• Google Lands Water-based Data Center Patent
    Google has been awarded a U.S. patent for water-based data center powered by waves and cooled by sea water. The offshore data centers would sit three to seven miles offshore and float in about 50 to 70 meters of water. Cool! William Slawski notes that land-based data centers could tap into energy from the floating platform, and that data centers might be contained in modules.
  • How SEO Played Into A Failed Startup
    Among the lessons Mark Goldenson learned from his failed startup -- PlayCafe, an Internet TV network for games -- were useful tips on how to buy keywords: "The ideal terms have a decent number of monthly searches (10,000+), low number of competing advertisers (3 or less), and strong relevance to your site." But that's just a small part of this insightful post, which runs through the dos and don'ts of getting a fledgling off the ground, and ruefully concludes, "Knowing isn't enough... I think advisers should more often say, 'You probably won't get what I'm saying until …
  • Microsoft Launches SEM Blog Series
    Microsoft has started a new series titled "Search Engine Marketing 101." Rick DeJarnette will head efforts. The posts will cover the importance of SEM, steps to take to improve Web site structure and content, and discuss technical details to help gain rankings in queries. DeJarnette also will cover pay-per-click advertising campaigns, and touch on concerns about "over-zealous optimization techniques" and how they become more detrimental than helpful.
  • Live Search Cloaking Crawler Turned Off
    A thread at WebMaster World offers some disturbing behavior from MSNbot, the crawler Live Search relies on to find and index information on the Web, according to Kip Kniskern. He encapsulates a forum thread that Search Engine Roundtable has been following. The behavior is part of an attempt to detect cloaking, according to Kniskern. He points to Wikipedia for a definition: Cloaking, "a black hat search engine optimization (SEO) technique in which the content presented to the search engine spider is different to that presented to the user's browser."
  • Tying Contest Incentives To SEO Linkbait
    Michael Gray believes contests and incentives can become powerful link-building tools that help improve organic search engine rankings. Gray writes that typically links become worth more to the company than the cost of the prize, due to the rankings they can generate. URLS should also be another consideration that can improve rankings tied to contest incentives. But don't make the mistake of leaving up old content on the page after the contest ends. Gray suggests leaving the page in place and replacing the information with different content.
  • Don't Change Google Content Campaigns That Work
    If it's not broken, why fix it? Create a new campaign instead to generate additional traffic. Joe gives us several reasons why harnessing the Google AdWords content network can provide a great source for traffic, leads and revenue. He provides tips on optimizing performance by expanding reach and visibility. One tip includes starting a new campaign without cannibalizing performance of the preexisting content networks. His new campaign had re-organized keyword groups, so different themes were established and, in theory, ads would appear on new targeted sites. Joe defines "themes" as the groups within AdWords that Google places the …
  • SEO Company Raises $10 Million
    TechCrunch reports that money continues to flow from venture capitalists to SEO companies. Conductor, a New York-based SEO measurement and optimization provider, has raised $10 million in Series B funding led by Matrix Partners and joined by FirstMark Capital, who led the fledgling's Series A round. The funding -- along with a management team that includes former executives from ContextWeb, Apple, Yahoo and DoubleClick -- could give Conductor the means to compete better, according to Robin Wauters.
  • AOL's Love.com: Spammy Mess
    AOL quietly launched Love.com, a site many SEO experts like Aaron Wall believe is nothing more than spam. Wall describes Love.com as a mashup of remixed Twitter posts, YouTube videos, third-party content snippets, and other spammy stuff. "Love.com is so bad that it inspired this quote from noted SEO expert Jeremy Luebke, 'This stuff make Mahalo look like the best site on the net,'" Wall writes. "What did Eric Schmidt say? 'brands are how you sort out the cesspool.' As soon as Google started dialing up on brand, brand owners got the message, and have reacted quickly."
  • MySpace Local Gets 'F' For SEO Failures
    MySpace and CitySearch drew media attention recently with the announcement of MySpace Local, but according to Steve Espinosa the companies either botched or totally ignored implementing a SEO strategy. He writes that MySpace Local uses IP geographical targeting to display a custom home page based on detecting the user's location, which some experts believe doesn't work. Espinosa details other mistakes in his lengthy post, such as the way the site lists recent business reviews. Many of the links and content rely on java script, which means "no link juice is passed," so search engines won't quickly index the …
  • Does AdWords Management Measure Up?
    It's not difficult to measure the return on investment for pay-per-click advertising. Results are traceable through Google AdWords, according to Steve Loszewski. Google offers a tool that estimates traffic to Web sites and can help determine the ROI. The traffic estimator helps crunch numbers. Loszewski provides directions on entering the required values, such as terms that describe the offering, and country being targeted. After entering the information, clicking "continue" provides the estimate.
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