Articles >> Vol.2 Issue 09

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I- Search Engine Watch
II- Webmaster Tools
III- Internet Tidbits


I. Search Engine Watch

We would like to thank all of our many loyal readers and customers who
have helped us have another outstanding year.

2003 has been a year of turmoil for search engine Industry.  The biggest news for 2003 was Google’s Florida Update of 11/15.  In its alleged goal of providing more relevant searches, Google have over turned the traditional algorithm and as a result thousands of websites lost their premier ranking on Google and millions of dollars in revenues were lost to those companies.

While the Florida Update has confused, frustrated and angered many professional search engine marketers and their clients, Google has been characteristically silent on exactly what was changed in the search algorithm and why.

The only comment that can be found on the subject comes via a quote from Forbes magazine in which Wayne Rosing, vice president of engineering at Google, said the change is part of the Silicon Valley-based company's efforts to provide high-quality search results.

The caveat emptor for rest of us? Never put all your eggs in one basket.  All of us in the search engine optimization industry learned a hard lesson that you need to diversify your Internet marketing strategies.

Already 2004 saw couple of major changes. LookSmart, the main provider of listing for MSN, did not get their contract with MSN renewed.  MSN has announced that as of 1/15/04, it will solely use Inktomi to provide their search listing. Already, Industry experts are predicting that LookSmart, who also provides paid listing for several smaller search engines will lose 67% of their annual revenues as a result.

With the expectation of Google going IPO within a month, MSN and Yahoo are gearing up to give Google a stiff competition on search engine industry.  MSN is already hard at work hiring new programmers to work on what is rumored to be their new search engine.

Yahoo has also dropped Google as their primary listing provider and now use Inktomi, a company they purchased in 2003.  As of 1/13/2004, Google is no longer the primary provider of searches to Yahoo.

ATTENTION: Google is rumored to be doing their Florida Dance again on many sites.  Starting about five days ago, many webmasters lost their ranking completely from their main keyword search terms.  This has also affected this author’s site as well.  My site, http://globalnexchange.com, has been completely disappeared from the search term “legal website developer” where I held a #1 ranking for many months.

II. Web Master Resources:

RSS: Hot Fix for Info Junkies . Meet your next web-based time saver. Customized news feed without having to scour the Web for latest news and bulletins.  This can radically change the way we gather and mange information online.

RSS stands for RDF Site Summary, but it is more commonly called Really Simple Syndication, since simplicity is the key to RSS popularity.

There are two separate benefits for RSS.  First, Internet user can download a cheap or free RSS program and the user can get headlines or aggregated news feed on a single topic.  The feeder reader updates display and user simply click on the headline to read the article.  Another benefit of RSS is that it cost nothing to user to use that service.

For webmasters, you can take the feed from other sources and display them on your website to give fresh information and content to your visitors.

A gigantic feed list is Available at http://www.syndic8.com or http://www.newsisfree.com

A free open source application called “Feedreader” is available through out the Internet for free download.

III. Internet Tidbits

For Corporate America, Tuesday is "E" day – the most popular day for companies to send emails, with Wednesday the top day for recipients to open emails.

Tuesday is the most popular day of the week to send email messages (25.4 percent), followed by Wednesday at 23.3 percent and Thursday at 18.3 percent. Bringing up the rear are Saturday at 0.9 percent and Sunday at 1.4 percent.  

Why Tuesday and Wednesday? For years the conventional wisdom has been to not email on Monday (the first day back in the office) or Friday (end of week deadlines, leaving early, etc.). In addition, unless the sender is targeting an appropriate consumer audience, weekends are out. From a practical perspective, marketing teams often complete the email creative and production process on Friday or Monday, leading to a Tuesday or Wednesday distribution.

Furthermore, email recipients are tending not to "unsubscribe" from emails. Rather than officially unsubscribing, recipients are now more likely to simply delete unwanted emails. Accordingly, many email marketers are now eliminating names of subscribers who do not open a specified number of emails in a row, or are asking those subscribers to re-opt in.