Not a MetaSearch, not a Toolbar - It IS very cool - Search anything

Most major search engines discourage automated searches. Many SEO's do it for 'whatever reason'. I have yet for any SEO to prove to me that it helped their results. Maybe it's the immediate gratification of the little up and down arrows?. Of course, others derive a little affiliate commission by recommending the programs that do it :)

Free tools are now available to give your client search engine position and other information without pinging the crud out of Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Every once in a while, though, we wonder how we're doing the the 'rest of the universe'. Other search engines, blogs, photos, news and targeted search engines.

Before we re-introduce you to this very cool web-based tool, we'll warn you it can be highly addictive. Plan to spend a few days (hopefully an hour or so) playing around with it.

Be sure to click across all the links at the top. That's the magic.

Formerly know as mrsapo, you owe it to yourself to check out the latest version of this very cool website / search tool - www.intelways.com

Yahoo and Live Search both make search changes

You may have noticed some changes in both the Yahoo and Microsoft's Live search indexes in the past few days.

Last month, Yahoo made an addition to their 'siteexplorer' website submission page and literally invited dynamically produced websites to 'adjust' their pages within Yahoo's index. Early this week, posts to their public blogs indicated that another 'index shuffle' was underway and users will be seeing new generic results soon.

It's been about 5 days since MSN's Live Search went through a format change. Much more user-friendly to customize than in the past, the change was significant. Now comes word that they too are looking at the algorithm used by the MSN bots, and promising 'more relevent' results soon.

SEO's around the world, no doubt, will be watch this. Google still commands more than 50% of the user search space, with Yahoo second and MSN third.

Index shuffles in the past have brought a barrage of both kudos and complaints from marketing companies and SEO firms. As 'search' becomes more and more important to the overall worldwide advertising landscape, it'll be interesting to watch this latest search engine chapter play out over the next few weeks.

Steve Case Returns and .. another Google Satellite deal?

Briefs : Sept 25, 2007

Steve Case, who co-founded (and consistantly 'rescued') AOL, prior to the 'Time-Warner' takeover) is back. Case's new venture is striking a challenge to PayPal and Google Checkout with a new venture. More at Revolution Money.

More 'Google satellite'? Among the blog buzz overnight was the potential of Google bidding for Satellite radio provider Sirius. Sirius, stalled in it's efforts to merge with XM, has several satellites, serving North America, not only capable of instantly to Google's audio advertising platform, but the satellites themselves are capable of delivering TV AND Internet. The 'Google direct bandwidth watch' continues!

Fox goes business - Microsoft looking at Facebook

It'll be called the Fox Business Channel when the new cable / satellite channel debuts in just a few weeks. Murdoch's Fox Network will be adding yet another market segment to their portfolio with an all business channel scheduled for next month. The multi-media Fox market-mix of print, cable and Internet continues to grow.

Primary competitors in the US include CNBC (a GE company) and Bloomberg LLC, the global financial reporting company owned primarily by New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

CNBC had just completed a total website 'makeover' a few months ago.

Another significant report today claims Microsoft is looking at investing in social networking website Facebook. Facebook has been a rumored takeover target throughout it's continued evolution, and so far has resisted the temptation. There continues to be speculation that MSN (Microsoft). Yahoo or Google would at some point will vie for Facebook. The report drove Microsoft's stock on Monday.

Google on bandwidth watch - Google Satellite?

It's becoming apparent that Google no longer wants to be dependent on anyone else's fibre or wireless networks.

First came their petition with the FCC which essentially changing some of the rules for the next US wireless spectrum offer.

Last week came news of a partnered satellite launch aimed at increasing the coverage of Google Earth ..... but one could assume the satellite has a 'few extra channels'?

This morning, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the search giant could be a potential partner in a new undersea transatlantic cable.

In most cases, we could assume this is a great PR department at work. In Google's case, it's all probably true.

With their eyes now focused on Social Networking as well, it appears that Google has a keen eye on every market segment that could effect their core business (and well beyond). Add to that the fact that the two owners joined Bill Gates last week in the top 5 richest Americans list put out by Forbes, and one could come to the conclusion that Google already has their hands in the pockets of almost every American already. In our eyes, that has always been the formula for making that list.

Staying there will be the interesting part .... to be continued.

Getting your photos noticed on Yahoo and AOL - A cool 'trick'?

While a lot of websites are out there offering you free space for your photos, some of you may want to have a reason for getting them noticed.

If you're a traveler and take decent pics, try uploading a few to Flickr and AOL's photo gallery.
then put the city (and state) or 'searchable region' in the tags.

After you've established 'a little' credibility ... Take a peek at what AOL and Yahoo are doing with their Travel sections. Just wander over to 'Travel' on either portal, type in the place you took the picture, and there's a pretty decent you may see one of your photos at the bottom of the page.

AOL is still in their infancy with this so you'll probably appear much faster. Flickr has upteen photos to choose from so they need to be current and/or really good stuff ...

Going somewhere? Sometimes it's better to lose those 'travel review sites' (except ours of course :) and just wander over to Flickr and see what your destination looks like. There's a real good chance it's there ...

Google Blog Search hit with spam and Yahoo continues log-in consolidation

While finally getting around to doing some analytics and 'just search' on some client websites, I couldn't believe the amount of website scraping that is going on, mostly likely to confuse and/or have sites excluded from search engines. This is nasty business and I have no hesitation in saying "Use the search engine spam reporting tools". It's going to take all of us to keep this place clean ... if that's possible. Maybe we need a new coordinated trade organization to do just that? If one doesn't already exist, I might just promote it.

Another 'nasty', which actually resulted in one of OUR blogs being delisted, are these outrageous randomly-generated blogs filled with keywords and little or no content. Every time one gets delisted, another appears in the same space.

MSN's Live search (which just got a facelift this week) was a MESS with these blogs but seems to have made great progress. Now it's Google's blog search. Try a blog search on a competitive market on Google Blog Search and you'll see tons of these 'random blogs'. Luckily, the REAL blogs for each 'interest area' that we checked still seem to be listed at or near the top. The solution, (and yes, our "unique SEO and Tech Blogroll' will premier right here this week) is a good Blog SEO technique anyway. Link your blog to other blogs in the same interest space. Hook up on Technorati as well.

Finally lately, I think malware is probably driving me more nuts than someone who gets paid for getting rid of it (Yes, Matt Cutts). Brand new computer on our network. 2 days. Pop-up heaven.

We like ccleaner (or Crap Cleaner) .. but it's not for everyone. (Watch out for the sneaky pay-for downloads and ads that don't look like ads on their site ... and toolbars that install by default ... all of that aside, this is a GREAT tool for a quick clean-up!). Anti-virus and Adware programs still just don't cut it.

So off to the post headline ... No big secret that Yahoo, MSN, and Google have been busy on the acquisition front. They are FINALLY starting to consolidate user log-in's, further eliminating 'duplicate identities' and better 'authority' and 'trust ratings' for websites AND blogs.

The latest is MYBLOGLOG.com, one of Yahoo's better acquisitions, which moved today to 'allow' you to consolidate your log-in. One less password to remember and a more legitimate history of who actually owns what. The downside? Unfortunately, many Flickr (another Yahoo company) applications still don't recognize consolidated log-ins, so be careful when switching.

Suggestion of the week ... for what it's worth. While it may be a 'small profit center', it's time for Flickr to offer Flickr PRO for FREE. There's tons of free photo sites out there and it's probably only a matter of time before Google's Picasaweb.com begins to catch up and I doubt seriously this would be a major hit to Yahoo's bottom line ....

Finally ... our vote for the absolute best Internet recognition and integration exec of the month.
Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. Despite the intense Facebook hype lately (watch this ... Facebook IS on the move), MySpace, Fox, Fox Sports, and all of the other entities in the News Corp portfolio have been cutting cross deals with just about everyone. The Dow Jones acquisition is icing on the cake.

It's amazing to watch to major US TV networks trying to keep up ... and already making mistakes?

Enough for this post. Beautiful weekend here in the Poconos. Come on up to Pike County PA and breath some fresh air :)

-- Charlie Anzman Sept 21 2007

Canada Keywords Hot !

With the recent decline in the US dollar, we noted a unique keyword buying and marketing trend this week. CANADA.

Canadian shoppers not only make up a good portion of EBay buyers, but they also TRAVEL quite a bit in the US, vacation here, and come down to our malls to shop for the holidays.

They are used to 'high' gas prices and have been for years.

We noticed a significant increase in geo-targeting Canada this week, most actively by Real Estate companies seeking a 'fresh' market No doubt, the current exchange rate makes it much more interesting for Canadian shoppers potentially buy second homes or land here (and noone really knows how long it will last).

Other merchandisers in the US were targeting Canadians as well throughout the week in larger numbers.

It'll be interesting to see how long this trend continues.

Google to profit by Real Estate mess and Zillow gets 30 Mil

We've been watching the Internet Real Estate space lately, frankly because we put small home in the Northern Poconos on the market just before the sub-prime mortgage bomb ... and the media hype that followed.

It made the average person think the world was coming to an end?. Could OJ have rescued the Real Estate market?? :)

Certainly there were some very real factors here with many jobs lost and undetermined effects on the overall economy but we feel the media overplayed the reality, especially with the fed cut.

Very,simply, if you look at 'historic' interest rates, we're still at some of the lowest rates in 25 years?!

So the Real Estate market briefly drops dead (yes, I said briefly!) ... the 'smart guys' are out there in markets that are still JUST FINE buying stuff.

Back to the 'techie' side. An informal survey here (by us yesterday) in various parts of Pennsylvania, showed more Real Estate agents and brokers buying higher spots on Google, Yahoo, MSN, ASK and more terms and phrases than they have at any time in the past 6 years.

Proof - Your ROI is right here on the Net IF you know what you're doing. Buying keywords is an art, just like SEO. Do it right and you win. You don't need megabucks to compete with the 'big budget guys'.

Techcrunch reported today another heavy-duty round of financing for Seattle-based Real Estate start-up Zillow. We were impressed by some of Zillow's roll-out and recruiting early on.

When we began re-exploring the Real Estate Internet landscape last month, we found Zillow to be sleek, well executed and easy to use. They also had a vehicle that ensured the home you were selling was yours. Makes sense to us?.

We took both the conventional and not-so-conventional-approach to selling the house, enlisting the services of a prominant local realtor, while reserving the right to sell ourselves. We found the realtor already marketing the house on our other Real Estate website-to-watch Trulia.com (I was impressed), along with a slew of the established names (Realtor.com, etc.).

The house was NOT on Zillow, so we put it there (A little shameless self promotion, take a peek here ). We also launched a webpage (with a little very-clean White Hat SEO), which to our surprise, Google picked up in a heartbeat in a fairly competive market (Thanks Google?!).

PROOF POSITIVE of one of our earlier posts that, Google is, in fact, dynamically indexing. No more waiting for Big Daddy in a lot of cases.

Hey, if you're in a crappy market, you're going to wait. There's just no two ways about it. The search engines will make A LOT of money on Real Estate in the coming weeks.

If you're out there in a stable market, the fed just sold your house ... or soon will.

Market guru Jim Cramer predicted on CNBC.com that interest rates are coming down even more. He also had Google as No. 2 on his list of stocks that would benefit from the fed rate cut.

Say no more?