Search Events and Conferences : Update Aug - Dec 2008

Ever been to a Search Engine Conference?
Its a great place to meet people and get inspired. Specially if you are in US or Europe there are many such events you can be a proud member of .
Top guns from Search Engine Space ( Marketers, Optimizers, Webmaster, Developers and Researchers) show at reputed events along with business owners , SEO's and students/professionals who want to learn the way www is going and will be driven in the future.

Here are some event dates for you:

Search Engine Strategies Events

• SES San Jose Aug 18-21, 2008
• SEM Training San Jose Aug 22, 2008
• SEM Training Dallas Sep 26, 2008
• SES Tokyo Forum Oct 28-29, 2008
• SES Chicago Dec 8-11, 2008

Enjoy , Learn :: Have Fun !!

CUIL - The new search engine against Google?

New Search Engine Cuil ( www.cuil.com) has a lot of pages (121617892992+ web pages) in the index and it shows them in a friendly manner.


Cuil, the latest "said" competition to Google, was founded by several lead engineers from Google, mainly Anna Patterson, chief architect of the company's TeraGoogle search index.

Google's paid search business made up 40% of all online search dollars in 2007, according to eMarketer and the other majors of search ( Yahoo and MSN) were looking since a long time to attack Google. So is this a key to the eternal search and taking Google by horns?

Only time will tell.

Web 2.0 , Interactive websites and U

Web2.0 , Intelligent web , Interactive web ?
What you should know about web2.0 is what is it all about and what benefit will you get if you adhere to the web2.0 standards and technologies for your website.

According to wikipedia, the definition is

Web 2.0 is a term describing the trend in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users. These concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities and hosted services, such as social-networking sites, wikis, blogs, and folksonomies.

The term Web 2.0 is coined during the first O'Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004 which suggests that web2.0 does not refer to any specifications in technical terms. It does show some new ways to use the webs to those who use it ( web and software developers and engineers) along with the end user ( all net surfers).

In terms of user experience and business web2.0 is a creative and effective tool for those who are website owners by providing the interactive solutions and instant data as per customer preferences ( example : AJAX Search, where some part of the page changes and not all, so time is saved in loading the page, improving the user-experience)

For the end user, better inter-action and chance to participate in the process of web knowledge sharing + customizing ( tagging and community participations) is amazingly familiar experience rather than dry and static sites which act as a poster or a booklet online.

Technically Speaking O'Reilly categorized the websites as four levels in the hierarchy of Web 2.0-ness:

Level-0 applications (working offline as online). Examples MapQuest, Yahoo! Local, Google Maps etc.

Level-1 applications operate offline but gain features online. Examples Google Docs & Spreadsheets etc.

Level-2 applications can operate offline but gain advantages from going online. Example Flickr ( a photo sharing community generated database)

Level-3 applications, the most "Web 2.0"-oriented, only exist on the Internet, Examples eBay, Craigslist, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, Skype, dodgeball, and AdSense etc.

Mixturtle >> Music Search Engine

æ Z Z Z Z ▌

Did you get the news? A new "Music Search Engine" has been launched namely Mixturtle !! Checkout what the turtle is having in his mouth :)

MixTurtle ( The music search engine) which allows you to search for and create playlists with speed. When searching for an artist you'd like to hear, a drop-down list appears displaying an alphabetical listing of the artists available according to what you've entered so far and the artists alphabetically surrounding them. The results appear as a list of that artist's tracks in bold font. Clicking on a track will start to play what is there, displaying how many of that track were found in case one source requires a password or isn't exactly what you're looking for. If you've created an account, you can then add your desired tracks to a playlist for easy reference and playback. You can easily share any playlist with the direct link they provide you straight to the songs you've selected. So if you want to quickly create and share lists of songs with your friends, MixTurtle could be your application of choice. (source : KillerStatups )

A limitation to that is nothing much you will find if you are searching for hindi songs as I tried :(

If you are searching for more music there are some established music search sites ( mostly mp3's) like blinkx , SkreemR , MP3Realm, FindSounds ( all sounds, an intersting one !)

Go bingooo

Delver : Friendly Social Search!!

One intelligent and "Friendly" search engine Delver.com is now taking the buzz all around. When I mention Friendly , it has a meaning and a match with the claims at Delver which says "Your friends know best." and thats true if you have a lot of friends ( talking about online connections).


The alpha version of this "social search engine" claims to deliver comprehensive Web search results ranked according to their social relevance to the respective user.

"Delver is designed to 'delve' into your online social graph to
generate search results gathered from your friends, your network and your
friends' networks, to help you find information more relevant to you as an
individual," said Liad Agmon, CEO of Delver. "We prioritize results based
on your network to make Web search more fun and meaningful, while enabling
you to discover others in your extended network who share common
interests."

Learn SEO Online!

Its learning time ... So if you are looking for Online SEO Training, some of the choices are :
1. Read a lot online, Start with Wikipedia on SEO
2. Join various forums like Webmasterworld, Highrankings, Digitalpoint etc and ask questions.
3. Search Various SEO / SEM Companies and their offerings
4. Go to the job sites like Naukri , Timesjobs or Monster and check what are the current expectations with the similar jobs and/or in Industry.
5. Contact me ( I do it for very serious people and with a high tution fee!!)

Here are some videos for SEO learning Online:

Search Engine Optimization and Marketing. PPC SEM SEO Search Engine Optimization Internet Marketing Website...



Easy SEO/Search Engine Optimization Tips
com and take advantage of this free tool while it is still free. ... SEO Tips Search Engine Optimization Optimisation ...


The three most important tips ... WebPagesThatSuck web design search engine optimization



Search Engine Optimization
how to do On-Page and Off-Page Search Engine Optimization. ... search engine optimization seo off-page on-page


SES Chicago 2007: Danny Sullivan of SearchEngineLand.com


Google's Matt Cutts | How to Get Better Visibility on Google
USA TODAY's Jefferson Graham interviews Google engineer Matt Cutts on how to get your site to the top of Google with 5 basic, common sense SEO tips. Matt Cutts guests on the USA TODAY Talking Tech

Yahoo! BOSS Vs Google Custom Search

Its a start of a War between two Search Giants over the Custom Search API's ....

Yahoo is taking on Google Custom Search with the latest Yahoo BOSS ((Build your Own Search Service) an Open search web services platform.
BOSS gives you access to Yahoo!'s investments in crawling and indexing, ranking and relevancy algorithms, and powerful infrastructure.



Ace features with Yahoo! BOSS

1. Unlimited Queries Per Day
2. No Restrictions on Presentation
3. Re-Ordering Allowed
4. Blending of Proprietary and Yahoo! Search Content Allowed
5. White-Label allowed.

The * (Conditions apply) features are:
1. Monetization will be Coming Soon! Monetization platform enabling Yahoo! and partners to jointly participate in the economics of BOSS-powered search products. Either Yahoo! sponsored search integration, with certain implementation and exclusivity requirements, or potentially a payment model
2. BOSS offers developers unlimited daily queries, though Yahoo! reserves the right to limit unintended usage, such as automated querying by bots.

Search Engines who already have adopted the Yahoo! BOSS are:

1. Hakia

Hakia, a leading semantic search engine, uses Yahoo! Search BOSS to accelerate its semantic analysis of the Web by accessing the Yahoo! index's vast amounts of web documents.

2. Me.dium Search

Me.dium combined the BOSS API with its insight into the real time surfing activity of the crowds to build a unique "Crowd-Powered" social search engine prototype.

3. Daylife

Daylife To-Go is a new self-service, hosted publishing platform from Daylife. Anyone can use this platform to automatically generate 100% customizable pages and widgets. Daylife To-Go uses the BOSS API platform to power its Web search module.

4. Cluuz

Cluuz generates easier to understand search results through patent pending semantic cluster graphs, image extraction, and tag clouds. The Cluuz analysis is performed in real-time on results returned from BOSS API.

Ready to start the experiments, here is more reading/information:

BOSS Mashup Framework

The BOSS Mashup Framework is an experimental python library that provides developers with tools for mashing up the BOSS API with other third-party data sources.

BOSS Custom

BOSS Custom is an invite-only program focused on building highly scalable next generation search products. This program is designed for consumer web businesses with unique assets (such as extensive user data or novel technologies) that want to develop truly innovative search products using Yahoo!'s core search technology.

Read the full story at Yahoo! Boss

Lively Google !! Are you there?

Calling on Online buzz workers.....
Have you ever have a look at Secondlife(R) ? Secondlife is an online, 3D virtual world imagined and created by its residents.There are many surfing enthusiasts who have create a world there, they are individuals and top brand companies too.You will find shops of your most cherished brands and people advertising them directly or indirectly as you go.

The only problem I faced with Secondlife is the high expectations in terms of hardware support. It requires a lot ; OS, processing, speed, RAM , graphic support etc.

Looking a bit similar to that,
Google has now come with a unique user experience interface Lively.com , this is a start which can be a tough challenge to someone like secondlife in the future, if Google wants to take it forward. This is just a guess work anyway ;)

Good thing about Lively is that, the system requirements are very easily achievable or most of us have it.
Lively.com requires Windows Vista/XP with Internet Explorer or Firefox.




With Lively.com you can :

1. Create your own virtual space
Chat and interact with your friends in rooms you design
2. Express yourself
Customize your avatar and stream personal photos and video
3. Add your room to your site
Invite your friends to chat and help decorate

All you have to do is Download Lively and start enjoying!

Latest SEO News / Events

Its been a long back that I've posted something latest about current news and technologies about SEO and search marketing.
Some current SEO news happening around:

Checkout Summize.com , romours are there that our favorite Tweeter.com has bought it;) this is a real-time conversational search option and hopefully the fastest.

Summize : Conversational search engine

Top Searches at summize.com
India, Ted Koppel, Colombian, Dodgers, Hancock, McCain

Trending topics: TweetDeck, WALL E, Summize, Prius

Another news is related to Google - Viacom tussle, its regarding the private data and this time Viacom is a winner while Google takes a safer side by putting the privacy link :

Checkout the news here

Viacom Gains Access To Users, Google Adds Privacy Link
Last week Viacom won a major decision in its $1 Billion lawsuit with Google that forces the search engine giant to hand over private information about YouTube users. The ruling states that Google must transfer terabytes of data to Viacom that includes user names and IP addresses. Google argued unsuccessfully that the privacy information should not be turned over to Viacom.

The basis for the lawsuit filed by Viacom alleges that the most popular content being posted and viewed on YouTube is material that Viacom owns. The company argued successfully for the information to be turned over in order to track who is posting material and which users are watching what.

The ruling appears to have rattled Google, and the company recently made an addition to its notoriously sparse homepage: Privacy. Any user who uses Google's search engine has been sure to notice the lack of extraneous information on the page. Until this week, there was no mention of privacy. Now, at the bottom of the page, users can click on a link to take them to the Google Privacy Center.

Google bombs or Google Bombing or link bomb?

Have heard about Google bombs or Google Bombing or link bomb?

Here is a defination from wikipedia,

Wikipedia's definaton of Google Bomb:
A Google bomb (also referred to as a 'link bomb') is Internet slang for a certain kind of attempt to influence the ranking of a given page in results returned by the Google search engine, often with humorous or political intentions.Because of the way that Google's algorithm works, a page will be ranked higher if the sites that link to that page use consistent anchor text. A Google bomb is created if many sites link to the page in this manner.

GoogleWebmasterCentral's take on the link bombing : (Last updated January 25, 2007 at 4:16 PM)

Unless you read all about search engines all day, you might wonder "What is a Googlebomb?" Technically, a "Googlebomb" (sometimes called a "linkbomb" since they're not specific to Google) refers to a prank where people attempt to cause someone else's site to rank for an obscure or meaningless query. Googlebombs very rarely happen for common queries, because the lack of any relevant results for that phrase is part of why a Googlebomb can work. One of the earliest Googlebombs was for the phrase "talentless hack," for example.

Previously it was quite easy to target anyone with a lot of links pointing to a person/theme/target aim.



For many years, this happened. Then Google took ( apparently) the action to dispose the Google bombs.
example: If anyone would have searched for "miserable failure" ( without quotes) in google search box, the first result you might have got that time is of the White House for George Bush.
Now Google has fixed the issue and no result is coming for the query.

Everything seems ok ---

Now check this out, just type "who is a failure?" ( without quotes) in the search box (google.com), you will be amazed to see what you will get....
Believe me this is a snap I got...

Orkut Results in Google Search !!!!

This is the first time, I've seen Google Orkut's Profile in a Search Result.....what about you?
Adding some more interest in the Universal Search, as they say, it will be very intelligent search, Orkut profiles with the keywords will be an added advantage.
Taking a step forward and connecting one of the in-house content source Google will not give any chance to its competitors, while making the life of SEO's difficult.

Social media optimizers and contributors will get importance as the net will be a good place to live.

Checkout the result snapshot below :



By the way.... its me there...

Flash SEO possible !!

It was long time back when people used to say "NO" when it comes to SEO of a flash based website. Well reasons may be different, but one of the major reason why top search engines dont (used to) prefer .swf files is that they were not able to crawl and read it.

Gradually it has been said to achieve partial success, but it was a guess work how much and how many Flash files are really been "read" by a search engine crawler.

Now things have improved, One gud news for the Search Analysts is here :-------------

Adobe announced Tuesday that Google and Yahoo are adding search capabilities that will enable users to look inside the content of files encoded in Adobe's Flash file format — SWF

The content inside SWF files has heretofore been ignored by the search engine giants, but Adobe has worked with both companies to make sure that their search engine technology can now look inside existing and future SWF content, including text, hyperlinks, audio and video content.

"End users will be getting more accurate search results because there's a lot of information in SWF files that will now be fully indexed, including more information in Rich Internet Applications (RIAs)," said Justin Everett-Church, senior product manager for Adobe Flash Player, Platform BU.

"And content producers are now able to put Flash files online and know that they're going to bring more users through organic search. The good thing is that they don't have to do anything to enable this capability — it works on any SWF file," Everett-Church told Macworld.

Google is already beginning to offer search results including data inside Flash files, and Yahoo will follow suit with an update to its Yahoo Search engine, according to Adobe.

Source : Macworld