Cloud Computing

Ten companies to watch

Cloud computing is spreading through the IT world at the moment, with innovative start-ups and established vendors alike clamoring for customer attention.

Generally speaking, cloud providers fall into three categories: software-as-a-service providers; infrastructure-as-a-service vendors that offer Web-based access to storage and computing power; and platform-as-a-service vendors that give developers the tools to build and host Web applications. Here are 10 cloud companies that are worth watching.

Google Search Appliance 6.0

Now Searches Documents by the Billions.

They are releasing a new version of the software that runs on Search Appliance.

Version 6.0 can search billions of documents. They're also releasing a new hardware Search Appliance that can search 30 million documents.
Google Search Appliance can be deployed to search billions of documents in 5 racks of about 10-12 GSA's each. A little over a year ago, it took a 5 box rack to search 10 million documents. So, you can see how the progress is coming fast and furious.
Google Search Appliance is an enterprise solution that enables companies to search internal documents or provide site search for websites.
The announcement of Version 6.0 comes with a Google-made video that has the look and feel of a Spanish-language soap opera.

A New Search Engine (Wolfram Alfa)


Wolfram Alfa is a "computational knowledge engine". It made its debut last week and, despite the fact it's been commonly compared to other search engines -- everyone's looking for the next Google -- it isn't really that similar at all. While Google indexes and searches the web, Wolfram Alpha is able to process factual data that's been curated by the Wolfram team and converted into forms that can be run through computations. Wolfram Alfa

Why Would Twitter Kill RSS? | WebProNews

Will Twitter Kill RSS? | WebProNews

Twitter and RSS have some things in common. However, they are not the same, and Twitter will not kill the feed reader.(As written in some blogs lately). This is a concept I have seen come up a number of times, and frankly, I just don't see it happening, at least not without some dramatic changes in how Twitter is presented to its users.

14 Key Requirements For A Search Friendly CMS

14 Key Requirements For A Search Friendly CMS

The most important SEO decisions you make is the selection of your content management system. Your CMS can make SEO easy, or, in some cases, make SEO virtually impossible, or cost you a lot of money. Here are 14 crucial elements you should verify in a CMS before you commit to using it.

Yahoo Helping Newspapers Sell More Ads Online

Yahoo Helping Newspapers Sell More Ads Online

Here’s a change of pace: Some newspapers are making money online and crediting a search engine with making it happen. AdAge writes about the Yahoo-Newspaper consortium, and cites multiple cases where individual papers or newspaper groups are using Yahoo’s ad targeting technology to increase online-only ad sales.

Twitter Has Plans to Launch Ranking Algorithm

Twitter will try to become a Google competitor in real time search by announcing plans to build a search ranking algorithm. The algorithm will assign a “reputation” score to certain tweets and use this to deliver the most relevant results to searches.
Currently, search.twitter.com simply performs a text match and returns all posts that mention the keyword you’ve searched for. The down side of this is that for popular terms, many times you will just see re-tweets and low value content from hundreds or thousands of users. By assigning a ranking system to these results, you’ll be able to see the most meaningful results first.
The changes were announced by Santosh Jayaram, who recently joined Twitter after managing search quality operations at Google. Jayaram said that not only will Twitter launch a ranking algorithm; they will also begin scanning the links included within tweets and start indexing this content.
This could see Twitter become a serious competitor to Google in the field of real time search. By indexing external links it will help to make twitter a more complete index about what’s happening in real time across the web.
For more info, check out the post on news.com.

Google Getting Twitterpated

Google Getting Twitterpated

check out what Marissa Mayer said in a press conference last week.

"We are interested in being able to offer, for example, micro-blogging and micro-messaging in our search. Particularly in Blog Search and possibly in Web Search, but we dont have any particular plans to announce."

SEOmoz | The Real Power of Twitter

SEOmoz | The Real Power of Twitter

Will Marketing Kill Social Media?

Will Marketing Kill Social Media?

Google will Change Ranking Algorithm

Google will make changes to its search ranking algorithm to combat the spate of links leading to malicious web pages appearing at the top of Google’s search results, according to an inside source.
Over the past few months, cybercriminals have been using blackhat SEO techniques to manipulate search rankings. When it first began, they were marginally successful at following Google Trends to find buzzy search queries and elevating a newly created targeted webpage.

But after a short period of time, these same gangs appear to have become disturbingly effective. Last week, when researching a news story, I found the top five results all led to fake scareware pages.

Obviously if Google fails to do something about this manipulation, users will lose trust and the good ole days of Google will be over fast. A Googler speaking on condition of anonymity told WebProNews a ranking change is pending that tackles spam of this kind. Once the change goes live, users shouldn’t see it “nearly as often.”
The freshness or buzzy nature of a query also aided in this pursuit, and cybercriminals merely have to follow Google Trends and Google News to know which keywords and phrases to target.

Fights In The Google Monopoly Debate Miss Key Points

Fights In The Google Monopoly Debate Miss Key Points

Keywords are the most important to the Internet Marketing?

Why should you care about your Keywords when you do your Internet Marketing?

Keywords are essential to your online success. You must get your keywords right or it's game over before you even get started. This is because keywords are the most important element of your online marketíng. It can't be emphasized enough, especially to beginning online webmasters or marketers, choosing the right profitable keywords will largely determine whether or not you succeed with your online endeavors.

What are Keywords?
Keywords are the words or phrases someone types into a search engine to find what they're looking for on the web. Some keywords or phrases are valuable/profitable, while others are virtually worthless. Profitable keywords are the ones that convert into a sale, a lead or potential client for your company or product. These are the words someone is searching in order to buy a product. Someone searching for "iPhone from Appl" is probably in the market to buy a iPhone and could turn out to be very profitable for the right website or business.

Profitable keywords are the ones where the searcher is in the right "mind-set" or frame of mind to buy what they're searching for on the web. Tailor your marketing online to target these profitable keywords and it can turn into a success.
So what's the whole process for finding or choosing profitable keywords to use in your marketing? Lets look at some ways to proceed:

Number of Keyword Searches?
What you need to do is to find out how many searches are made for your chosen keywords each month. Simply use WordTracker or a site like SEOBook. These will give you a preliminary number of searches made each month for your keyword. Highly popular, well-searched keywords with hundreds of thousands of searches each month will be extremely hard to rank for because you will have stiff competition from major companies with limitless resources.
You have to pick less popular keywords that get only a couple of hundred of searches each day because your chances of getting on the first page greatly increases. But don't get fixated on the number of searches, some keyword phrases that only get four or five searches daily, can still be very profitable.
For serious keyword research in a particular niche market You cøuld use Brad Callen's Keyword Elite which is professionally designed software that makes all your keyword research so much easier. But there are plenty of free keyword tools you can use. One handy keyword tool is Google Adwords external suggestion tool which will help you find valuable keywords.

Commercial Intent of Keywords?
But how do you know if a keyword is profitable? One convenient tool is from MSN which helps you with "Detecting Online Commercial Intention" of keywords. Just type in a keyword and it will give you a percentage or probability your keyword query has commercial benefit or intent.

Conversion Rate of Keywords?
Once you have your chosen keywords in place, next you want to have a landing page that converts those keywords or traffic from those keywords into buyers or leads for your online business. This is another crucial element of your online marketíng - you must have a landing page or content/site that converts into a sale or you obviously won't make any revenue.
Keep in mind, if you're into affiliate marketing, you main goal is not to sell but to "pre-sell" your products or services. One effective way I have found to do this is to give potential customers/clients valuable information they can use in making their final purchasing choice. Comparison sites do well, as do review sites, top ten sites... potential customers use the Internet and keywords to not only find products but more so, to find information on those products. Your goal should be to provide this valuable information to make their task a little bit easier for them and they will reward you with a sale.

Long-Tail Keywords?
Long-Tail keywords are simply that: long three or four word phrases that searchers use to find what they're looking for on the web. Because they are highly specific, long-tail keywords have proven to have better conversion rates than general keywords. This is also just common sense, someone searching for a "2005 ford mustang convertible" may just be in the right mind-set to buy such a vehicle; as compared to someone searching for a more general keyword phrase such as "sports cars."
Study your website traffic logs religiously to find long-tail keywords that turn into a sale. Target these long-tail keywords in your marketing. Even buy PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising in the three major search engines - Google Adwords, Yahoo! Marketing and MicroSoft AdCenter - for these valuable/profitable keywords.
And build higher rankings in organic search for these long-tail keyword phrases. It's really not that difficult for long phrases, especially if they're related to your site; many times you can reach the top spot in a matter of days, especially in Google.

How to Rank High for Your Chosen Profitable Keywords?
Of course, the million dollar question is: HOW do you rank in the top spot for your chosen keywords? I believe the key to ranking high in the search engines (especially Google) is to be persistent in building your rankings for your keywords. Take a long-term view or approach, sometimes it may take months, even years, to rank in the top Five for your highly competitive keywords.
The best strategy is to "stick to it" and keep building relevant links to your keyword landing page. Create related blogs with valuable content linking back to your keywords. Write keyword related articles and distribute them all over the web. Create Google Alerts for your keywords and then place comments/links in the newly formed pages on the web that Google is indexing.
Be pro-active, download the SEOQuake toolbar and find your main keyword competitors. Check out their links and then go out and get the same links. Write better, higher quality content than your main competitors because Google always rewards great content. Plus, use the free Addthis.com button and let your visitors bookmark your great content in all the social bookmark sites and build your keyword links for you.
Do keyworded Press Releases with your embedded links and spread them all over the web. Get these Press Releases into Google news and other important places on the web. PRWeb.com is really a great place for your press releases since you can embed your keywords in your links.
If you can try to get your most important keywords in your domain name. Many SEO experts argue the merits of this but from my own experience and marketing - it is much easier to rank high for your keywords if you have them in the domain name. Again, it is just common sense, if you have your main keyword in the domain, this keyword is obviously telling the search engines this is what your site is all about. I have even bought domains and created sites specifically around certain keywords just to rank high.
Always remember, you have to be persistent, I have been fighting some keyword battles for over four or five years! For really profitable keywords, it can be a constant struggle to remain on the first page, but the trick is not to give up, just keep fighting away at your competitors. Persistence usually pays off in the end and those profitable keywords will have your links in the top spot. Make ranking high for those profitable keywords your number one marketing strategy. Concentrate all your marketing efforts towards getting plenty of quality traffic for those keywords and you will succeed online

Software Pirates Tell Their Stories in BSA Campaign by PC Magazine: Yahoo! Tech

Software Pirates Tell Their Stories in BSA Campaign by PC Magazine: Yahoo! Tech

What does a software pirate look like? Anyone. And that's the new message of the Business Software Alliance, which asked five convicted software pirates to tell their stories.

Google's Schmidt Talks Privacy, Internet Domination by PC Magazine: Yahoo! Tech

Google's Schmidt Talks Privacy, Internet Domination by PC Magazine: Yahoo! Tech

15 Essential Checks Before Launching Your Website | How-To | Smashing Magazine

15 Essential Checks Before Launching Your Website | How-To | Smashing Magazine

What to do when your CMS system is ready for launch. Check some more important tasks...

New feature from Linkedin.

LinkedIn launched a new feature that would allow members of groups to share and discuss news articles. Last week, the professional social network offered group owners and managers another way to provide relevant news to their group by way of sharing feeds.

Managers can now create customs news feeds by adding an RSS feed, an Atom feed, or just a Web site URL.
According to a recent blog post, the idea is to give group members a "comprehensive news digest" on LinkedIn that will potentially help them discover new blogs and sources.
While at first glance the idea of incorporating feeds into the professional networking service doesn't seem particularly interesting - many other networks have already enabled this sharing and communicating option, it may just be a great way to introduce feeds to a more mainstream market.
Sites like Twitter, Digg, Facebook, etc., have always relied on participation from a tech savvy audience; those who are already familiar with feeds, and who for the most part have already created their own customized feeds, so that the content, more than the technology is the most important component.
LinkedIn however is a little different. Its audience doesn't comprise solely of the tech or Web savvy; many are just ordinary folk wanting to find other like minded folk for professional purposes. With this new feature, it just may be that LinkedIn will bring the feed to the masses.

SEO is Becoming More Important In Long Terms

It's a small business owner's dream to be the first result in Google when someone types in a word like "shoes." The resulting traffic stats and sales numbers would be incredible. However, it seems that small businesses might do much better by optimizing for queries involving more than one word.

Cost and feasibility need to be considered, of course - it's a rare small business that can pay for a site capable of competing with those owned by big corporations. But there's more to the situation than that.
It's in the land of three-, four-, and five-word searches that more and more people are spending their time, and together, 45.4 percent of the searches Hitwise has tracked so far this year fall into these categories.

Focusing your search engine optimization efforts on longer queries is something to think about instead of straining to create interesting one-word product names, then. Heck, attain a high ranking now, and maybe you'll even have a hold on it when the Reeboks of the world branch out.

SEO is Becoming More Important In Long Terms

It's a small business owner's dream to be the first result in Google when someone types in a word like "shoes." The resulting traffic stats and sales numbers would be incredible. However, it seems that small businesses might do much better by optimizing for queries involving more than one word.

Cost and feasibility need to be considered, of course - it's a rare small business that can pay for a site capable of competing with those owned by big corporations. But there's more to the situation than that.
It's in the land of three-, four-, and five-word searches that more and more people are spending their time, and together, 45.4 percent of the searches Hitwise has tracked so far this year fall into these categories.

Focusing your search engine optimization efforts on longer queries is something to think about instead of straining to create interesting one-word product names, then. Heck, attain a high ranking now, and maybe you'll even have a hold on it when the Reeboks of the world branch out.

Google Offers A Peek Into Its Internal Eye-Tracking Studies

Google Offers A Peek Into Its Internal Eye-Tracking Studies

There’s an interesting post today on the Official Google Blog that gives a glimpse inside the company’s usability and eye-tracking studies — tests that help Google determine what their search results pages should look like.