This post is part of an ongoing series: How Search Really Works.
Last week: "The" Index (1).

Last week we saw how an inverted index (where a list of words points to a list of documents in which they appear) is insanely useful for doing AND queries.

But what if you’re not looking for any document that has the words search AND people AND engine but you’re looking for Search Engine People?

Well, if document 42 in our example reads "the engine was found after a search by some people" or "people use a search engine such as Google" than a traditional inverted index would think it’s spot-on for your search. Ai….

Keyword research is one of the cornerstone’s of starting any good search engine optimization campaign. While I use Wordze for all my keyword research, I started my adventures as an SEO with a fair number of freely available keyword research tools. Each of these are slightly different from the other, and when used in combination, they can provide a potent starting point for your SEO campaign.

1. Microsoft AdCenter Search Funnel
2. Google Trend
3. Niche Bot
4. Trellian Free Search Term Suggestion Tool
5. Niche Watch
6. SEO Book Google Tool
7. Key Word Lizard Google AdWords Keyword Combination Tool

Wow! What a beating Google took on the heels of the comScore data showing Google’s paid search ads were down 12% in January from October, and flat from a year prior.

“Has Google Peaked?”

Google’s shares drop as surfers cease clicking, another wails.

Dear Goth, has there been more fraught chest-thumping, more moaning, since last Celine performed that song at the 69th Annual Academy Awards®?

Google will go on. And oddly enough, if surfers have stopped clicking and are now only treading water like Leonardo’s Jack Dawson just before succumbing in that movie where Celine performed that song then why haven’t Yahoo and MSN been just as negatively affected?

So I was snooping aroiund YouTube to see what information I could find about Windows 7, when I came across this video of Construction Mike managing his day to day with a myriad of various informational and communication devices, all apparently loaded up with Windows 7.

 While I found most of the devices to be soooooo cool and I want them, I have difficulty actually imagining people from most industries, let alone the construction industry, investing in the number of gadgets per employee that Mike had the good fortune to use in his daily routine.

Oh, I love this. The deluge of "news" articles about Google’s re-release of JotSpot as Google Sites has only just begun and already everyone and their mother has an opinion that needs to be shared.

Which is great — I’m not one to lobby for blogging to then slam it. In fact, as soon as I heard about the release (Twitter, anyone?) I wanted to write about it all SEO expert style, you know? How Google Sites will increase the number of sites on the web (duh!). Or how down the line Google could include automated optimization reports for Google Sites the way they’re toying around for AdSense.

Last week I lost a bet to my friend Paul Steven over at North South Media. While I was a fan of their blog, it wasn’t until I ran into Paul on StumbleUpon that I got to know more about him and his company. Among a common passion for SEO, I discovered that we both share more than a passing interest in the worlds “beautiful game” - soccer or Football as it’s known across the pond.

Is an industry expert really an authority, if no one knows about his/her expertise?

This post is the fifth in the series on Authority Building. This post will look specifically at 8 techniques used the increase the visibility of a person’s profile and their knowledge. The previous four posts in the series are:

Brand Equity is defined as the value (positive and negative) a brand adds to an organizations products and services.

How do you know that a product has brand equity?

A product with brand equity will:

1) Be able to charge a premium for it’s brand (i.e. the cost of Heinz ketchup versus generic)

2) Evoke long-term loyalty (I’ve eaten KD since I was a kid and it MUST be the real KD)

3) Have a significant market share (notice that McDonald’s has more market share than it’s next 3 competitors combined).

News.com.au reported that for a few days last week Yahoo7 Australia did not return any direct links to bittorrent tracker The Pirate Bay.

It’s an incident like that that rekindles my worries.

You see, when it comes to policing, shifting responsibilities has been found a very effective tool.

When in the 1980’s pirate television flooded Europe’s cable networks, authorities had a difficult time stamping it out. Until someone came with the bright idea to make the cable network responsible. They would be fined for every illegal movie broadcast over through their network. They would be responsible for coming up with means to secure and seal off their network.

Wordpress plugin resource lists have been highly useful to almost any beginner or intermediate level blogger. However the old lists featuring 50+ essential plugins haven’t been updated in a while, so I thought I’d give the blogging community a little refresher on the best new plugins available to jazz up your blog through social media optimization.

Photodropper -Photo Dropper is a Wordpress plugin that lets you add Flickr photos to your posts.

Slideshare - This plugin allows you to easily add SlideShare presentations to your blog by just copy pasting the default WordPress embed code.