Following the success of Google’s PageRank and other ‘rankers’, Cnet have realised news that Microsoft will release their own version website ranker called Browserank.
Google PageRank tool gathers rank from what Google feel is the most important page of a website, the quality and number of inbound links. This has been challenged by a number of SEO techniques including, paying for inbound links, reciprocal links with other websites and continues spamming of forums and blog comments, which Google have tried to include in the algorithm to still give property to actual strong websites.
Microsoft’s new Browserank tool works in a different way, it looks at the amount of time users spend browsing a page. Highlighting ‘linking’ flaws in Google’s Page rank tool such as link farms and other methods which can help push a website to the top of the listings Microsoft insist that their Browserank tool gathers the important characters of a website which makes more people want to browse, buy or leave. According to Cnet, Microsoft argues that by monitoring the actual behaviour of users on websites by browse time gives a more accurate understanding of users needs and this can be represented in their listings by using this algorithm.
What makes all these tools elementary is that none of them provide 100% accurate results of the popularity of a website, link farms can skew Google’s results, and now cloaking and open connections will be used to change the listings within Microsoft.
Even more important if there tool is used correctly what is to say that a particular website actually offers good content. A visitor on a particular ecommerce site may leave them on there for hours because of poor navigation or as simple as a user’s homepage could change listings and favour other websites and considering most UK homepages are set to BBC or Google, then Microsoft are still favouring the competition.
So if the Organic listings of the search engines can change by unethical Search Engine Optimisation techniques will this drive more traffic to the paid listings, which in the end is more money in the pockets of those search engines.
October 15th, 2007 - No Comments »
Posted in Search Engine Marketing | Tags: content strategy, google, seo
Well no one can be right 100% of the time, what looked like a Google PageRank update occurring last Friday now looks like it was just an error with one of the tools we use to track Google PageRank. However it has been a number of months since the last Toolbar PageRank export took place so we would expect the update to occur in the coming weeks.
Whilst on the subject of the toolbar PageRank, there are many and frequent discussions online about the toolbar PageRank not being of use, as it is not a true or accurate representation of what a websites actual PageRank is.
Well I have a couple of takes on this, I agree that the Google Toolbar PageRank is not accurate as it is exported approximately every three months and true PageRank is constantly evolving.
However the toolbar does give a good indication to both SEOs and website owners as to how well their websites are established within the internet community and also enables website owners to monitor, albeit very loosely, the progress of their SEOs.
August 23rd, 2007 - No Comments »
Posted in Search Engine Optimisation | Tags: google, seo
Has anyone noticed any odd changes to Google PageRank, right now?
It seriously looks like a PageRank update is occuring as I type this message.
For instance if you have the SEO for Firefox plug in, or similar and are able to view PageRank from the Google search results, perform a search for moo marketing and repeat the search a number of times, you will notice our PageRank fluctuates from 0 to 4.
So will our site update to a PageRank of 4? We have been looking at a number of other websites such as BJL, not just ours and this is occuring for many sites.
What will you be?
August 17th, 2007 - No Comments »
Posted in Search Engine Optimisation | Tags: google, seo
Currently top level domains are decided and issued by ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) and they issue them in three different categories, Country (.uk .fr .tv), Commerce (.com .biz .aero) and Institutional Organisations (.gov .mil .edu). However this may change, ICANN are meeting this week in Paris and the BBC report that they are voting on whether to open up TLD registration so that businesses and individuals can register their own TLDs. Companies could register their name or even a brand. Examples of this could be websites ending in .Microsoft or .McDonalds rather than .com.
It is rumoured that if the TLDs were released it would be at a cost in the region of $30,000 to £50,000 unless the domain is contested in which case the domain may be auctioned to the highest bidder. Dr Paul Twomey, chief executive of ICANN, told BBC News “We are doing this on a cost recovery basis. We’ve already spent $10m on this,” so it is unlikely to ever be a cheap affair.
These domains could impact online marketing including SEO and PPC in many ways. Currently Google uses a site’s TLD to geographically identify its location and possible audience, so how will search engines develop to list new TLDs alongside existing sites, could the age of a site become more important when competing with newer TLD’s? Will the TLD alone be given priority if it matches a search query?
User’s perceptions may change with them giving preference to either TLD or current domain names so it will be important to establish a strong online brand and customer base before any changes are made to reduce the impact on your website. As domains will be limited to 64 characters users may end up finding it difficult to remember each companies TLD compared to the current .co.uk or .com but brand strength and increasingly efficient search engines will surely overcome this.
As the meeting of ICANN is taking place this week hopefully in the near future there will be an announcement to clarify their intentions and outline further details.
June 25th, 2007 - No Comments »
Posted in General | Tags: google, ppc, seo
With the increase in network traffic, that Cisco predict, making sure that your website is optimised to allow users to find you and your products is even more important. Optimisation is still going to include traditional search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) but is likely to also include new advert delivery methods that are born from the shift in internet users browsing habits.
Before television, newspapers were the main source of advertising then television surpassed that. With the evolution of the internet, marketing to customers when they are looking for a product became possible but most online advertising resembled newspaper ads made from text and mainly static images. As internet users increasingly accept online videos, advertising may once again see a development from text to television style adds as the predominate advertising method. For this to occur there will have to be the ability to dynamically match the videos content, users location and demographic with the advertisers core messages and products of their adverts with software combining the media to seamlessly deliver it to the user.
Existing marketing campaign methods will surely remain at the core of future marketing plans but with new channels of communication with a potentially large audience appear new methods of marketing will have to be considered.
EDIT – 25 June 2008 – The future may be affected by the new top levels domain changes proposed by ICANN as discussed in the blog ’ICANN may shake up Top Level Domains (TLDs)’ on 25/06/08
June 24th, 2007 - No Comments »
Posted in Search Engine Optimisation | Tags: content strategy, ppc, seo
