Joshua Hay is a Search Engine Marketing expert who helps clients maximise their online exposure on search engines through natural rankings and paid campaigns. Along with a degree in Information Technology majoring in Web Development, he has extensive experience in Online Marketing and is currently our Operations Manager here at E-Web Marketing. He also runs a collection of successful web-based side projects in what little spare time he manages to find!
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Over on the official Google Webmaster Blog, Google are reporting on improvements on their flash indexing technology; this is after numerous requests for it to be improved. They are now able to index all of the text that users can see as they interact with a flash file. In addition to this, they will also be able to discover URLs that appear in the files.
To find out more about this recent update, check it out at the Google Webmaster Blog.
Image via WikipediaA new deal between Google and creator of cartoons “Family Guy” and “American Dad” will see an innovative new method of syndicating original web content. A new project by Seth entitled “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy” is set to appear exclusively on the web, and the 50 two-minute episodes, featuring a cast of newly created characters, will be delivered in a very unique way.
The innovative part involves the distribution plan. Google will syndicate the program using its AdSense advertising system to thousands of Web sites that are predetermined to be gathering spots for Mr. MacFarlane’s target audience, typically young men. Instead of placing a static ad on a Web page, Google will place a “Cavalcade” video clip.
More info on the plans can be found on nytimes.com.
Since it’s launch around two years ago, Google Trends has allowed users to graph the trend in the number of searches over time for different keywords and in different locations and languages, etc. Clever people were able to use these graphs in conjunction with other tools and stats to try and estimate search volumes and compare whilst undertaking tasks such as keyword research. However, things are set to become much easier;
Now Google is giving users the ability to search across terms in its database, instantly chart how they compare to other search terms, then export the underlying numerical data into a common spreadsheet format to compare with other data.
The new features require a user to be logged in with a Google account. More info on Yahoo! News.
Microsoft has setup a deal with HP for distribution of Live Search on all HP PCs and laptops in an effort to combat Google’s deals with Mozilla and Dell.
As reported in MediaWeek, Microsoft has launched a new brand to encompass it’s expanding suite of products and services related to publishing and advertising. The announcement came on the 20th of May at “advance08″, which is Microsoft’s yearly event for executives from partnering brands and agencies.
The Microsoft Advertising brand, which will be pushed by the company’s advertiser and publisher solutions (APS) group, includes the ad serving tool Atlas, the ad exchange AdECN, the ad platform adCenter, and the in game ad firm Massive.
Brian McAndrews, Senior VP from Microsoft’s APS group also announced it has signed on companies including adidas, Coke and Paramount to begin showing display advertising on sites such as Hotmail and applications such as Windows Live Messenger.
Back in February, Facebook’s design team went to work on an overhaul to the 70 million user strong layout of the social networking site. The action came at the right time, as the once clean and simple layout that attracted users and helped with the site’s explosive growth has slowly but surely become overrun with viral applications displaying all sorts of information and images in randomised fashion. The open development platform was a blessing in terms of the growth in popularity with users, however - like most things - spammers have begun creeping in and many applications are all but useless clutter.
The revamped design is set to hit user’s screens in the next few weeks and should be all about reverting back to a cleaner and more organised layout. Features such as tabs will be tools implemented in the new design to help achieve this goal. There is also talk of seperating the user-created applications from the core features of facebook - which would be excellent. The clean layout and user-friendliness (that comes from a bit of conformity across all user’s pages) is one of Facebook’s largest points of difference against rivals MySpace who allow users to extensively customise and in most cases “uglify” their profile pages - so these design changes are a good move and not a moment too soon.
Yahoo has launched a new service called SearchScan that will indicate potentially harmful or risky sites right within the search results. The detection comes from McAfee’s SiteAdvisor technology which scans sites for unruley issues such as spyware or malware downloads in order to help protect user’s computers. If a site is flagged as containing such issues a small red line of text below the title link for the site on the search results page will warn users of the potential problems detected in an effort to deter the user from proceeding to click through. (more…)
Microsft has announced that it is walking away from it’s attempt to acquire Yahoo after raising their bid by a further US$5 Billion (around US$2 per share more than the original offer of US$31 per share). The raised bid was again rejected by Yahoo, stating that the increase to the offer was only half of what they considered to be reasonable to move forward. (more…)
Google has for this month launched a new version of Google Video that they had announced late April. Most of the key features have been redesigned, including the home page, the play page, and the landing frame for third-party videos. They now offer three different ways to view search results: by list, in a grid, and TV-style. Users can toggle between these views by clicking on the icons on the top right of the site, just above the search results and next to the results filters.Last but not least, users can now also browse some of the most popular videos from the newly updated home page.
Whilst not entirely sure of the point (seeing that they own YouTube), we think the changes are pretty cool. You can check them out at http://video.google.com.
On Monday, blogging software company Six Apart announced a shake up of its services including new offices in New York, an advertising network and consulting services. The changes, including the acquisition of creative agency Apperceptive, are part of a shift towards becoming more of a one stop shop for bloggers to publish and monetise content in order to make money online.
The company owns two well-known blogging platforms in Movable Type and TypePad, the latter being a hosted solution whilst Movable Type is a professional blogging software. They also operate a free blog hosting solution named Vox that is supported by advertising on their users’ blogs. Competition in the advertising space will come from of course Google’s AdSense, as well as large blog advertising networks such as Federated Media. The membership numbers that come from being the second largest blog software company (after WordPress) will enable Six Apart to push forward quite agressively into this arena and positioning themselves towards the top end of the earners, whilst a challenge, should not be very far out of reach. (more…)
