While they may be breathing a sigh of relief at Yahoo! after seemingly escaping the clutches of Microsoft, this may still be the end of the road for the Yahoo! business with more vultures circling after they made the mistake of suggesting that they are ripe for takeover at the right price. Even though they could not agree a price with Microsoft, to many people they have sold themselves down the river….

Over the last decade life has been tough for Microsoft’s MSN searching engine and Yahoo! have not faired much better, but together it could have been such a different story. The innovation of the two boards and the massive firepower of Microsoft could have made a real difference but what does the future hold for both companies?

Yahoo!

The vultures are most definitely circling the company and it would come as no surprise to see a deal agreed with either a Venture Capital company or another of the major online conglomerates over the next few weeks. This episode has not been the best in the history of Yahoo! and they are now in a weaker position than they have ever been before.

Microsoft

Microsoft’s MSN offshoot seems to be lacking somewhat in size to attack the mighty Google and while the Yahoo! deal is a set back they have shown that they are looking ahead and making plans. Do not write off MSN as they will be back, most likely with a larger or similar sized partner in tow. This is just the start of a new life for MSN.

All in all this latest blow, after years of rumours and counter rumours about a possible merger, will further enhance the power of Google and give them a little more breathing space before they see any real contenders come forward to steal their crown. Thankfully for webmasters around the world, Google are of a size that they would never be able to make any sizeable acquisitions in the search engine world so any more growth will be purely organic.

Watch this space, there is more change to come in the not too distant future…….the landscape is changing…..

Simple question? But can you honestly remember life before Google?

If like me you have been using the internet for well over 10 years, I can honestly say that I cannot remember how I used to search for sites before Google took over the world. I can remember my friends telling me about sites, I can remember looking at sites, but how I actually found them remains a mystery – perhaps I am getting old!

One thing this does show is the fact that we depend on the likes of Google to use the internet, and MSN / Yahoo to a lesser extent. Search engines have become vital to our internet use with many of us searching the net well of 100 times a day in search of a whole array of different sites, products and services. Every business in the world seems to have an online exposure, every expert is telling you the best way to do things and more and more blogs are being added each and every day.

So why are the search engines not regulated?

While the likes of Google would argue that they have to abide by local laws wherever they operate, the fact is that regulation on the internet is a very grey area, with nobody quite sure who has the right to regulate and what good it will actually do. It may be a little different if a company takes another one over, and they need the regulatory clearance, but how do the powerhouses like the US control Google from the natural increase in their power and market share?

If any other company in the world controlled around 75% of their market they would be under serious pressure from the regulators to increase competition and reduce their dominance. However, Google deliver around 75% of all online ads and at the moment nothing is being done to control them.

Conclusion

The search engines are controlling more and more of our lives, we hear just lately that our browsing habits are being sold to advertisers, our clicks are being monitored and adverts are being targeted towards each and every one of us.

But what did you do before the search engines took over? How did you find those excellent sites?

It would be interesting to hear your experiences below…..

As the internet continues to take hold of more and more of our everyday life, there are some things which do not change with regards to the thoughts and actions of webmasters.  If you are looking for help on a marketing or a blogging subject where would you look? Who do you trust?

Let us show you an interesting scenario which we will all have been guilty of at some time in our online life time:-

Let us imagine that you are having trouble getting your website ranked for particular keywords, and you don’t have enough experience in this field to be able to resolve your problem.  You begin to look around the internet and you spot two sites offering advice on keyword density, search engines and SEO, etc.

Site One

A basic site which is packed with Google Adverts, but has a very impressive information section and free eBook download.  The site is nothing special and the eBook “100 Ways To Pack Your Site With Keywords And Win” looks ok but nothing startling, a little icon allows you to click and download the eBook for free.

Site Two

This site is much more impressive and offers the full all singing all dancing website, giving a detailed page for each problem you may have getting listed on the search engines, as well as a download of the “100 Ways To Pack Your Site With Keywords And Win” eBook which costs $29.99(the same eBook as on the free site, but the icon is better).  These boys are a real slick outfit offering keyword services for $100 an hour, upfront with guaranteed search engine success.

Question

Which one would you go for? Which one gives you the most confidence?

The crazy thing about the human mind and the way we think is that we are all concerned if something is free! How can they give the eBook away and the other site charge $29.99, “it can’t be the same eBook, it does not look right”. 

The majority of people who are looking for the advice shown on both sites would probably feel more at home buying the eBook from the second site, because “it feels right”.  Too many people get hooked up on cost and value for money – if someone is offering you an eBook for free with no strings attached, what is wrong with trying it?  Just because you are paying for a service does not make it better than general advice given in a forum – a forum which is probably visited by a number of experts in search engine optimisation anyway.

Conclusion

The next time you are looking for information or a service for your website, do not forget that just because you are paying for something, or you are paying more at a particular site, it does not mean the quality of the information or the service is better.  The internet has turned many business rules full circle with more and more sites offering free services and eBooks, etc to attract our attention.  They then make their money when you click on highly optimised Google Adverts, at no cost to the reader.

Just because it costs more does not mean it is better quality, paying more may give you confidence in the service or the information, but it will also leave a hole in your pocket.

Have you seen the phenomenon where people lists of hundreds of blogs they “like” and say that they’re sending something they call link love? What they’re hoping for is to help the fellow blogs they list in their posts by sharing some PR (pagerank) with their friends, but this kind of SEO technics will most likely not work any more because search engines are smarter these days then ever. Due to search engine spam, link farms and other black hat SEO tricks search engines have been forced to implement security measures against these tricks and by sending link love you may get you blog black listed as a link farm Search engines just hate link farms since they only have one purpose: link to other sites. If you get your blog flagged as a link farm you may have all your nice content removed from the search engines databases as punishment.

We also have the problem with duplicate content since most of these link love posts are exactly the same (or at least very similar to each other). Search engines don’t want to show several pages with identical content to searchers, so they have a lot of features installed to make sure duplicate content are removed from their databases. So if your link love post is classified as duplicate content you may see your other pages being punished as well since they may also be duplicate

If you decide to post link love in your blog you should be aware of the fact that link love is just meant for search engines and not your subscribers and readers. Why would anyone like to subscribe to a blog that’s just posting lists of links? Instead you should focus on content for your readers!

How do you send link love without getting banned in search engines and also provide your readers with good content?

The answer is simple. Write a review of the site or blog you like instead of just putting it in a list of hundreds of other links. That will give your readers something useful to read (i.e. your own experience with the site), the search engines will find a page that’s not a duplicate of anything else on the Internet and you send “link love” to the special page you like so much

So stop sending bad link love and start sending good link love instead!

There will be very few webmasters who have not come across the massive picture library which is Google Images, but what does it really do? Is there a purpose to it?

While there is no doubt that the Google Images service (which trawls the web for images and indexes thumb nail links to the sites in question) is very popular, there are some concerns about the basis for the service.  There are a number of issues which include :-

Copyright

There has been a movement over the last few months to tighten up on the use of copyright protected images, millions of which actually appear on Google Images.  Too many people are under the impression that because the image is listed on Google Images that it is free to use.  This is not the case with the majority of images, with many webmasters running the risk of fines for illegal use.

Traffic

If you have images on your website then there is every chance that at some point you will have received a variety of hits from Google Images (these show up under a different URL to the regular Google search engine).  Many site owners are reporting enormous hits via this route, but what are they actually worth to you?

Just because you are looking for a picture of the latest sports car does not mean that you are looking to buy one!  The vast majority of Google Image users will be looking for an interesting picture or something which they can use on their website – the chances of them looking for the services you are offering are very slim to say the least. 

Conclusion

In summary, while many people may not agree, the use of Google Images is very limited indeed and while it is easy to attract traffic via this route it is a little different when it comes to turning this into cold hard cash.  So next time you are looking to buy a website and see massive traffic, just check out how much is coming from Google Images as this can give something of a misleading impression to those who do not ask the question.