Omar Kattan - search in a nutshell

The Taiyuan University of Technology is testing a search engine software agent that combines not only searched keywords when returning results but also personal data that’s been collected about the surfer.

This is what Google et al have been trying to move to before they were slammed by the EU regulators for holding too much information for too long about users’ search habits.

The next generation of search engines will have to move to more personalised search results if they’re to survive the search engines war.

This is surely one battle that the Chinese have won, will Baidu be the next Google?  Only time will tell…

Google announced that it has acquired web security firm Postini for US $625 Million in cash.

Postini is best known for its corporate spam filtering and security service, but is also active in Instant Messaging and compliance areas. 

Postini  bosts 35,000 businesses as customers and 10 million users, according to Google.

This strategic purchase by Google afirms the search giant’s comitment to become a leader in software applications

Here is what Eric Schmidt, chairman and CEO of Google said about the landmark purchase:

“With this transaction, we’re reinforcing our commitment to delivering compelling hosted applications to businesses of all sizes”

Positini will be run as a subsidiary of the Google Apps (applications) unit, which includes its email, calendar and documents applications.

Do you know what’s your website’s bounce rate? Do you know what bounce rate is?  If you don’t then you should learn what bounce rate is as soon as possible and this is the best place to start.

Let me begin by giving you a quick explanation of what bounce rate is. 

Bounce rate is defined as the number of web site visitors who visit only a single page of your site per session divided by the total number of website visitors.

Reasons for a high bounce rate could include:

1. Your page doesn’t load fast enough so visitors click the back button on their browser.

2. They don’t like what they see so they click the back button on their browser.

3. They feel that your site’s navigation is too confusing so they (yup, you guessed it) click the back button on their browser.

In all the above cases, your visitors were lost before they even gave you a chance to present to them your information/product/service or whatever else they were searching for and you didn’t provide.

Google Analytics (previously Urchin) is a web analytics tool that provides you with many statistics about your website including the dreaded bounce rate. 

With a simple piece of code provided by Google you’ll be able to monitor many aspects of your site’s statistics and you’d be in a better position to optimise your site to reduce (among other things) the bounce rate of your visitors.

Read more about bounce rate at the Official Google Analytics Blog.

Google has lost its battle to enforce the gmail trademark in the German market.  The battle was lost to gmail.de (stands for Giersch Mail) who also offer an email service.

Google initially launched its mail service under the gmail (worldwide) trademark before Daniel Giersch sued the search giant.

Google will still launch the Google Mail sevice in the German market however - similar to the UK-  Google will have to use the GoogleMail trademark to market its service instead of Gmail.

Google first launched its Gmail Webmail service in 2004 and owns the “Gmail” trademark in more than 60 countries around the world.

Link popularity has a major influence on search engine ranking.  Afterall, Google’s algorithm and what distinguished it from its earlier rivals such as Alta Vista, was based on exactly that … Link Popularity.

Given the importance of Link Popularity, its worthwhile to examine all link building methods and the best way to do that is to split Link Building into 2 sections: Traditional Link Building and Web 2.0 Link Building. 

Before we start, lets brainstorm various link building possibilities and classify them as tradtional or web 2.0:

Traditional Link Building

• Directories

• Link Exchanges

• Article Syndication

• RSS News Distribution

Web 2.0-related Link Building

• Link Baiting

• Wikipedia

• Blog Pingbacks

• Links in Blog Comments

• Links in Forum Signatures

• Social Networking

• Social Bookmarking

• Digging

The differences between Traditional Link building and Web 2.0 link building can be summarized as follows:

• Traditional Link Building (most of it) carries SEO benefits while Web 2.0 Link Building (agiain most of it) carries no SEO benefit, this is mainly due to the no-follow attribute that is associated with most web 2.0 applications.

• Traditional link building is a more labour intensive process as one has to go out and secure the links either by exchanging them or out right buying them.  Web 2.0 link building on the other hand is more viral and if done properly, spreads like wild fire.

• Traditional Link Building is a long term investment focusing on branding while Web 2.0 link building is an ongoing process focusing on day to day promotion of new content.

If you think of any more differences please feel free to comment.