MSN Search Update
Unofficially, Microsoft has written down “December 1, 2004” as the official launch for their new MSN Search. Their “drop dead” date of June 1st was greatly missed. They do have some “wiggle room” however, as their first major sponsorship isn’t until December 13th at the Search Engine Strategies in Chicago. I love Chicago, but why hold an event there in December? Spring or Fall is the perfect time to visit – never winter. If Microsoft misses this drop dead date, they will have plenty of egg on their collective faces. In the last ten months, they have lost 6% of market share.
New MSN “Page Rank”
Microsoft has released a white paper on their new “Page Rank” criteria of their new MSN Search. It is being called “Block Level Link Analysis”. As this was just released, I have assigned my testing team to go through it and prepare a summary to share with you within two weeks, but hopefully sooner. In the meantime, you can read the white paper yourself.
Search Engine Forum Issue Revisited
I have been on this soap box before, and I will get on it again. A post on Webmaster World two days ago listing the exact criteria to get a top listing in Google. The recommendation? The keyword in the filename, plenty of H1, bold, underline, and italic tags, followed by a heavy dose of meta tags but ignoring PageRank and backlinks completely. This person has over 500 posts to the forums, which often is a dead giveaway. If they are as good as they claim, their business would keep them so busy they would never have time to post in forums.
I have direct testing results which conflict with the advice given in this post. If someone did break the formula to Google, why would they post the information on a user forum for free when they could make tens of thousands of dollars in a matter of days selling the information? Easy, because they haven’t uncovered anything. I advise you to tread carefully in the forums, as the majority of the information about the algorithms is generally incorrect.
Google IPO Not Delayed
Looks like Google’s IPO will not be delayed after an investigation by the SEC. Google had been rumored to have sold stock to employees, former employees and contractors that was not disclosed in the original filings. This saved Google from having to re-file and launch their IPO next year.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.