Ok, you’ve got a brand new home online business . It looks great, has wonderful content. A smart friend of yours tells you that you need links pointed to your website. He says that this will increase your search engine rankings and get you more traffic. But, what are the realistic expectations of when you will receive these high rankings and increased traffic?

Link Building and The MSN Search Engine

First of all, you must know that all search engines are not equal. Each of the search engines have different algorithms for ranking. Also, each of the search engines have different period of times before they will "count" your links.

Good news! MSN is the fastest for "counting" your link building efforts. MSN takes about 21-30 days to "count" your backlinks. So, for your brand new website, start here and try to rank on MSN first. Also, MSN seems to "count" just about any type of link, relevant or not. So, you could go out and get 1000 links from a really bad link building service and get high ranks on MSN. Although, we do not recommend it and you will find out why later in this article.

How To Check Backlinks On MSN
To check your backlinks on MSN (which is very accurate by the way), go to http://www.msn.com and type in link: and your full website url.

Link Building For The Yahoo Search Engine

On Yahoo, you must have more patience…a lot more patience. Links start to get "counted" in 60-90 days, however, the full weight of a backlink is not counted for 8 months. So, if you want to rank on Yahoo, make sure that the links you are getting will last for at least 9 months.

Yahoo does not seem to pay close attention to relevance at this time. But, it does count how popular the website is that gave you the link. An easy way to measure the link popularity of a website is to get the Google toolbar and look at the PageRank (higher the better). We are nearly certain that Yahoo will be putting more weight on how relevant the website is to yours that is linking to you in 2006. (i.e. Is the content similar in nature? Real Estate website linking to a real estate website would be a good thing)

How To Check Backlinks On Yahoo
Checking your backlinks on Yahoo is the same as MSN. Please keep in mind that Yahoo seems to report only 1/2 as many links as MSN does (or less). Also, it will take 60-90 for your link to appear (some links will appear faster based on link popularity of the website). To check your backlinks, go to Yahoo and type in link:http://www.yourwebsite.com

Google Link Building

You are going to need more than patience with Google. These guys are wicked smart. For starters, do not expect any new website to rank for a medium to hard keyword phrase for at least 14 months. Now, with that out of the way, let’s talk about link building. Due to the Jagger update in November 2005, Google no longer likes reciprocal links (where you give a link to get a link). Google no longer likes link directory links (usually categorized and your link is mixed in with 20 or more links). Google does not like it when you get too many links too fast (the rate differs for each vertical market).

So, what does Google like? Google likes:

One way links (or 3 way link trades, no reciprocal links)
Permanent links
Relevant links
Differring anchor text

After your website has been around for 14 months, you can expect your links to be partially counted (as long as you didn’t get them too fast for your vertical market). Any new links that you get that are one-way and relevant should be partially counted within 90 days. We do not know how long until the link is fully counted because it depends on the vertical market that you website is in.

How To Check Backlinks On Google
Attention: Google will only show a small random sampling of your backlinks.

Checking your backlinks is the same as the other search engines. Google typically shows about 1/10 (or less) of a websites true backlinks using the link: command. To check your backlinks, go to Google and type in link:http://www.yourwebsite.com

For more information on getting your home online business ranked well on search engines please visit our site. We have a whole section set up just for search engine ranking.

http://home-online-business.com

Visit http://home-online-business.com for more information on search engine ranking. Learn to start and succeed at your home online business.

Google is planning to continue it’s digitizing of all the books in the world and make them searchable on their databases. They have come under fire due to copyright infringement, but the project is going to move ahead with books, which are out of print and old literary works.

Many authors are concerned that they will inadvertently violate their copyrights and put their books online too. In fact there have been a few boo boos which started the ball rolling on lawsuits; one by Penguin books and one class action lawsuit by the authors. Google continues to remain focused on the project wishing to collect all those books already in the public domain.

Google is planning on spending over 200-million on the project and will work with the New York Public Library and several top colleges and Universities such as Stanford and Harvard and Oxford in the UK. The project could take until 2015 to complete, but they are moving forward on it. Google indicated that 80% of the out of print books being scanned for placement into their data bases were very hard to get a hold of for the public.

Microsoft and Yahoo also are working on a similar project and have some heavy hitters helping them. There are many Universities with very workable systems, which they will model these off of. Bill Gates’ himself is quite interested in this, as if you will recall one of his earliest projects was the Encarta digital encyclopedia.

All in all, this is very good news for mankind, however many authors feel as if they will have some ruffled feathers before it is all over. Indeed that may be so, although only time will tell. Maybe Gates’ micro payments idea on emails and later on the Internet could have solved this problem and unfortunate eventuality before this issue had appeared? Perhaps it may remain all free in the future.

This is a fascinating evolution and one to keep an eye on, as it has the workings of something very good for all concerned. Think on this.

"Lance Winslow" - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

For me personally, Wordtracker.com is not just a tool for looking up keywords. Sure, that’s one good use for it, but what I want to distinguish is another influential and exciting use for Wordtracker as an SEO resource.

"Keywords" for use in your Meta tags are probably the least influential element in search engine optimization these days. However, hunting for keywords still seems the most popular use for Wordtracker. After all, it contains over 336 million queries within its database, which is no older than 60 days. An SEO can spend long periods of time doing research and hunting for keywords. But let’s really try and get our minds around the keyword hunting issue for a minute, and I’ll explain a few other tips for using Wordtracker.

Identify your target audience’s "surfing behavior" Is there any greater discovery than having an understanding of a target audience’s "surfing behavior?" It’s like a light coming on in your mind. It’s like flipping on a switch to an idea generator! Wordtracker will give you absolutely AMAZING detail if you take time to think about it laterally and outside of the context of just a "keyword hunt."

Later in this article, I’ll explain how you can use WordTracker to identify your audience’s surfing behavior.

Move beyond the "keyword universe" function.

In speaking with many search engine optimizers, I have learned that so many seem to get stuck in the "Keyword Universe" feature. The ability to generate lists of keyword phrases using the built in thesaurus is nice, but you must not get stuck there and let it do all the thinking for you. As you move on to discover other features within Wordtracker, you will also have the opportunity to perform a "comprehensive search" or an "exact search" or utilize the "top 1000" report.

Tips to identify human behavior?

Where you’ll find most of your "revelations" or "insights" are in the "comprehensive search" feature of Wordtracker. Try entering one part of a search phrase and letting "comprehensive search" figure out the best "full use" of the phrase. Another technique I like to use is to examine the top reports for a "high performance" keyword or topic related to my client and then cut and paste it into comprehensive search to get streams of currently "hot topics." I define a hot topic as a popular topic in high demand, which may also have lists of related keyword phrases also in high demand.

Let’s study a real life example . . .

Now let me give you a recent example of understanding behaviors. I wanted to pull additional traffic into a site selling baby furniture. The site sells strollers, baby furniture, cribs and other baby products. The client explained that they wanted me to find ways to pull in their true audience. Sometimes you’ll discover the true audience is not what it first may seem. By true audience….I mean "targeted audience" or the folks most likely to "BUY" or "respond" to the Web site.

If you just think only in "keywords" mode, you may miss this.

Performing a comprehensive search within Wordtracker by typing in the word "baby," Wordtracker returns interesting results. Do you know what I learned? The target audience for baby strollers is NOT people who have babies! You heard correct. The "true audience" for those buying strollers and baby cribs ARE NOT "folks who have NEWBORN BABIES!" Here is the catch….if you are targeting folks with newborns, to sell them a stroller….you’re too late! The true audience are people who are "soon to become parents."

Once Mom and Dad know a new family member is on the way, they start buying BEFORE the baby arrives. Better yet…often it’s not even the parents who are buying…it’s the grandparents. Perhaps you have pages scoring tremendously well for things like babies, strollers, cribs and baby furniture…… but now your client wants even more.

Here’s an example strategy:

One behavior of the true target audience which I discovered by using Wordtracker was as follows. As I entered the term "baby" into "comprehensive search," the first thing I noticed was the top phrase "baby names" which had been requested on major search engines over 34,350 times in the last 60 days. It became very obvious when I noticed the incredibly high demands on major search engines for the phrase "baby names," or how about "meanings of baby names."

This was indeed like a light coming on! I thought, imagine this, "soon to be parents" are researching their unborn child’s name by using the Internet. What better time to connect with folks than before the baby is born.

Finally, build a strategy based on the identified behavior

Suppose we were to build a little library of themed pages right into your client’s site to attract the TARGET audience. They are searching for baby names so it is essential that this is what you MUST give them. Give them lists of baby names to choose from, right? Don’t ever trick your audience or they will simply never buy. Give them exactly what they are looking right up front. In this example, you could create pages that offer baby names and meanings of baby names AND subtly offer a few product listings or links to your client’s store front. It is essential that you always provide content related to their search first, and then you might offer some links to other appropriate products within your client’s site.

Test these unique ways for using Wordtracker yourself, and learn how effective they can be.

Good luck!

About The Author

John Alexander is the Co-Director of Training of Search Engine Workshops with Robin Nobles. Together, they teach 2-day beginner, 3-day advanced, and 5-day all-inclusive "hands on" search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe. John also teaches online search engine marketing courses through http://www.onlinewebtraining.com, and he’s a member of Wordtracker’s official question support team.

john@searchengineworkshops.com

In the world of online marketing and business it seems that people face more and more pressure everyday to want to improve their link popularity. Everyone is constantly fiddling around trying to swap links with other webmasters. Link swapping is good to a point, but there are reasons why it could hurt you and your website.

First off, it can become so addictive. One morning you are running your reports and you see all of those inbound links going into your site. You scream, jump, and act like a 2 year old because you are so happy.This feeling will lead you to even more link swapping. Now it is not all bad, just pace yourself and do not become a “swap addict.” Just relax and ask yourself a few questions. Do you want these links coming into your website? Why do you want these links coming in? Is all because you want to increase your link popularity? Find the definition to these questions before you jump into deep.

Another reason why it can hurt you is, that it can take up so much time. The last time you went out searching for a link, how long did it take you? Well, if it did not take you very long, then how was the quality of the link you received? Take your time researching the websites that are relevant to yours. Locate the ones that provide a contact link. You can then proceed to putting yourself together a nice email to the owner asking to link with them. By all means do not use software to link with the owners. People think it is faster this way, and truthfully, it is. That is not genuine. Is that how you treat your website, without genuine interest. Be smart, trade with the right people, and good things will come.

A third reason on why swapping links can hurt is that you may end finding yourself spending too much time at other people’s websites. All the time spent researching and creating links could have been used for creating valuable content for your readers. Is that not why you created the website? If you created the website just in a sense that you wanted to make money from, then you will probably find out that it is going to be a bumpy road. Give something valuable away, like information that people are interested in and everything else will eventually fall into place.

My last reason why link swapping could hurt you is that you probably do not have enough money to beat the system. What do I mean? Okay, you are out there swapping links with everyone you can find, but did you forget about the term “relevancy”. Having links is only one part of optimization. Understand that there are tons of terms that determine your rankings. If you are gaining links that are of no relevancy, then, trust me, you will not beat the system. Those people at the top of search engines are way smarter than you will ever will be. Why would I say that? Because, you have learned to gain links with relevancy and they have learned how you found those links, the relevancy of the link, and the purpose of your website. If you do things in a non-professional manner, then you can face penalties, or quite possibly a banning. Then what will you do? The search engines are constantly changing and improving their ways to “sniffing people out.” They have millions of dollars to aid them in their cause and you do not. To be a professional, you have to act like one. The internet’s game of “marketing” is all about keeping the balance. If you are doing things that could possibly tip that balance, then you are bound to fall off sooner or later.

Ralph Ruckman is the Author of: "Enable The World" http://www.enableworld.com An Information Hub For People Seeking Articles And Information On Specific Topics

One fine morning I thought of writing an article on Google’s re-inclusion plan. I remembered some WebPages of a web forum where I had discussions regarding this. Least to say my C class IP was banned in the forum for almost no fault of mine. My urgency to access the forum page prompted me to use GYM cache. I typed: "cache:(Page URL)"in Google to get the forum page. This was one use of GYM cache but there are plenty more.
Other uses of GYM cache:

1. To check the outdated content of an updated page: Keeping track of pages which keep updating every single day with useful and selected info. It is sad that the info gets overwritten the very next day but using GYM cache I can sometimes get up to three outdated versions of the page. Google gives me yesterday’s version; Yahoo gives the day before yesterday’s version and MSN generally three to four days earlier version of the page.
2. To understand cloaking: Webmasters can do this to check the genuineness of their online partners, as partnership with black hats makes you one of them (at least in form of GYM).
3. To get deleted pages’ info: You can get the info of a deleted page if cached once up to a month of time. This proved very useful for me. I searched in GYM and got a link under SERPs which led to a 404 page. I hated it the most as I thought I got what I wanted. I checked the cache and got the page which GYM indexed. Cool, isn’t it?
4. To view site when server is down: Sometimes when the server is down for a site you can use the GYM cache to view the site.
5. To view pages when server is slow: Some servers take a long time so avoid the server and use GYM cache for a faster experience.
6. T access websites which exceeded its bandwidth limit: "The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit? Please try again later". Use GYM cache to read the page.

There are other uses as well but I guess I have already made my point clear through these that nothing is useless especially when it is provided by Internet giants GYM (Google-Yahoo-MSN). Now I am going back to prepare the article on re-inclusion plans of GYM.
Have a great day!

Norah

Norah is a moderator for Hedir.com , a community review based directory. Hedir offers both free and paid submissions; it is preferred by many over dmoz for its community participation review system. She also introduced a point based advertisement bidding service for hedir.

We all know that the search engines can’t “see” or “read” the graphics on our pages. We also know that we need to provide text on a page, so the spiders will have something to crawl and index.

After all, we have to prove to the search engines without a shadow of a doubt that our pages are about what we say or claim they’re about if we want to achieve top rankings. That’s why I believe so strongly in focusing each page on one single keyword phrase only. As soon as a spider hits a page, I want the spider to know exactly what that page is about.

But, many sites out there are graphic intense, often by virtue of their very nature. The sites may sell prints, wallpaper, pictures, graphics, or posters. Or, the sites may sell hats, for example, so that each page is full of pictures of a particular type of hat.

Many Web site owners don’t want to add text to those pages, because they want to highlight exactly what they’re selling. They’ve created the site with their audience in mind, which is as it should be. After all, when visitors stop by a wallpaper site, they want to see loads of pictures of the different wallpaper samples. They don’t want to read about them!

So, being careful to adhere to Google’s Guidelines that prohibit hiding text, what options do we have with our graphic-intense site?

Let’s look at some possible solutions.

1. Can you put visible text above or below the graphics on the page? If so, this is your best solution, because you’re giving the engines some content to crawl.

Simply add a paragraph of content above the graphics, and then a paragraph or two of content below the graphics. Make sure the content focuses on your keyword phrase and that it describes the page accurately.

If you don’t want to add a full paragraph of content above the graphics, try adding a heading tag containing your keyword phrase. Then, add content beneath the graphics.

The bottom line is: you want to start the page with text if at all possible, not graphics.

2. Be creative! Can you add descriptive text about each graphic under or beside the graphic? Can you add little “Tips” or “More Info” boxes on the page that contain valuable information for your users and keyword-containing text for the engines? Can you include testimonials from happy customers that will add valuable keyword-containing content to your page?

3. Leave your existing graphic-intense pages the way they are, and create some new text-based interior pages that are full of valuable content related to your graphics. Pull in traffic through those pages, and provide text links to your pages full of graphics. Be sure to use your important keyword phrase in the link text that links to the pages of graphics.

Keep in mind that these new pages are interior pages, which means that they should provide a link to other pages on your site, and your site should provide a link back to those pages. If you’ve done your homework right, these new pages are providing value to your users, therefore providing value to the search engines, so there’s no reason why you wouldn’t want to link to these new interior pages.

Can you use redirects from the text-based pages to the pages of graphics? I highly recommend not doing so. The engines have never been fond of redirects for one thing. But, even if your redirects aren’t “sneaky” (as Google says in their Guidelines), if you don’t use text links with the keyword phrase in the link text, you’re missing out on one of the most valuable search engine optimization strategies available to you: using your keyword phrase in link text pointing to your pages.

4. You can leave your existing graphic-intense pages as they are, and instead concentrate on “off page” factors such as building link popularity to those pages and making sure that the pages linking to the graphics pages use link text that contains your important keyword phrase. In other words, you can work on your “link reputation.”

After all, you can compete with the big boys using almost any strategy that is detrimental to search engine rankings if your link popularity and link reputation is strong enough, and if the sites linking to you describe your site using your important keyword phrase.

By “strong” enough, I mean that the links should be from popular, authoritative sites in your topic area. Sheer numbers aren’t what we’re after here. We’re after links from popular and authoritative sites in our topic area. We’re also after links that use our important keyword phrase in the link text describing our pages.

In Conclusion

Though the best solution is to add text to your pages of graphics, sometimes you (or your client) won’t want to go that route. They may want to keep the existing pages just as they are.

In those situations, it’s important to have some “Google friendly” solutions that will give you the best chance at achieving top rankings for your pages, while making sure that you’re following the guidelines as stated by Google.

About The Author

Robin Nobles is the Co-Director of Training of Search Engine Workshops with John Alexander. They teach 2-day beginner, 3-day advanced, and 5-day all-inclusive "hands on" search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe. She also teaches online search engine marketing courses through http://www.onlinewebtraining.com, and she’s a member of Wordtracker’s official question support team. With partner John Alexander, she’s co-authored a series of e-books called, "The Totally Non-Technical Guides to Having a Successful Web Site." And, they opened a networking community for search engine marketers called The World Resource Center for Search Engine Marketers.

robin@searchengineworkshops.com

For a number of years now, linking has been an important part of ranking well in the serps, especially for se’s like Google. At first it was generally acceptable to acquire links from nearly any site, regardless of whether it had any related content.

As Google began to place more importance on links pointing to your site, it became necessary to ensure that other sites linking to yours had related content and a fairly good Google Page Rank. Webmasters everywhere began reciprocal linking campaigns and found the process to be very tedious and time-consuming. To answer the call for something more efficient, software programs were developed which had the ability to automate much of the reciprocal linking process, saving considerable time for other things.

These programs for the most part, had a short life-span because Google frowned heavily on using automated programs to acquire links. It developed more sophisticated algorithms to sniff out sites that were engaged in automated reciprocal linking strategies and penalize them. Google’s philosophy seems to be - "grow your site slow. Build sites that contribute something valuable to their engine’s return pages. Ad quality content slowly . . . add back-links gradually."

It seems that if your intention is to follow Google’s guidelines simply for the sake of increasing Page Rank quickly, you’re going to have trouble.

Today, we find ourselves faced with even more stringent guidelines for acquiring back-links. Google is now taking a more sophisticated view of things. Sites that naturally acquire back-links without any reciprocity are the ones being rewarded the most for their efforts. This shift to tighten things up even further has spawned the buzz-term, "link bait." Link bait simply refers to a web site that has done such an excellent job of adding valuable content for it’s visitors that other web sites are linking to it without being asked to, simply because they want their visitors to enjoy the added content of the site they have linked to. This seems to be Google’s definition for "natural linking." As you can well imagine, this slows the whole process of increasing Page Rank even further.

So where does that leave us today? If you are limited as to what you can do to influence Page Rank by only acquiring back-links naturally, what else, if anything, can you do to speed up the process without sounding an alarm with the se’s? Well, fortunately for us, adding valuable content does not necessarily just mean to the pages of our site alone. There are several other ways to get people to add a link to your site from theirs.

Article Writing

One of the fastest ways to acquire links is to write and submit articles based around the knowledge you have of your sites theme and submit them to Article Directories such as - www.articles.com & www.goarticles.com . You can usually add a certain number of articles to their data base for free and after that there is a nominal charge for submission. Other webmasters who are looking for valuable content to add to their pages that don’t feel they can write very well themselves are happily picking-up articles from these directories to add to their sites. In the guidelines for using articles from these sites is that webmasters must include the authors by-line in the article. If you include a link to your site in your by-line, then you will naturally acquire much needed back-links.

The only draw-back to this method is that you have no control over which sites pick-up your articles. Not being able to control this factor leaves some authors worried about their articles being posted on sites which may be considered ‘bad neighborhoods.’ My own feeling about this is that for every ‘bad neighborhood’ site that posts your article, you’ll get a back-link from 10 sites that aren’t since the whole point of adding valuable content is compliant with the se’s in the first place.

I once wrote 2 articles with a pet theme and submitted them to only 2 article directories. The results over the next few months were astounding! A quick search in the se’s using my name or the article name revealed 100’s of sites that had added my articles.

Not only will this method of acquiring back-links help but you’ll find that you’ll become regarded as an ‘expert’ on the web over time, in your particular field.

Article Swap/Bartering

In some cases, if you have written some excellent articles, you may be able to find another web master who is willing to trade for some advertising space on his site. You provide him or her with several articles to post for his visitors and he in-turn would allow you some space to advertise your own web site. Or perhaps the webmaster has articles of his own that you could swap, thus adding much needed fresh content while at the same time adding a valuable back link for both of you.

Press Releases.

A Press Release is a great way to attract almost instant attention and get exposure by announcing your business to news wire services all over the globe. Every news wire service that picks up your Press Release and adds it to their RSS feed means a back-link for you. So here, not only are you creating an opportunity to share with others the announcement of your new business, but you’re also indirectly going to boost your web linking popularity as well. I use the service provided by the folks at www.prweb.com . They will actually let you send a limited exposure Press Release for free if you can’t afford to pay. The more money you contribute, the greater the exposure your Press Release will get, as well as some other added features.

Take some time to learn how to draft a great Press Release, after all, it is going to be looked at by journalists all over the world. It has to be newsworthy and it has to have appeal to as broad an audience as possible.

Directories

Some say the days of directories being regarded as quality back links is all but over. I disagree. In fact, with the emphasis being placed on quality one-way linking, it has never been more important to consider the value of adding your site to some quality directories, even if that means paying a small fee to submit. I have included a list of some of the more affordable, yet still valuable directories for you to check out. Fees vary from $14 to $300. Do what you can afford for now and as you can add your site to some of the more expensive ones, do so. Make sure you are very careful to follow submission guidelines. Directories like Dmoz.org will not tolerate any submission that doesn’t follow their particular guidelines. It is very important to ensure that your site is listed in the most relevant category in a given directory. If you can’t find the right category, try contacting the author and ask that they add a new category that fits your site properly description-wise.

http://dmoz.org/
http://dir.yahoo.com/
http://www.joeant.com/
http://www.skaffe.com/
http://www.bluefind.com/
http://www.zeal.com/
http://www.goguides.org/
http://www.gimpsy.com/
http://www.wowdirectory.com/
http://www.sevenseek.com/
http://www.thisisouryear.com/
http://search.looksmart.com/

Site "Stickiness"

As we mentioned earlier, we use this term to describe a web site that has done such a great job of providing useful content in a simple to access that other sites will simply want to add a link to it for their own visitors to enjoy. Sites like these don’t have to worry much about making an effort to add back links because it just happens for them. This is ‘natural linking’ at it’s finest and if you can build a site with a popular theme and add fresh content on a regular basis that is useful and holds the visitors attention , then you’ll enjoy the benefits of hundreds of back links without even trying to find one.

Brad Knell is an search engine optimization consultant and owner of Better Search Solutions. He is also the author of several articles relating to seo and web promotion. Visit his website at http://www.bettersearchsolutions.com.

Why and how much Google is Getting Important, either you are Businessman, Doctor, Engineer, Software Professional, SEO or Housewife, you tend to google every time. Google is more or less an integral part of our online life now. Google has become the biggest brand on internet, it’s still a seven year old kid and has surpassed young and healthy fellows like Microsoft and Yahoo!

Google Means the World! Google means everything for almost everybody, you ask from it, it’ll serve you with the best. Google People intent to capture all World’s Information at one single platform, one can guess how big they aim to be! Thought Google hasn’t get 10% of its Goal but still it’s the Biggest Online Database. It serves to everybody including Businessmen, Visitors, Professionals and Competitors as well.

1. To Visitors: Google is their Genie, which can serve them anything they want without spending any penny.
2. To Business Owners and Advertisers: Google is their God father, which provides them immense quality traffic every moment.
3. To Competitors: Google is their Teacher, which sets new Trends, it’s competitors try to follow the same way as it does, try to learn from Google.

Google Loyalty! Google is basically a Search Engine that has built enormous Loyalty with its Visitors through its consistent quality, reliability, innovation and simplicity. Whatever Google is going to experiment, people already trust that it’s going to be big and very reliable. That’s why thousands of people get dependent on Google.

Google to Follow! Well, it’s not easy to follow Google’s way, because Google always believes on Research and Innovations, how can it be restricted to Search only? It had started Testing and Launching New Services and Tools for better user Experiences. Its BETA Launched Services and Tools got Mega Success and surprised big players like Microsoft and Yahoo!

Secret of Google Success! David C. Drummond, Google’s Vice President, Corporate Development, according to him there are four factors as the key to Google’s success:

1. Technology: Along with its innovative approach to page ranking, Google is a purpose-built hardware company, building all its own servers from components it buys directly for their manufacturers. According to Drummond, Google now operates the world’s largest distributed computer system.
2. Business Model Innovation: By perfecting the nature of targeted ads, Google not only has created a highly effective revenue generator, it has produced what it hopes to be a better experience for its users. It is Google’s goal to make their targeted ads at least as relevant and useful to users as the search results themselves.
3. Brand: According to Drummond, a European study recently determined Google to be the number one most recognized worldwide brand. Indeed, Google has become a verb ("I can’t wait to get home and Google him") which poses real challenges to a company seeking to protect the strength of its mark.
4. Focus on the User Experience: Product decisions at Google are driven by optimizing for the user experience first and for revenue second. The folks at Google firmly believe that the better the user experience, the more easily money will follow.

Google Info The Google name was chosen to represent the gigantic amount of material available on the Web. It comes from "googol" the number 1 followed by 100 zeros. For more http://www.google.com/intl/en/about.html

Google History Google was created by two Stanford students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. In 1996, they developed BackRub, a search engine that analyzed the "Back Links" the number of web links that pointed to that page. With an investment from Andy Bechtolsheim, a Sun founder, and others, Google Inc. was founded in September 7, 1998. For more http://www.google.com/corporate/history.html

Google Tools and Services Google has launched dozen of Desktop and Web Tools and Services, though majority of services and tools are still beta but they are very effective, here is a list of google tools and services http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/

About Author Asif Iqbal is a Researcher, SEO, Trainer, Speaker and Author, specializes in branding and promotion, founder of http://www.5icreations.com Pakistani SEO Outsourcing Company that outsource to US, UK, Canada and Australia. He can be reached at asif@asif-iqbal.com

The first task most netizens do when they log on to the internet is to visit their favorite search engine to find information on various topics. Over the past few years the search engine has evolved to do more than list available websites on an entered subject. The modern day search engine has tools to help the user accomplish a vast array of everyday task.

Search engine is a common term to describe a tool used to find relevant webpages on an entered subject. But, there are actually two types of search engines, the indexers like Google and Alta Vista that actually search the internet based on keywords, and the directories like Yahoo and Exactseek which provides a list of sites based on predefined categories. These two types of search engines provide the bulk of searches requested by users.

These engines help the user find everything from small sites like RecoveryPets.Com, who specialize in the global recovery of lost pets, located at http://www.recoverypets.com, or larger sites like WebMD who provide medical information for patients and doctors, and their website is http://www.webmd.com. But, these are just the basic services that these engines provide, and the everyday web surfer relies on the more advance features to successfully navigate the web.

Directories such as Yahoo that offer services for every age group of surfer, from chat groups to their find people services aimed at helping the surfer locate people they have not been in contact with for awhile. They also provide discussion groups to relate ideas with others that may share the surfers interest, and mail free mail services so that everyone on the internet can have a email address.

Indexers like Google provides their uses with a vast array of tools also, and the most used of these is their groups section that enable others to share ideas on different subjects and topics. The newest of these services offered by this indexer is Froogle, which is an online merchant center that allows users to find various products listed within their service, and finally is their images that allow you to enter a search term and view only the images of the term entered.

These search engines are user friendly so that the most novice of internet users can successfully navigate the web, and the most savvy internet surfers can use their advance features to accomplish the task they set out to do. Even though these are the most known search engines, there are thousands of smaller engines that are user specific on everything from family to travel planning, it is up to you to support these engines so that they can continue bring us the services we use.

Although this is just a small listing of the services provided by search engines, and every engine is different, we suggest that a wide variety of engines be visited to find out the services they provide. As is evident the modern day search engine has evolved greatly from just a site listing service, and with time they will be able to bring searchers more services that aid the everyday netizen in the quest to navigate the internet more efficiently.

Thaddeus Collins is the owner of RecoveryPets.Com and they specialize in the global recovery of lost pets using a unique tracking number. For more information visit http://www.recoverypets.com

In September of 1999, Brett Tabke wrote "26 Steps to 15k a Day" in the Webmaster World forum. A lot has changed since then, and now is the time to consider a new 26-step plan that meets the current needs of webmasters in 2006. Some of the old ones still apply (writing new content everyday, for example), and some don’t (submitting to the search engines is no longer necessary), and we’re here to tell you which is which! As you probably already know, bringing in traffic is not easy - it takes hard work, determination and lots of elbow grease. So if you’re ready, roll up your sleeves and follow these 26 simple steps, and within just one year you will generate enough traffic to keep you busy for a long, long time!

A) Keyword research
Before you do anything else, use a keyword research tool and do an extensive job researching the right keyphrases to use for your site. What keyphrases are your direct competitors using? Are there any keyphrases that create a potential for market entry? Are there any that you can put a spin on and create a whole new niche with?

B) Domain name
If you want to brand your company name, then choose a domain name that reflects it. If your company is Kawunga, then get www.kawunga.com. If it’s taken, then get www.kawungawidgets.com. No dashes, and no more than two words in the domain if appropriate.

C) Avoid the sandbox
Buy your domain name early, as soon as you have chosen your keyphrases and your company name. Get it hosted right away and put up a quick one page site saying a little about who you are, what you sell, and that there will be more to come soon. Make sure it gets crawled by Google and Yahoo (either submit it or link to it from another site).

D) Create content
Create over 30 pages of real, original content on your site. This will give the spiders something to chew on. It will also give you more opportunities to been seen in the search engine results for a wide variety of keyphrases.

E) Site design
Use the "Keep It Simple" principle. Employ an external CSS file, clean up any Java Scripts by referring to them off the page in an external file, don’t use frames, use flash the way you would an image, and no matter what, do not create a flash site. Do not offer a busy site with lots of bells and whistles to your visitors. Keep things nice and simple. Make it easy for them to find what they are looking for and they’ll have no reason to look anywhere else.

F) Page size
The less kilobytes your page uses, the better - especially for the home page. Optimize your images and make sure the page loads quickly. Most people and businesses in the Western world may have high speed, but cell phones and other countries might not. If your site loads slowly, you may have already lost your visitor before they’ve even had a chance to browse around.

G) Usability
Make sure that your site follows good usability rules. Remember that people spend more time on other sites, so don’t violate design conventions. Don’t use PDF files for online reading. Change the colours for visited links, and use good headers. Look up usability for more tips and tricks, it will be worth your while.

H) On site optimization
Use the keyphrase you have chosen in your title (most important), your headers (when appropriate), and within the text. Make sure that your page/content is ABOUT your keyphrase. If you are selling widgets, than write about widgets. Don’t just stick the word widgets into the text.

I) Globals
Globals are the links that remain the same on every page. They are the reference for new visitors to keep them from getting lost. Sometimes they are on the left of the page, sometimes they consist of tabs at the top. Often they are in the footer of the page as well. Make sure that you have an old style text version of your globals on every page. I usually create tabs at the top, and put the text versions in the footer at the bottom of the page. Find out what works best for you.

J) Headers
Use bold headers. On the Internet, people scan they don’t read. So initially, all they will see are the headers. If your headers don’t address their concerns, they won’t stick around long enough to read your content. Use appropriate keyphrases when you can.

K) Site map
Build a site map with a link to each of your pages. Keep it up to date. This will allow the spiders to get to every page. Put a text link to the site map on the main pages.

L) Content
Add a page every 2-3 days: 200-500 words. Create original content, don’t copy others. The more original and useful it is, the more people will read it, link to it, and most importantly of all - like it enough to keep coming back for more.

M) White hat only
Stay away from black hat optimizing techniques. Black hat optimization consists of using any method to get higher rankings that the search engines would disapprove of, such as keyword stuffing, doorway pages, invisible text, cloaking and more. Stick to white hat methods for long-term success. People who use black hat optimization are usually there for the short-term, such as in porn, gambling, and Viagra markets (just look at your email spam for more black hat markets). These black hat industry sites are usually around just long enough to make a quick buck.

N) Competition analysis
Who is linking to your competition? Use Yahoo’s "link:" service to see the back links of your competition. For example, type in "link:http://www.yourdomain.com" into Yahoo search without the quotes). Try to get links from the same sites as your direct competitors. Better yet, see if you can replace them!

O) Submit
Submit to five groups of directories:

1. Dmoz.org and Yahoo (local, such as Yahoo.co.uk, or Yahoo.ca, etc… if you can).
2. Find directories in your field and get into them. Pay if you must, but only if the price is reasonable.
3. Local directories that relate to your country or region.
4. Any other directories that would be appropriate.
5. If you are targeting the local market, make sure that you are in the Yellow Pages and Superpages (because search engines use these listings to power local searches)
P) Blog Start a blog about your industry and write a new entry at least once a week. Allow your visitors to comment or, better yet, write their own entries. This will create even more content on your site and will keep people coming back regularly to see what is new.

Q) Links from other sites
Simply submit your website to appropriate sites, asking that they link to your site as a reference because it will benefit their visitors. Don’t spend too much time on this, if your content is good and original, they will find you and link to you naturally. Remember that Linking is Queen (www.redcarpetweb.com/promotion/0409.html#feature).

Stay away from reciprocal linking, links farms, link scams, and any other unnatural links. They may not necessarily hurt you, but Google tracks when you get a link, how long you have had a link, who links to the site that links to you, where you live, what you had for breakfast, and more (not really… but kind of).

R) Statistics
Make sure your server has a good statistics program. Use it! If you don’t have access to a good program, then pay for one. Without the knowledge of who is coming to your site, from where, and how often, you will be missing out on some essential tools to improve your site.

S) Pay-per-click (PPC)
Sign up for Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing. Spend money getting people to your site. Use it for branding too. This will create a steady flow of visitors to your site, and will make your site more accessible to your potential clients. You don’t have to be #1, you don’t even have to be #5… just make sure you are on the first page of search results for most of your keyphrases, when the cost is right.

T) Look ahead
Stay informed of what is coming up in your market. If a new product will be out next season, write about it now. Take advantage of being a first mover. The search engines, and linkers, will reward you.

U) Articles
Write an article once every week and get it published in as many online publications as you can (with a link back to your site). Include the article on your site. Not only will this create many links to your site, but it will also get people to click to your site, and most importantly you will become an expert in the eyes of your visitors. They may even begin looking for your site by querying your name!

V) Study your traffic
After 30 to 90 days you will have enough results to analyze in your statistics program. Go over them with a fine toothed comb. Get the answers to these questions:

- Where are your visitors coming from?
- Which search engines do they use?
- What queries do they type in?
- What pages on your site do they visit the most?
- What are the entry pages on your site?
- What are the exit pages?
- What path do they follow when they browse your site?

Use this information to tweak your site.

- Use the most popular page to encourage the visitors to make you money.
- Adjust the paths they use to send them where you want them.
- Figure out why they leave from the exit pages.

Also, see what search terms people use to find you, and fine tune your keyphrases. If you targeted "green widgets", but your visitors are finding you with the query "green leather widgets", then start creating content about "leather widgets"!

W) Verify your submissions
After 3-4 months, check that you got into Dmoz.org and all of the other directories that you submitted to. If you have not been included, then submit again, or better yet, write a polite email to the editor and ask why. Also, find any new directories that would be worthy of your submittal time and submit to them.

X) RSS feeds
RSS (Real Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) is becoming a powerful tool for Internet marketers. You can quickly and easily add fresh content to your website. Article feeds are updated frequently, so you can give your visitors (and the search engines) what they want - fresh content! You can use RSS to promote any new content, such as new pages, articles, blogs, press releases, and more!

Y) Press releases
A press release is a written communication that you submit to journalists in the media (newspapers, radio, television, magazines) which are used to make announcements that are newsworthy. Create press releases announcing publication of any new articles or new company information or products. If it is interesting/original enough, a journalist may pick it up and write an article about it. Before you know it, your website address may get published in the NY Times.

Z) Keep your content fresh
Remember to write a new page every 2-3 days. I only mentioned it briefly, but it is probably the most important point in this article. Keep writing! Without fresh content, your site will gradually drop in the search engine results. To stay on top, your content has to be the most up-to-date, freshest, and most interesting and original content in your field.

Follow these 26 simple steps and I assure you that within one year you will call your site a success. You will bring in a massive amount of traffic from within your industry and watch as your business grows!

So start writing, and write yourself to the top!

Shawn Campbell is an enthusiastic player in the ecommerce marketplace, and co-founded Red Carpet Web Promotion, Inc. He has been researching and developing marketing strategies to achieve more prominent listings in search engine results since 1998. Shawn is one of the earliest pioneers in the search engine optimization field.