search engine optimisation tools
search engine optimization information

This week we're featuring an unusual optimization tip for AltaVista and there are plenty of news stories from the search engine world.

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 Google representative has recently written the following tip for AltaVista (AV) optimization in a discussion on the WebmasterWorld.com forums:

"[...] it's a little-known fact that AV's choice of which pages to refresh is done by looking at what search results are clicked on. I'm guessing that your pages were crawled because you clicked on them.

If you want to optimize for AV (and I always encourage SEOs to diversify and to optimize for non-Google search engines ;) then you could keep updating your pages and clicking on them in search results to try different experiments about what works well for your site."

So if you click the link to your site on the search result page on AltaVista, then it's more likely that your Web site gets refreshed in a more timely manner.

"A federal judge this week granted Google's motion to dismiss a suit that alleged the company manipulated search results in its powerful Web index.

U.S. District Court Judge Vicki Miles-LaGrange on Tuesday denied a motion for a preliminary injunction brought by SearchKing, [...] that claimed Google unfairly removed links to its site and those of its partners from the index, causing financial losses.

The judge dismissed the case on the grounds that Google's formula for calculating the popularity of a Web page, or 'PageRank,' constitutes opinions protected by the First Amendment."

Open Directory introduces abuse report system

The Open Directory Project (ODP) is the largest, human- edited directory of the web. However, there have been complaints about editors giving preferential treatment to their own sites.

Now there's a site where everyone can report suspicions of abusive editors to DMOZ meta editors and staff: http://inelegant.org/report-abuse/

This site enables users of the Open Directory Project (DMOZ) to report suspicions of abusive editors to DMOZ meta editors and staff.

Lycos renews and expands deal with Overture

"Overture has expanded its U.S. Pay-For-Performance distribution agreement with Lycos through May 2006. Under this renewal, Lycos.com and its affiliated site Hotbot.com will continue to show the top four Overture advertiser listings labeled as 'Sponsored Links' on their search results pages."

Google sponsors US Puzzle Championship

Google has announced their sponsorship of the US Puzzle Championship, which they describe as a "a national online competition to identify America's most logical minds.

AllTheWeb now includes descriptions on search result pages

AllTheWeb now displays the META Description tag of some sites below the usual 1-2 description lines for each site on their search result page. Try this example query.

Google headlines in Spanish and Italian

"Now when you search on google.com.mx, google.com.ar, google.cl and google.co.cr, google.it and google.ch as well as other Google sites that offer Spanish and Italian interfaces, relevant news headlines will be included at the top of your search."

Kanisa buys Ask Jeeves's enterprise unit

"Kanisa, a provider of knowledge-empowered customer service applications, on Wednesday announced plans to acquire the enterprise software division of Web-search company Ask Jeeves Inc. [...] Meanwhile, Ask Jeeves will focus on its online search sites, which include Ask.com and Teoma.com. [...] growth pushed the company [Ask Jeeves] to profitability for the first time in its seven- year history."

"All search engines are pictures of the past, but which search engine has taken its picture most recently? This comparison tries to begin to answer that question and tracks how the search engines change over time."

In contrast to other web site promotion tools, IBP doesn't use static rules, commands or tips for search engine optimization.

IBP gives you specific, detailed and up to date advice:

• for your keyword or keyword phrase
• for your web page
• for the search engine you choose

With IBP, you'll get search engine specific advice on how to improve your web page for a top 10 ranking on the selected search engine. You'll find out how to change your site for the special keyword that's important for your business.

The search engine optimization tips of IBP's Top 10 Optimizer are always up to date and accurate. Our tests show that you won't get that level of search engine optimization accuracy with any other tool. Download the free Lite edition and try it yourself.

The Google resource page

Visit the one stop resource to all interesting pages about the Google search engine.

• 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
• Are you part of the invisible Web?
• View all past issues...