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Google Bookmarks - 5 Implications for Site Owners
by Jeff Quipp.Well, day four of the New York Search Engine Strategies conference has passed, and it was another full schedule. Three panels yesterday (Linking Strategies, Link Baiting and Viral Search Success, and CSS, AJAX, Web 2.0 & Search Engines) then the 8 hour drive back to Toronto (someone forgot to renew his passport).
One of the interesting tidbits I was reminded of today (in the Bookmarking session) and had meant to blog about earlier was the fact that Google had “quiet launched” Google Bookmarks late last year. Such a launch would not normally be cause for excitement, but I think the implications merit some discussion, as they are certainly likely to impact Google’s search results. Accordingly, this blog posting is not to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Google BookMarks versus Del.icio.us, but rather how Google is likely to use this bookmark information.
Google Voice Local Search - Mobile Search
by Jeff Quipp.In a previous life, I ran a Bell project called VoiceNet (today its evolved into http://www.helloyellow.ca/) . Essentially, it was to be the first speech enabled portal of its kind anywhere completely speech enabled. When I say speech enabled, I literally mean that you communicate(d) directly with our computers … no human intervention. The goal was ultimately to speech enable the Yellow Pages to give cell phone users unprecendented access to such listing information without the paper product handy. What a great concept! Unfortunately, it was 10 years ahead of its time, and the general population just wasn’t ready. Keep in mind, this was when search engines were in their absolute infancy, and Google was still not conceived. This was even before my days with Sympatico-Lycos … and that was quite a while ago. The project has fortunately been kept alive over the years … given its obvious potential.
List of 25 Canadian Hosting Companies with Canadian IPs
by Jeff Quipp.As should be apparent from a few of my previous blog postings (Should I use a .ca top level domain (TLD) for my Canadian site?, and Benefits of Being Recognized As a Canadian Site by Search Engines), we believe that most Canadian companies should be more diligent in ensuring that their sites are hosted on Canadian IPs otherwise without a .ca they lose out on certain advantages. In fact, do yourself a quick favour, and perform a search on Google.ca for your domain name less the www and the suffix (eg. .com), remembering to check the Pages from Canada radio button. Does your site appear? If not, using one of the hosting companies listed below will solve the problem very quickly.
Looking into the Internet Past
by Jeff Quipp.Here’s a rather interesting tool (http://www.archive.org/web/web.php) that we use frequently at SEP to see how client competitors have evolved and are evolving. To some extent, we can use it to see when a client first tried optimizing their site. Its called the WayBack Machine. Believe it or not, it’ll show you a snapshot of what many sites looked like at periodic intervals in the past.
The tool is both interesting and useful from the perspective that it often gives a good indication what a company’s product/services were at given points in time, prices for products and services over time, even when a site began its optimisation effort, and if this effort is more content focused or “links” focused.
Should I use a .ca top level domain (TLD) for my Canadian site?
by Jeff Quipp.(of course substitute .com.au in
Ahhh a question we get often, and one without a standard answer. Rather, the answer is based on your particular situation. So, take a minute to consider the questions below, and voila, you’ll have an answer.
1) Is your site on a well established domain?
Benefits of Being Recognized As a Canadian Site by Search Engines
by Jeff Quipp.
While often overlooked by the masses, Google, MSN, and Yahoo all give Canadians different search options than Americans when searching the web. Each gives some sort of preference or boost to sites deemed to be Canadian within their Canadian search results, although offer no benefits obviously for ranking in the generic .com results. This means that Canadian companies need to be diligent about ensuring that they appear in the search results of the most used engines in their home country, especially since the advantages realized do not yet appear to be offset by poorer rankings in the generic .com engines.
