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Graphic Alt Tags
When it comes to Meta tags there is some debate as to whether or not they are even useful anymore. I personally include Meta tags on all of my client’s sites, knowing that they don't pull as much importance as they may have in the past. Because I am including them on the site however, I do like to put some thought and effort into them. I know that there are several "rules" as to how many keywords to optimize for per page, and how long title tags and description tags should be. I have not however, heard much about graphic alt tags...
How come I'm on top in keywords with 0 page rank?
I'm trying to figure this one out. This is my second site over 4 years and this one has only been up for a month! I did not submit the site to any search engines because I new I could accomplish that just by adding a link from my other site.
Yahoo too US centred?
Of the UK and EU dwellers am I the only one who thinks Yahoo's strategy is far more US centred than its competitors? Granted all the engines introduce their services to the US first but Yahoo takes an incredibly long time introducing these US services to the rest of the world.
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12.09.05
The Greased Pig Of Search Is About To Get Caught
 By
Jim Hedger
The greased pig of the search world is about to get caught. Apparently the pig is a prized ham after all.
Have you ever been to a greased pig catching contest? Almost twenty years ago, while hitchhiking my way across the vast Canadian prairies one youthful summer, I saw one and let me tell ya, it was better than watching donkey baseball. (another bizarre Canadian pastime. It's best not to ask too many questions at this point eh?). Ok, here's what happens. A bunch of piglets are covered in cooking oil or some other organic slippery substance. They are then put in a holding pen that opens onto a large ring. A number of young people, mostly in their late teens or early twenties gather at one end of ring and wait for the chute doors to open. By the time contest begins, many of the participants, like most of the spectators, will tend towards the drunken end of the sobriety scale having spent the summer afternoon participating in that most Canadian of pastimes, drinking down a few 24s of beer. When the chute opens and the greased pigs are released, the crowd is treated to a spectacle that can only be described as absolute mayhem. He or she who catches the most greased pigs wins.
Now, there are variations on the game, one of which was used in the filming of a lottery commercial earlier this year. In one of the more literate variations, letters are either painted on, or otherwise affixed to the pigs. The contestants then try to spell words based on the letters on their caught greased pig. That brings us to today's special game, which is brought to us by the letters, A, O, and L.
For the past three months, AOL has been acting like the greased pig of the search engine world. Each of the other major players has been trying to capture a piece of AOL but according to the breathless reporting in publications such as the Wall St. Journal, Search Engine Watch, CNet News and WebProNews, AOL has been playing each against the other. It is much easier to understand the motivation of the four-legged greased pigs than it is to figure out the game of negotiated brinksmanship AOL is playing. In the traditional country fair version of the game, the greased pigs do not wish to be caught. When such sport takes place in a boardroom owned by the greased pig however, it is somewhat reasonable for participants to assume said greased pig actually wishes to be caught. In the case of AOL's game of greased pig, appearances have often been deceiving and experiences will change during actual game play. Nevertheless, the greased pig is about to be caught and when it does, a series of events will eventually affect nearly 80% of US Internet users.
Of all the major search entities, AOL has one of the longest, most interesting and convoluted stories. It still has one of the biggest membership bases of any entity on the Internet with an estimated 97 million. It is owned and operated by the board of the Time Warner publishing empire. AOL purchased Time Warner in early 2000 in a legendary stock transfer that took place weeks before the dot-com crash removed much of the value of those shares.
The major search engines wanted AOL outright but eventually found it wasn't for sale as an entity. In late October and early November, reports surfaced suggesting Yahoo, Microsoft and Google were each trying to buy AOL away from Time Warner. Observers might have thought themselves safe in assuming the Time Warner board might approve the outright sale of the AOL arm, which has been a drag on overall operations since the firms merged in 2000. In September 2003, the company officially known as AOL Time Warner moved to distance itself from its underperforming partner by dropping the name AOL from its corporate identity.
At the time of the transfer, AOL was the largest Internet Service Provider in the United States but a series of mistakes, combined with the sudden downturn in the Internet economy pushed AOL to near obscurity in the eyes of Time Warner and most long-term Internet users. Remember the days when AOL sent hundreds of millions of unsolicited free AOL CDs to homes around the world promising a month of FREE AOL access. Many, if not most, of those CDs ended up as drink coasters, Christmas tree ornaments, unpredictable Frisbees, or, home fashioned ninja throwing stars.
Like many of the geniuses that coded before them, some of most important contributions AOL's Netscape team has made to the Internet can never be balanced in a profit and loss ledger. Before it bought Time Warner, AOL purchased the beleaguered Netscape web browser but ended up alienating loyal Netscape users by redesigning the browser in its own image in the disastrous Netscape 6.0 release in November 2000. While the 6.0 version was a resounding flop, it stands out as the first major public open-source application and is considered the predecessor of the massively popular Firefox browser. One of the least appreciated assets owned by AOL was the group of open-source programmers who developed Netscape and moved on to form the independent Mozilla Foundation .
Again, like many of those that coded before them, the power of AOL's reach was grievously underappreciated because the conditions to exercise that power had not been realized. America had not gone broadband as quickly as expected and the massive migration towards digital convergence has until this year been treated as a dot-bomb pipe dream by mainstream corporate investors. Now that over 75% of US Internet users are accessing via big-pipes, video and audio content (stuff folks will pay for) is now easily served. In short, investors see a way to easily and inexpensively get products to consumers. As anyone with a sense of history will tell ya, those who invest in transportation of goods or people tend to make a heck of a lot of money.
Read the rest of the article.
About the Author:
Jim Hedger is the SEO Manager of StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc. Based in Victoria, BC, Canada, StepForth is the result of the consolidation of BraveArt Website Management, Promotion Experts, and Phoenix Creative Works, and has provided professional search engine placement and management services since 1997. http://www.stepforth.com/ Tel - 250-385-1190 Toll Free - 877-385-5526 Fax - 250-385-1198 |
