Google & Microsoft Issue
Rumors have swirled about Microsoft’s intent of buying Google. While the press has reported that Google has denied they will accept an offer from Microsoft, sources close to me state that Google is very much involved in talks with Microsoft.
So, what of the statement from Microsoft a few months ago that they were targeting Google and would take their market share?
That statement was very much true and Microsoft increased their staff on their search engine team by ten fold. They were set on building their own search function and aggressively going after Google. However, in their testing phase, they hit a wall. Speed. They could not rival Google’s accuracy and speed.
Realizing that they could not compete with Google, Microsoft is trying to do what they do best: acquire the technology they cannot develop themselves. If talks go well, analysts feel that when Microsoft drops LookSmart in January, MSN will begin to display Google results. In February when Google hits the street with their IPO a buyout could be reached shortly thereafter. If a buyout does not occur, a long-term agreement would be made to allow Google to continue to supply results to MSN.
What You Should Do Within 30 Days
As we have mentioned before, you should start to reduce your spending at LookSmart. LookSmart has begun an aggressive marketing campaign to keep their business, but their model will not be able to support their user base without MSN. Jump ship and transfer your advertising budget allocated to LookSmart to Overture. I am still highly recommending Overture over Google AdWords as your conversions and cost per sale are lower with Overture.
Increase both your Link Popularity and Link Reputation aggressively, but keep the “White Hat” on and do so ethically. These off-page factors are critical to the scoring with Google, but there are penalties involved (see below). As Yahoo! prepares to switch away from Google, if the analysts are correct, and Google wins the MSN account, Google will remain the dominant search result provider online.
Google Toolbar/Search Result Inconsistency
You have probably seen the PageRank bar greyed out on many sites lately on the Google Toolbar, and even some inconsistencies with the search results over the last few days. According to the results of our test servers, Google is again testing new algo.
We have noticed the following:
- less importance on the keyword tag in the Title of the page
- rankings lowered on sites that use the exact keyword phrase in the Title
- penalty for “too much” relevancy for specific keyword phrases
- penalty given for sites that have a keyword phrase in the Title and Anchor Text of incoming links
- bonus given if the keyword phrase appears in the Title of the page of the incoming link
Inktomi Tips
As we are nearly the year anniversary when Yahoo! purchased Inktomi, I am recommending now, more than ever, to increase your website’s visibility in the Inktomi database. Here are the primary strategies that are the most effective for Inktomi.
- Place keyword(s) in the Title – the earlier within the title tag, the better
- Place keyword(s) within the header tags –
,
,
, etc.
- Place your keyword(s) in bold text and scatter them throughout the page, especially contained inside paragraphs of body text
- Place keywords within file names (web page names)
- Use keywords as third level domains
- Place keywords in outgoing/incoming links – bold links work well
- Review your site map and use bold text around the links that have keywords in them. Inktomi likes site maps
Inktomi likes the tag and responds favorably to frequent use of the keyword scattered throughout different areas of the page. Give these tips a try and you’ll probably notice your rankings improve.
KWMap.com Spam
Your Inbox has probably been hit with an offer from KWMap.com to trade links with your site and give your site great visibility in their new directory. Don’t buy into it. They launched a massive Spamming campaign and are already apart of many blacklists. Their strong Alexa ranking is due to their email blasts. Google is known to penalize sites that link to “bad neighborhoods”. This is one.
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