Beanstalk's SEO News Blog

Ian Turner, one of the partners at Romsey Associates, an internet consultancy and services company has been missing since Sunday. He was due to fly back from New Orleans WebmasterWorlds Search and Marketing conference and has not been seen since.

His wife and family are all very worried about him. If you've seen Ian, or have any information about him that might be useful (anything at all, at this stage) please contact the New Orleans or Atlanta police department.

New Orleans P.D. - (504) 821-2222

Atlanta P.D. - (404) 730-5700 (Fulton County)

Atlanta Missing Persons - (404) 853-4235

The american and english police are working together to find out where he is, and we'd all really appreciate any help you might be able to give. The Search Community is tight, so lets show our support if you were at the wmw show, and saw Ian on Sunday, please tell us!

Reports say that Yahoo is upgrading their email client to closer resemble a desktop email client.

A few of the Yahoo mail new features will include the ability to view more than one email simultaneously, the use of e-mail caching to shorten response time, email message preview, drag and drop filing as well as a quick search system. Firefox and IE are currently the only two browsers that the email client works on. The option will be there for you to continue to use the current version.

The new Yahoo mail will not be popping it's head up for the public until late this year, however beta testers will be seeing it in the upcoming weeks.

The latest edition of "Climbing The Beanstalk", Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning's bi-weekely newsletter was just published. For those of you who have not subscribed to our newsletter (which is free and can be signed up for by entering your email on the form box to the top right) you can find the latest edition at http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/articles/newsletters/28jun05.htm.

You can also read past newsletter on our article page at http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/articles/index.htm.

Google today announced the launch of "Google Earth". According to Google this tool allows the user to:

• Fly from space to your neighborhood. Type in an address and zoom right in.
• Search for schools, parks, restaurants, and hotels. Get driving directions.
• Tilt and rotate the view to see 3D terrain and buildings.
• Save and share your searches and favorites. Even add your own annotations.

We've been "playing" around with it (I'm not sure why I put quotes around the word as that's exactly what we've been doing :) and it is one of the coolest enhancements I've seen to search in quite a while.

A pictures worth a thousand words but hands-on experience is worth even more so I highly recommend downloading the software (free) and trying it out for yourself. You won't be disappointed.

You can download the Google Earth software from http://earth.google.com/.

Have fun. :)

While google has long been collecting video from users they now offer playback functionality provided that you download and install their "Google Video Viewer".

An interesting innovation over other video search services is that Google allows the owners to charge a fee to watch the video. Hmmm ... I wonder if this can be tied in at all to their upcoming payment solution. ;)

Google's video search can be reached at http://video.google.com/.

Labels: google video

Wendy Boswell, SEO guru for About.com, found Beanstalk's "Anatomy Of An Internet Search Engine" worth posting on their websearch SEO Blog.

We're often posted on reputable SEO websites from around the world but it's nice to be recognized by a search engine. :)

You can read the blog post at http://websearch.about.com/b/a/180476.htm.

This is more about bragging rights than SEO news but then, it's a Sunday and one's got to find their pleasures where then can when they're working on the weekend. :)

Sticking with tradition, we've decided to post on our blog a humerous site we've found in our travels to send you into the weekend. While not remotely related to SEO this site should put a smile on your face after a long week of optimizing and marketing your website.

Odd Todd is a character created by a reportedly out-of-work Flash designer. It chronicles the trials and tribulations of an out-of-work and lazy Todd. when you have a few moments and are looking for a chuckle visit http://www.oddtodd.com/cartoons.html.

And have a great weekend !

TopNet Solutions, makers of the SEO software PR Prowler and Total Optimizer Pro announced today the release of the newest version of the PR Prowler software.

We at Beanstalk have long been fans of this fantastic SEO tool for the enormous amount of time it saves us on our link building efforts. Version three appears to take it one step forther with more customization options and better technology.

Our hats go off to TopNet Solutions for enhancing and already fantastic product. At just $97 this is a worthwhile investment for any SEO or webmaster interested in increasing their PageRank and search engine results.

For more information on PR Prowler watch out review page at http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/resources/recommended/pr-prowler.htm. It will be updated shortly to reflect the newest version though at this time the review noted covers Version 2 (it should still give you a very good idea of how useful this tool can be).

According to a New York Times report, Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced yesterday that Google will not be competing with PayPal stating, "We do not intend to offer a person-to-person, stored-value payments system." He would not elaborate any further.

What exactly is Google up to then? In truth it's anyone's guess however it's likely that they will simply act as a standard payment processor, initally for those goods and services listed on Froogle and then advancing further as their market expands.

Who wouldn't use Google as their payment processor or at least provide whatever payment services they offer for a chance to win a quick brownie point from the God Internet Traffic?

Will they compete with PayPal? Apparently not directly ... they'll just sneak in with something new that we'll use even more. Why? Because when it comes to Google they're in a Field Of Dreams. "Build it and we will come."

MSN has just announced the beta launch of their local search. This is a great advancement for those searching for businesses, services and/or information close to their current location.

You can either snoop through their directory of cities OR it appears that they can automatically detect your location based on IP address and can provide results based on where you are. After some searching I can say that it's fairly good though not perfect. For some searches I got results from Washington state whereas Beanstalk is located in Victoria, Canada. Nonetheless, the idea is great and it's still in Beta so some issues are to be expected.

If all goes well with this project the possibilities are endless as to what this will do to the search engine world and to SEO in general.

You can visit their city directory at http://local.msn.com/ or simply choose the "Local (BETA)" option above the search box on MSN.

Once again seeking not not just dominate but to monopolize entire industries (oops ... did I say monopolize) rumors are that Google is planning to lauch a payment processing system that will rival PayPal. Google Wallet, if it does indeed launch, will undoubtedly do so before the lucrative Christmas season.

eBay shares dropped at the mere rumor (eBay owns payPal).

If this does indeed occur (and it undoubtedly will) there are three sure effects:

1. Google shares and profits will rise
2. eBay/payPal shares will continue to drop (why do I think when the folks over at eBay say, "Man, we're sure Googled." they're not talking about people typing eBay into a search box ;)
   
3. sites that accept Google payments will rank higher

This may be jumping the gun a bit but it seems to me that Google could further increase their profits by ranking sites higher that accept their payments thus capturing a percentage of the revenue from the sales themselves. Hmmmmmm.

But they'd never do that. After all, their motto is, "Don't be evil." Right?

As it's Friday we generally try to keep things pretty light in our blog post bringing you a smile to enter your weekend and this Friday is no differnent. This Friday you have a birthday to celebrate. :)

"Who's birthday?" you might ask. It's not so much a "who" as a "what". Today that lovable character Pac Man turns 25! (and due to significant advancements in computer technology he's the only one who's gotten faster and better looking over the years.

So if you needed a reason to go out and celebrate this weekend you now have your "excuse". :)

If you'd like to read more about the about the history of this lovable icon you can do so on the MSN website at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6448213/did/8218674/.

We all like top 10 lists right? Well not if you're Google.

The latest Nielsen/NetRatings top 10 websites for may 2005 was just released. The top 10 websites for May 2005 by brand are:

1. Yahoo!
2. Microsoft
3. MSN
4. Google
5. AOL
6. eBay
7. MapQuest
8. Amazon
9. Real
10. Weather Channel

That's right ... Google's #4.

While this is a list by brand meaning that it's not a list of searchers specifically it certainly sheds light on some upcoming trends and is definitely something to pay close attention to.

BlogSome is the fastest growing blog host in the world (in percentage terms, that is!). Blogsome is completely free and is quite easy to get up and running a neat feature is that it allows your blogs to be published with a sub-domain web address. Eg: [your-blog-name].blogsome.com. Blogsome has a lot in common with Blogger except that it uses the WordPress blogging platform which has many added features including the ability to add plug-ins as well as categories. If you have any problems, Blogsome has a terrific Forum, their team is always ready to help.

" blogsome (blog'some) /blohg-sum/ 1. noun. A free web hosting site for blogs.2. adj. noun. A topic worthy of being blogged. 3. verb . To blog a little e.g. "I am going to blog some". 4. n. pl. My blogs i.e. blogs o' me. "

Beanstalk's newsletter was just completed and sent out to our subscribers.

For those of you who haven't yet subscribed to Beanstalk's SEO newsletter you can do so in the right-hand navigation bar. Today's edition has been published to the Beanstalk website at http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/articles/newsletters/14jun05.htm.

Back on May 27th Beanstalk added an RSS feed of our blog for those of you wishing to use RSS readers or otherwise syndicate our SEO blog content.

Why would you use an RSS reader rather than simply visit our blog every day? Very good question and we'd certainly love for you to visit our site daily, however there are many people who would need to visit many sites daily and many of these sites also offer RSS feeds. To save you time you can use an RSS reader to show all of the content in one convenient location.

To help you in your travels we are happy to provide two important resources that will help you keep on top of changes in the SEO world.

1. You can find a great list of RSS readers at http://blogspace.com/rss/readers. The readers are ranked (accurately) so find your OS and enjoy. :)
2. While we try our best to keep our visitors updated daily on what's going on in the SEO world we also recognize that there are other resources out there. Fortunately we have found many of the best of them. :) On our website at http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/rss.php we have added the RSS feeds of the best SEO resource sites we've found. Visit this page often, more will be added as we deem them worthy of a spot on our site.
   

Marketing Sherpa has just announced it's top 10 blogs of 2005.

These blogs focus primarily on Internet Marketing and PR and many of them provide some very useful information for do-it-yourselfers or those who have hired a firm and simply want to make sure everything's going as it should.

You can read their Top 10 Blogs list at http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2968.

You will have to copy and paste the link. We can't hyperlink it as the article will only be available to non-members for 10 days at which time it will be moved into their members area (so visit it soon!).

Microsoft recently (late last week) announced the launch of it's new toolbar complete with "Tabbed Browsing". For those of you not familiar with tabbed browsing, essentially this toolbar will allow you to have multiple websites open in a single browser interface (Internet Explorer) which you can then switch back-and-forth to by clicking on tabs at the top of your browser window.

This feature has been available through Firefox since it's inception.

While I'll be the first to admit that tabbed browsing is a fantastic addition, the version available through the MSN toolbar (which can be downloaded from http://toolbar.msn.com/) will never hold the versatility of Firefox as the Firefox browser is entirely opensource meaning that anyone with a good idea to add can create an enhancement that adds new and unique functionality to the tabbing and to the browser in general.

I'm happy to see Microsoft finally catching up but they're still not catching on, we want the new features first and we want them better - we don't want to be given an inferior copy of a great idea months after we've found it elsewhere.

Yahoo Inc., owner, may consider developing its very own web browser to aid in attracting more users and advertisers to its Web sites, Chief Executive Officer Terry Semel said.

"You could look to Yahoo to do most everything that makes sense on the Internet going forward," Semel said Friday in an interview in New York. Developing a browser may make sense "at some point in time," he said.

Lately Yahoo has been pumping out a variety of new service developments a Yahoo browser would really be the cherry on top. I have a feeling that if they did go ahead with their own browser that the end result would be a browser that would look and act extremely similar to the Firefox Browser. To keep up to date with the newest developments at Yahoo visit Yahoo Next.

I remember a time when the browser Firefox first came out. It was brought to my attention by tech guru Rick Morris at WeDoHosting.com (where the Beanstalk site is hosted). Rick essentially forced all WeDo staff to switch over for the added security that it provides over IE. I took his advice and have never turned back.

Since then I've discovered that the added security only touches on the vast benefits of this incredible open source browser. Because it's open source, developers from around the world have build some incredible extensions and tools for it that help the SEO, the webmaster or just those surfing the net. You can find anything from PageRank and keyword density tools to enhancements that simply detect where you're located and display the weather.

Beanstalk has now joined the SpreadFirefox campaign. We've noted the benefits numerous time and we figure it's high time we start reaping the vast rewards from Firefox themselves which include free prizes from Mozilla such as bragging rights, a snazzy Firefox t-shirt or perhaps even an iPod. ;)

So take our advice, download Firefox, use it, love it and if you want to make the most of it be sure to also visit their extensions page to find all the great things you can add to Firefox to make it arguably the best of the design and SEO tools you have in your arsenal.

You can view many of the great extensions at https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/?application=firefox though if you can't find them there be sure to search online or visit the Google Directory Firefox Extensions page.

In a recent article by Chris Sherman of SearchEngineWatch he brought to my attention yet another cool tool brought to you through Firefox. ConQuery allows users to query various engines directly from the right click button of your mouse.

Great for searchers and researchers this tools has been added to the Beanstalk arsenal and we highly recommend you adding it to your as well.

To read Chris' article simply visit http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3510166.

And if you haven't been paying attention to our previous SEO blog posts or are a new visitor ... DOWNLOAD Firefox today. This browser is head-and-shoulders above IE and there are tools/enhancements available for this that will make any searcher, webmaster, SEO or just surfer's life much easier.

You can download Firefox and find a number (hundreds) of great add-ons and enhancements at http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/.

Beanstalk has just released the latest of it's article publications entitled, "Anatomy Of An Internet Search Engine".

In this article we outline the basics of how a search engine functions and survives in order to help our readers better understand what must be done to attain high rankings that will withstand the tests of time.

You can read this latest article on our website at http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/articles/search-engine-positioning/anatomy.htm.

Many of you will have noticed fluctuations in your Google rankings over the past week. These fluctuations can be expected to continue for the rest of this week. The best advice you can take is to avoid your natural inclination to go in and tweak your site to try to chase these fluctuations. Sit tight and wait until next week when it all should be over and you'll be able to better gague what the new algo is and go from there.

NEVER try to chase a moving target. It will settle down and when it does you'll be in a much stronger position to test and tweak than if you do it during this state of flux.

Backlinks appear to be updating across some of the Google datacenters currently. Thus far most of the sites we've been monitoring have not updated on google.com however changes can be seen on various other Google datacenters indicating that the update is underway.

Watch your backlinks over the next couple days for changes.

An additional note; sites we know to have backlink increases are showing lower numbers. It appears that during this update Google is also reducing the number being displayed. While reported backlinks are increasing on other engines for the same sites and while no links were lost and additional links gained, displayed backlinks are decreasing for a number of sites we are monitoring.

If you see a drop in your backlinks don't panic ... it's just how Google displays them. Check your backlinks on MSN or Yahoo! for a more accurate count.

While we at Beanstalk generally try to keep our blog post pretty light on Friday, today is a sad day indeed for the Internet Marketing community.

Internet Marteting guru and all-round decent guy Corey Rudl passed away yesterday in an amateur car race in San Diego California. Publisher of many Internet Marketing books, articles and self-help tutorials Corey Rudl is one of the few Internet Marketing experts to earn the amount of respect he has from me and from the SEO and Internet community in general.

Our sincere condolences go out to his friends and family. This event is a true loss to the entire Internet community.

You can read more about this tragic event on the LA Times website. (link disabled as it's no longer available).

For those of you who've been in the sandbox a while it appears to have lightened today. Sites with "penalties" against either their newness and/or incoming links seem to finally be being creditted for their legitimate hard work.

This coincides with Google Guys assertions over the past couple days and Google's own public note that sp@m was being attacked which seems to be the case when looking through the rankings.

We have only seen this occuring over the past hour or so - whether these results stick or not is left to be seen however I did get a brief glipse of some of the results earlier last week though they didn't stick around then long enough to note in Beanstalk's SEO Blog.

Check your rankings but if you see rises and falls don't celebrate and get back in off the ledge - at least for a few more days until the dust settles.

On the WebmasterWorld forums there's a chap there going by the nic "Googleguy". This gentleman claims to work for Google and gives advice from that perspective.

For those familiar with this forum and with Googleguy you have to admit an odd duality in your reaction. While forums are more-or-less anonymous and in reality Googleguy could very well be a 12 year old kid with parents who don't regulate his computer time one also has to admit that he's often right in the timelines he gives, etc.

For this reason I'm going to suspend disbelief for now and recommend reading a post he made recently in the forums at WMW. because you have to log in to read the post I'll copy it here:

Hey folks, I saved off the first 1200 or so posts coming back into town, and got to read the first 550 or so on the plane ride back. I was taking notes, and it made the reactions a lot more clear to me to read through everything at one time.

Does everyone remember when I took questions, and Brett set up a thread where I could post answers? I'm going to ask Brett if he can set up something similar tomorrow. I'd like to start making comments and giving advice, but I don't want the posts to get lost in the shuffle.

Here's the advice that I'd give now: take a break from checking ranks for several more days. Bourbon includes something like 3.5 improvements in search quality, and I believe that only a couple are out so far. The 0.5 will go out in a day or so, and the last major change should roll out over the next week or so. Then there will still be some minor changes after that as well. So my "weather report" along the lines of http://www.ysearchblog.com/archives/000095.html would be a recommendation that rankings may still change somewhat over the next several days.

Googleguy - June 1, 2005

I would recommend becoming a member of this excellent forum anyways where you can read the full thread (50 pages and counting) at http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/29621-43-10.htm (link intentiaonally not hyperlinked as you're going to have to go to http://www.webmasterworld.com/ and register befor you can navigate to this page).