This week, we're telling you another way to find good link partners and how to get rid of annoying popups while browsing the web. Of course, we're also bringing you the latest search engine news.

Table of contents:

• Facts of the week
• Search engine news of the week
• Articles of the week
• Recommended resources
• Previous articles

We hope that you enjoy this issue and that it helps you to get more out of your web site. Please pass this newsletter on to your friends.

A good way to find new link partners and to determine their value is the Alexa(tm) toolbar. The Alexa toolbar is a free add-on to MS Internet Explorer that gives you further information about web sites when surfing the Internet.

When you visit a web site, the Alexa toolbar displays a lot of useful information that helps you to decide if a web site is a good link partner for you:

• The Alexa toolbar displays the traffic rank of the visited site. The smaller the number, the more visitors come to that site every day (and the more visitors it could bring to your site).
  
  
• You can see links to related web sites with similar content. That's one of the best features of the Alexa toolbar. You'll be amazed how fast you find good web sites that you couldn't find through a conventional search engine.
  
  
• The Alexa toolbar also contains a search box that uses the Google database. That way, you can quickly search the web without visiting Google first.
  
  
• As an additional feature, the newest version of the Alexa toolbar also includes a popup window manager that blocks annoying popup advertisements.

You can download a free copy of the Alexa toolbar here.

All features described above and many more are also included in our link building tool ARELIS. ARELIS gives you quick access to Alexa information and it helps you to find out even more about link partners by clicking a single button.

ARELIS helps you to quickly find out how much traffic a web site receives, if it's listed in Yahoo and which web sites link to the site. In addition, ARELIS has many great features that help you to find, manage and contact valuable link partners.

It even helps you to create your link pages in your own web site design quickly and easily. We recommend downloading the free trial version of ARELIS.

(Note: In order to provide you with related links the Alexa toolbar collects information about the web pages you visit and other information. Click here for the Alexa privacy policy. Alexa is not affiliated with our company.)

"Google signed a deal with Lycos Europe to distribute its Content-Targeted AdWords listings on the portal's member- generated web pages in eight European countries.

The contextual ads will appear on a total of four million pages of Lycos Tripod, a free service that lets Lycos members create their own Web pages. The contextual ads now appear on Tripod sites in the United Kingdom and Germany, and will roll out to France next month. Denmark, Italy, Spain and Sweden follow in August."

AOL Canada selects Google to provide sponsored links

"AOL Canada Inc.[...] and Google [...] announced an agreement to enhance search results pages on the AOL Canadian online service and AOL.ca with Google's highly relevant sponsored links."

LookSmart and Inktomi renew multi-year agreement

"[...] LookSmart will continue to provide paid search listings [...] to Inktomi's search index via Inktomi's IndexConnect Reseller program. The agreement extends the listing distribution relationship between LookSmart and Inktomi that began in 2001.

In addition, Inktomi continues to provide Web results to LookSmart's proprietary and affiliate search sites, extending a multi-year agreement signed in 1999."

AllTheWeb now checks your query terms for proper spelling

For example, if you search for "altheweb", AllTheWeb now returns "Did you mean: alltheweb". :-)

Infoseek Japan and Lycos Japan to merge

"Infoseek Japan KK and Lycos Japan Inc said [...] they will unite their web portal sites into the one now run by Infoseek Japan on Sept 1 to make it more competitive with the portal site of Yahoo Japan Corp."

Sprinks ads to appear on AOL properties

"Paid listings provider Sprinks announced [...] a deal with America Online for its contextual advertising links to appear on Netscape, CompuServe and AOL Instant Messenger content pages."

ValueClick acquires pay per click search engine Search123

"The acquisition of Search123 will add paid search marketing services to ValueClick's online media business and will enable ValueClick to expand its contextual media products."

"[...] Google now owns Blogger, and views weblogs as a vast advertising billboards for its Adwords service. So it has a clear commercial conflict of interest. Will it take the blog money, or will it do the Right Thing by its hundreds of millions of non-blogging users?"

Secret Search-Engine Sketcher

TechTV portraits Dennis Hwang, creator of the popular Google logos.

The top rated freeware tool for checking link popularity numbers has been updated and improved.

The new version checks the link popularity numbers faster and it automatically recognizes your proxy server settings. In addition, the link popularity number for AllTheWeb now excludes links from your own web site making the AllTheWeb numbers more accurate. Link Popularity Check is freeware and very easy to use.

Alexa toolbar

As mentioned in the article above, if you use Microsoft's Internet Explorer, then you should really try the Alexa toolbar. You'll have instant access to site statistics, contact information and related links for the sites you visit.

• A new AltaVista optimization tip
• Don't lose visitors because of slow load times
• Tips for submitting to DMOZ.org (ODP)
• Get visitors to come back to your site
• ARELIS 4 - a major update
• View all past issues...