advertising policies and search policies are separate. Not true of Microsoft's policies. Another reason to stay with Google.

MSN has recently cut off its linkdomain feature causing a big stir among users of Marketleap and other link popularity tools. Don't worry. Your link popularity isn't falling. You just can't measure it.
The problem is MSN is having data mining problems. That is, some unruly people are using the linkdomain function to mine data about web domains from MSNs database. Which makes me wonder, Just what is all of that money Microsoft is making going to? I mean, Bill Gates didn't get to be the richest man in the world by falling behind the competition. It could, however, be a clue why MSN is the third most popular search engine and not the first. Sidebar: If the gods can't control evil then what chance do the rest of us have?
Google and Yahoo don't seem to have the problem with data mining. Or, at least, they have discovered how to deal with it effectively. I'd like to see MSN get a handle on this issue so that you all don't have to wait to see which sites are linking into yours any longer than you have. It's nerve wracking trying to run a business without the proper information. MSN needs to get a grip.
P.S. If anyone has any information on MSNs problem and how long it might take to fix it, I'd like to know. Any insiders want to share a secret?

In seven years, Internet search has gone from relying on information from more than 26 search engines to information provided mostly by two. What happened?

Search Engine Acquisitions

Well, or one thing, acquisitions. Some of the most famous acquisitions happened suddenly and rather unexpectedly. The most important one of all may have been Yahoo acquiring Inktomi. That acquisition resulted in the Web's most popular directory actually becoming a search engine. It allowed Yahoo to enter the competitive race for top search engine status. Unfortunately for them, they lost.

Search Engine Algorithms

Other acquisitions were almost as important, but another factor that influenced the way the playing field has winnowed down is the relevance of each search engine's algorithms. Some of them just couldn't keep up with Google. Once inbound links became importance, on page elements like meta tags became less important. The search engines that relied mostly, or entirely, on those on page elements found it difficult to duplicate the inbound link algorithm that Google brought to the table. Those search engines lost relevance.

Paid Links

Another thing that happened was paid links. Since links increase in importance, that created a market for paid links. The search engines that could capitalize on the demand for paid links grew because they could make money on that demand – and lots of money. Google and Yahoo managed to succeed there, and MSN to some degree. Search engines that couldn't compete in the pay-per-click or paid advertising market lost even more relevance.

What's In Store For The Future Of Search?

This last point has some people speculating that organic listings will lose relevance altogether. I'm not willing to go that far. But I do believe there could be an increase in relevance for paid links in the future. The big question will be how that will affect SEO. In another five years, what will the playing field of search look like? I have an idea. More speculation:

• A new form of search engine will develop that lists only advertisers who have paid for listings; rather than act as a directory, these search engines will crawl the web pages only of those websites whose owners pay to be crawled. Their rank will be determined by the openly disclosed parameters established in that search engine's algorithms.
• Search will be more social. You may be thinking, "No kidding," but I'm obligated to say it. It's already happening. A recent study showed that more than 70% of college-age Web surfers use social networking sites. Social bookmarking is also becoming more popular, primarily because users have more control over the content they find – unlike the experience they have at Google, Yahoo, and MSN.
• I also believe video will play a bigger part in search in the near future, though I'm not quite sure how. But I do believe video will be used more and more by more and more websites. The search engines that adapt to the new uses of multimedia and are able to index them successfully so that searchers will be able to find what they need will win out. Google will likely be a major player in that area if they can get a handle on the YouTube problem. There will also likely be a video search engine arise from out of nowhere that will specialize in that market. It could very well be a social video search engine, incorporating the YouTube idea with the search algorithm concept. It will earn its revenue from pay-per-action type advertising using the video model.

Any feedback on this? I'd be interested in hearing your opinions.

There has been a lot of buzz this past week about Google's "Farmer Update," which was designed to take on content farms; spammy, low-quality content sites that have been crowding their search results. Google had this to say about their updated algorithm in a post on the official Google Blog on February 24th.
"Our goal is simple: to give people the most relevant answers to their queries as quickly as possible…This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on…"
The Google crackdown affected 11.8% of search queries.
While the "Farmer Update" did successfully knock a lot of splogs (spam blogs) out of the search results, several major content distribution sites took a major hit—EzineArticles.com , Business.com and Yahoo! Associated Content to name a few. Check out this graph from Sistrix to see how hard these and other sites were hit. EzineArticles CEO Chris Knight wrote a blog post about the consequences of EzineArticles getting labeled a content farm and what they intend to do about it:

"…we adamantly disagree with anyone who places the "Content Farm" label on EzineArticles.com… We'll be evaluating ways to reduce the number of ads per page to improve the perceived user experience… Expect to see our current article rejection rate (40.6%) climb by another ~20%…"
The Google attack on content farms is a prime example of why sites need to take a diversified SEO approach. Sites that were relying on links solely from content marketing efforts suddenly found that a lot of links are now attached to sites that Google views as spam. Link credit (aka link juice) can have a substantial impact on a site's trust factor. If a site's inbound links are now associated with content farms, they lose part of their trust factor.
Content marketing got a lot of attention as a critical component of SEO. And once something is considered an important factor, that's when the spammers and black hat SEO types swoop in and try to game the system. Since content marketing has taken a hit with the "Farmer Update", websites should take some time away from content marketing and focus on other components of their link building plan. That is not to say that you should give up on producing a company blog or developing quality content. It just means that major content sites that were adversely affected by the update will have some sorting out to do before they can begin to publish new content. Hopefully the sites that were wrongly labeled as content farms will re-earn their spots in the search results.
Other sites were affected by the update because, while they may have had decent content, they may have had too many Adsense Ads or ads in general that are cluttering the page. The number of ads feeds into the overall user-experience, and a lot of ads comes across as spammy. Too many ads can kill the quality and usability of the content. However, Google hasn't laid down a clear line of what constitutes "too many" ads. This has many site owners frustrated, as the feel like they've been unfairly penalized for trying to monetize their site.
Some are grateful for the update, glad to see Google finally taking on content farms that have been burying quality content in the search results. Others feel like Google went too far and attacked sites that typically produce quality content.