Yahoo Index

By: James Trivolette

Many people may have noticed that there has been a huge shift in the Yahoo index. TheYahoo blog site confirms that there has been a major algorithm update. Yahoo themselves have not leaked out very much information on this new index update but others interested in updates and by research on my own queries, it is certain that Yahoo has two separate algorithms floating through their datacenters. When you do a search on Yahoo, you have a 50/50 chance on what algorithm you are stuck with to do your searches. The newest algorithm is the better of the two. To see what the newest algorithm looks like without having to do search after search trying to find the newest datacenter you can head over to www.yahoo.dk as they have only one algorithm, the good one. It also looks like the prioritizations of Back Links changed as well. It is a good possibility that they are starting to use a Trust Rank algorithm now. (Just like Googles or maybe it is Googles) You can read more on Trust Rank here: http://www.search-marketing.info/newsletter/articles/trustrank-company.htm

It takes time for companies like Yahoo to implement their changes to all of their datacenters as they adjust and tweak to make sure it is perfect before they release it to take over their whole network. Therefore, do not let all of the search engine result pages (SERPS) fool you. When in doubt check a data center you know is holding the newest update such as the www.yahoo.dk. Only pay attention to the newest datacenters. I know traffic may decrease due to people searching the old datacenters but if you are sitting pretty on the new index then you will be sitting even prettier once the new index engulfs all of the other datacenters.

There are definitely two algorithms floating around the net - Yahoo.co.uk, Alltheweb and Altavista seem to permanently have the old/bad algorithm, meaning it does not rotate back and forth from old algorithm to new algorithm while, Yahoo.it, au.yahoo.com, Yahoo.dk only have the good algorithm. The American datacenters for Yahoo.com are still in a state of rotation between the new and the old algorithms.

This seems to make for a huge update and as far as I can see with our own SEO clients, it is all good. The ranking are going up and up but because not all versions of Yahoo show the same result pages it is hard for clients to trust in their SEO companies. With all the negative content, you can find on the internet, who can blame them. When an SEO company says hey, you have #3 spot for “widgets” and the client does a search and cannot find him or herself it does look bad. Fear not faithful viewers, as there really is two sets of algorithms and the old ones will be switched to the new one in a matter of time.

On a different note, the same thing can be said of the monster search engine, Google. We still see two separate algorithms for them as well. When doing a Google search you have a 50/50 of hitting what used to be the old algorithm and the new one dubbed “Big Daddy”. If you want to see what the newest algorithm of Google will bring up without weeding out all the old SERPS then head to IP http://64.233.179.104. This IP is a confirmed Big Daddy data center and is showing the newest SERPS.

I will be researching further into these updates as more and more information becomes assessable. Until next time, Happy searching! -jmt

How To Climb To The Top Of Yahoo And MSN

By: Thomas Höfter

Are you fed up with Google? No good positions there even after months of work? Well, maybe you should start a little smaller and try to optimize your website for the MSN and Yahoo search engines first. Although they are a lot smaller than Google they still can send much valuable traffic and, the most important thing is, they are much easier to manipulate with some clever SEO work. In this article I will show you exactly which steps are needed to probably (of course I can't promise you results) greatly improve your rankings on the "2nd-tier" search engines.

On Page Optimization

So called "On Page Optimization" is the part of SEO you can change directly on your website (in the html code) like the title and headings. And although Google hardly cares for them they are very important if you want to rank well in Yahoo and MSN because those search engines lay much more weight on these factors. ere is a little overview over the most important ones:

The title: You should use your most important keywords in your tag as it's probably weighted the most. The best thing is to leave out any other words here.

h1, h2, h3: The headings are nearly as important, Use your keywords here again, but in a sentence structure.
alt, title, strong, b: It's not proven that those help with your rankings, but many people claim it, and using them can certainly not hurt.

Off Page Optimization

Like with Google, the most important thing to rank well in Yahoo and MSN are also incoming links. The difference however seems to be that those two care much more for quantity than for quality of the links. This knowledge can be easily used for your advantage, for example by using one of the link exchange programs like http://www.link-vault.com or http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/ad-network/. Those will build very many links to your site in no time and therefore fool Yahoo and MSN.

If you did both things, optimized your webpages and built links to your site using one of the mentioned tools you can probably expect increased rankings on the search engines. At least it always worked for me and my websites this way.

Yahoo! Does It Again… But We’re Not Sure What ‘It’ Is!

By: The Blog Market Group

If you’ve searched with Y! lately – at least in some browsers – you may have noticed a new addition to their search result’s page. If you use Netscape or Firefox, the upper right-hand corner of your search result’s page now holds an orange box that holds – The Buzz. Yahoo!’s Buzz Log has been around for a few years, but you used to have to go looking for it to find out what people were Buzzing about. Now Y! puts it in your face - and frankly, I’m not sure what all it’s good for.

For those of you who aren’t up to speed on the Yahoo Buzz, here’s a quick recap. Every day, Yahoo records all the searches that are entered on its pages. Over the next twenty four hours, those searches are indexed, tabulated, calculated and sorted, and the next day – 48 hours later – Y! publishes ‘the Buzz Index’ in a number of different forms. Want to know what was on people’s minds two days ago? You can get a quick snapshot by checking today’s Buzz Index page. There’s a Buzz Index for entertainment, movies, music, sports, movie stars and overall. But what’s it all mean? Here it is straight from the horse’s mouth:

A subject's buzz score is the percentage of Yahoo! users searching for that subject on a given day, multiplied by a constant to make the number easier to read. Weekly leaders are the subjects with the greatest average buzz score for a given week.

So… it’s an index of the most popular searches on Yahoo! The Buzz publishes daily, weekly and monthly stats, so you can track trends over time. You can even get a subscription to the Yahoo Buzz Index and personalize it with customized search terms – but those don’t show up in your search results page when you do a search—you have to go to your Buzz Index page for them. What does show up is the top ten general daily searches. In fact, for today, no matter what I’m actually searching for, here’s what I get in that little box:

1. pussycat dolls
2. NFL draft grades
3. the ultimate fighter
4. may 1 boycott
5. Madonna tickets
6. Howard stern
7. Chinese astrology
8. project runway
9. Terence Howard
10. Bahamas hotels

So exactly what is the point of plopping that orange box in one of the prime pieces of SERP real estate? It doesn’t tell me anything relevant to my search (I searched for test scores, for nursing degrees and for consumer index). If I click on one of the ranked items, it feeds me the search results for that term. If I click on ‘More Buzz’ at the bottom, it takes me to the Buzz Index where I can read the latest blog entry.

To make it even more useless, the Buzz box only works in a few browsers. In the others, there’s either a blank column – or the Sponsor Results – which at least are contextually related to what I’m searching. Where’s the value added? About the only thing that it does is clutter up a space that could be used so much more profitably.

Now if Y! wanted to actually make this thing useful, here are a few suggestions.

First – make it contextually sensitive. If I type in a search for ‘tests,’ I’d find a list of related popular searches a WHOLE lot more useful than knowing that most of America is searching for info on the Pussycat Dolls two days ago.

Second, never mind the ranking – give me the numbers! How many people searched for Pussycat Dolls? Maybe it’s something I should know about, hmm?

Third – move it! I don’t refer to that place as ‘prime real estate’ for nothing. The upper right hand corner of your browser is one of the first places the eye lands on a page. It’s one of the reasons that you put important things in that space when you’re designing your pages. Why waste it?

Facebook Marketing Strategy - How to Use Facebook For Business

By: Neil Joseph Ashworth

We've all heard the buzz about Facebook and if you've been around for a while you'll have heard how easy and how essential it is to have a social media marketing strategy for your company. After all, with over 300 million users on Facebook it must be easy to find a handful of customers almost each and every day, right? Wrong.

It's far from simple and you only have to speak to a few different people who have tried to build a successful marketing strategy on Facebook and you'll realise that the vast majority of marketers pushing their products on the Facebook platform are making few if any sales from their ever increasing activity. Why is this? In short, no clear marketing strategy. This article will provide you with the knowledge to develop a simple yet effective marketing strategy for Facebook. Here goes;

1. Branding

Know who you are, who you are not and where you are going with your business in the next five years (or at least where you plan to go) before starting out on Facebook. This will allow you to create a strong brand which tells your potential customers and business partners exactly who they are dealing with.

2. Networking

Decide on a plan to network in specific areas. Draw up a list of groups in your niche that you can find quickly each time you go onto Facebook in order to add value, comment on and share content and information within the group discussion board and network with other group members to build relationships and exchange ideas.

Find a few business pages of leaders within your industry and become a fan of the page. By doing this you will be able to see exactly what your competitors are up to on Facebook and also who else is a fan of your business rivals. In addition, you can also comment on updates made by the fan page administrator which will be seen by everyone who follows the page, offering you free advertising in the process.

Add relevant contacts to your list by carrying out a quick search of the Facebook platform to see what type of people are out there talking about your industry. This is really simple to do but very powerful; simply type in your chosen keyword or search term into the search tab at the top right hand side of your Facebook profile page, hit the search symbol and then work your way through the results column on the left hand side of the page,, providing you with search results from a range of different sources across the Facebook platform.

3. Sales

The final frontier in many ways and an increasingly difficult place to arrive at when using social networking sites to build your business but if you get this part right it can pay off big style. As the saying goes, if you don't ask, you don't get and Facebook marketing is no different. The best way to make a sale is to plan for it and with a little modification to your user profile you can set up a unique opt-in form on your profile page to offer people the chance to subscribe to more information from you about your product or service. If you want to go one better, then why not set up a Facebook page for your business and add a shopping cart facility to allow people to buy straight from your door, without ever having to leave the great land of Facebook?

Whatever you decide to do when marketing on Facebook for your business, remember the one rule of thumb; people don't frequent social networking sites to be sold to, so don't sell them on anything and you might be surprised how many sales you can actually make!

Intelligent Web Design

By: J. Briere

One industry that is expected to expand over the coming years is the web design industry. This is because of the Internet’s profound impact on the world, how it is viewed, how we communicate, and its potential for business opportunities. Everything we see on the “net” has been programmed and built by talented and well trained web designers and programmers. This is true for any site. Employees from this field are essential for any company that is looking to capitalize on the marketing opportunities that the internet offers.

Not to be confused with…

Often times web designers are confused with graphic designers. While these professions do have some overlapping areas they are distinctly different from each other in a number of ways. Graphic designers almost always focus solely on visual design. This is geared more towards advertising and marketing designs. While web designers also work with visual designs for sites this is not the only area that they have a hand in. In addition to the visual work they are trained and educated in how to manipulate code like ASP, .NET, Java, Java Script, and others. Web designers, as their name suggests, focus on constructing actual websites and the functions that are needed such as search bars, navigation panels, and other mechanics.

Tools of the Trade

Programmers and mechanics are a lot more similar than they may care to admit. While mechanics have a chest full of tools at their disposal to use to work on cars a web designer must also have a wide array of tools in order to build or overhaul website. Just as mechanics are trained to work with hydraulic lifts and power tools so too must the web designer be trained in the programs he will be using on a daily basis. These programs range from graphic design programs like Adobe Photoshop to web developing applications like Dreamweaver. Web designers also have to have a strong understanding in programs such as web editors like HTML, word processors like Microsoft Word, video and audio editing software, and programs such as Flash.

Advantages of Web Design Training

There are many advantages to be gained from becoming a web designer. The main advantage is that as long as there is an internet there will be a market for web designers. This offers a market that is almost ever expanding and evolving. Another advantage of being a web designer is working as a freelancer. This affords a person the opportunity of working with many different clients and in some cases allows for programmers to work out of the house rather than in an office. Web designers, in conjunction with graphic designers, offer endless possibilities for marketing and advertising. They allow for companies to expand their reach from a local or national level to an international scope.

Is it for you?

Not all people may be interested in becoming a web designer but this specific career offers a stable work environment because of the demand for programmers. The average salary for junior web designers is somewhere in the range of $30,000 and $40,000 a year. Senior designers on average earn $61,000 to $67,000. As the web expands over the years so too will the demand for web designers.

How to Remove Internet Viruses and Trojan Horse?

By: Donald Chambers

Most people need to know how to remove internet viruses Trojan horse from their computer. We all get infected with them at some point, and understanding what they do and the easiest way to get rid of them can keep our computers running well and help us understand why they are so dangerous. I will also be introducing a high quality anti adware and spyware software that speed up my PC significantly.

These can infect your computer from practically anywhere you go while browsing the web. They can be in downloads for other programs, web pages and even from emails. They are sneaky, and everywhere you turn if you are not careful.

You need to address the problem as soon as possible and do preventative measures. Your computer can stop working, become slow and crash, but the bigger problem is the risk to your identity and other sensitive information. This can be compromised and your bank information and other things can be available to other people if you do these types of things online and get infected.

Removing them is easy, and using an adware removal tool is one of the fastest and best ways to do it. They find them, remove them and can keep your system running the way it should be able to.

Before you decide on an adware removal software to use, check the website and find out what they offer. Read reviews from other users to see if they had any problems and if the system is user friendly so you can make sure that you have them all removed with just a few clicks. They can also warn you against those that tend to hide other malicious software in their coding, and help make sure you get a real product.

After you find a program that you like and works, do a scan at least once every 7 days. This can catch problems before they get to be a big one, and can make sure that your system stays running as fast as it can. You also can use the scheduling feature, which simplifies the process even further since you will not have to remember to manually do it, and it will start automatically as long as your computer is on. This makes them very easy to use so that you are always keeping malicious items off of your system.

You need to make sure that you remove internet viruses and Trojan horse problems from your system as soon as you can. Adware software can make this process easy and fast for you, and save you time of trying to find them with all the files that a computer contains. Adware programs can keep the information you want secure, and removal of the problems can keep the hard drive from having to be wiped out. Using the scheduling features can make sure that you are not continuing to have the problems and that they are caught quickly saving you a lot of hassles and potential dangers to yourself and your finances. I am glad that all the spyware, adware and viruses on my computer are all gone now all thanks high quality software which I downloaded and would highly recommend it.

A 3D Digitizing Solution: Software For MicroScribe

By: Glen Glasgow

Anyone will agree with the difficulty to get an exact digital replica of an object no matter the size. Nevertheless, the task of tracing objects and capturing them in 3D data has become more precise and effortless with the usage of the 3D digitizing software for MicroScribe.

MicroScribe made it easy for corporations to capture 3-dimensional data points from objects through the MicroScribe 3D digitizing device. This is a portable gadget thus it is flexible and can be utilized for flexible desktop use anywhere.

Besides from 3D digitizing software for MicroScribe, the digitizers make use of a lightweight counter-balanced mechanical arm and state-of-the-art electronics. The device can be easily used to trace objects and capture 3D data effortlessly, with the use of the pen-like easy-to-manipulate probe.

With the use of the 3D digitizing software for MicroScribe and various 3D applications, users can create a completely immersible 3D input solution. MicroScribe Solutions get a ton of help from the 3D digitizing software for MicroScribe including the original MicroScribe-MAX and its utilities. It also works bets when it is put together with software such as Power Digitizer Pack, Scribe-iT DCC and the Scribe-iT CAD which are known for their manipulation, editing and 3D digitizing functions.

MicroScribe's digitizer is transformed into an extremely useful tool for measurement, navigation, visualization, animation, interactive manipulation, and digital content creator with the use of these applications.

Using the 3D digitizing software for MicroScribe, anyone can build complex 3D models quickly just by tracing over the object's contours. CMM systems such as MicroScribe can be used for various purposes provided it is used with the appropriate 3D digitizing software for MicroScribe.

Most of the 3D digitizing software for MicroScribe were developed by OEM Systems integrator and software develop Ghost 3D, LLC. The same company ensures that MicroScribe works best with various applications in part to its technical experts that have worked well with MicroScribe.

It is obviously not surprising that an easy-to-use, reliable, and fast method of creating accurate 3D computer models can be provided by MicroScribe for its customers. Most complex 3D data sets can be finished in a matter of minutes no matter the materials, shape, and size of the physical object.

MicroScribe's 3D digitizers are primarily used among industrial designers, game developers, design engineers and animators who need to create digital 3D models of practically any physical object. But before they can achieve that, they first need to capture the physical properties of 3D objects, which is made possible by 3D digitizing software for MicroScribe.

One device that has been proven great for this purpose is the MicroScribe G2 which is compatible with all existing 3D digitizing software for MicroScribe available. The G2 has accurately been described by Immersion 3D business group director Greg Belaus as "the most cost-effective, fully portable 3D digitizing product available on the market today."

There is a ongoing need for 3D-related content particularly in the medical industries, industrial design, computer animated film and gaming industry. Yet with MicroScribe digitizers working in tandem with the 3D digitizing software for MicroScribe, the growing demand should be seen as problem by these industries.