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Yahoo Shut Down Site Explorer

Nov 292011

Yahoo Site Explorer has been shut down!

So what alternatives do we have?

Unfortunately none that adequately substitutes what Yahoo! Site Explorer used to offer, and that is a reliable count of the backlinks of a site (including a list of said backlinks).

Google has the “link:domain.com” query, which is supposed to show the backlinks of a site, but only displays a very small sample of the backlinks, to avoid people reverse engineering Google’s algorithm.

If you want to see the backlinks of sites you own the best bet is Google Webmasters Tools.

If you want to see the backlinks of sites you don’t own you can try using the Open Site Explorer, which is a tool created by the SEOMoz guys. It track much fewer links that what Yahoo! used to, but as far as I know it’s the best alternative online.

What about you, what tool do you use to check the backlink of a given website?

jQuery Mobile 1.0 final released

Programming No Responses »

Nov 232011

Awesome news: Version 1 of jQuery Mobile has finally been released! You know how much we love jQuery—now we have a beautiful mobile extension for it.

We are built on the strengths of jQuery core and jQuery UI and strive to make mobile development efficient, accessible and maybe even a bit fun. To reach the broadest possible audience, we decided from the start to make the framework work on every popular mobile, tablet, e-reader and even desktop platforms by embracing HTML5 and responsive design techniques.

For the newbies: jQuery is a library of helpful tools written in JavaScript (a programming language that runs in the user’s browser). It lets you easily modify the HTML and CSS of a page to make it interactive and dynamic.

jQuery Mobile RC3 Released! | jQuery Mobile

Programming No Responses »

Nov 142011

Searching “jquery mobile rc3″ on google reveals that just yestarday (13 November, 2011), the jquery mobile team wrote on his blog an article that it’s not available at the moment revealing:

“The jQuery Mobile team is thrilled to announce the third and final release of jQuery Mobile RC3“..

https://www.google.com/search?q=jquery+mobile+rc3&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&client=firefox-a&rlz=1R1GGLL_es___ES378&hl=en

They deleted this post, but I think that very soon we’ll know all about this new release!

230 Automatic Ping Services & Update List for WordPress Blogs

Marketing, seo No Responses »

Oct 192011

Update Services are tools you can use to let other people know you’ve updated your blog.

WordPress automatically notifies popular Update Services that you’ve updated your blog by sending a XML-RPC ping each time you create or update a post.

In turn, Update Services process the ping and updates their proprietary indices with your update.

Now people browsing sites like Technorati or Sphere can find your most recent posts!

Read the entire article to get the latest updated automatic ping services list..

Best 5 CMS for SEO

Programming, seo No Responses »

Sep 152011

There seem to be a million and one open source content management systems these days. Just look at Open Source CMS. The problem is none of the developers seem to actually grasp in depth search engine optimization issues that such systems create.

To help fend off the confusion, we’ve put together a list of what we feel are some of the most SEO friendly open source content management systems on the market today.

MODx CMS

MODx allows us complete control over our templates, markup, URLs, and allows us to create template variables to our hearts desire, it is perfect for creating optimized websites.

MODX allows you to control 100% of what is output with virtually no effort. Unlike other systems that require learning complex theming engines, in MODX you work with HTML and as many custom variables for the site you need. It takes minutes to build a site that performs amazingly well in Search Engines and because site builders are in total control and can change the output at any time, making tweaks is just a few clicks away.

Concrete5

Concrete5 is a relative newcomer to the CMS space but has become increasingly popular based on it’s ease of use and functionality. Concrete5 sites perform quite well in the search engines and pages can be edited to include all of the necessary metadata by default. Couple this with nice clean URLs and caching and you’ve got yourself a good setup for a successful site.

WordPress

There is an incredible number of plugins that can be used to extend WordPress with regards to SEO. It’s only fourth on the list because the other systems above it include these functions natively and do not require plugins. With the right selection of plugins and proper permalinks selected, WordPress is a true powerhouse when it comes to SEO.

Joomla

In previous versions of Joomla (1.5 and lower) I would have excluded them completely but since 1.6 has come out, they have turned things around and introduced a ton of SEO improvements. Search engine friendly URLs, custom meta data per page (section, article, etc) have made Joomla a force to be reckoned with. It also goes without saying that it must perform well otherwise their main site wouldn’t have a page rank of 10/10 would it?

Drupal

Drupal, like WordPress, relies heavily on plugins (known as modules in this instance) to enable SEO functionality at its fullest. Drupal sites typically perform quite well by default but with the addition of the right modules, it too becomes a powerhouse.

Google falls below 65% of U.S. share market for first time in more than a year

seo No Responses »

Sep 142011

Bing, Yahoo continue to nibble away at Google’s search lead

Google has fallen below 65% of the U.S. search market for the first time in more than year, with Yahoo and Microsoft’s Bing gaining ever so slightly.

Google’s share of overall U.S.-based searches slipped to 64.8% in August from 65.1% in July. Meanwhile, Yahoo — whose searches are powered by Microsoft under a deal worked out a couple of years ago by former Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz — saw its share of U.S. searches inch up to 16.3% from 16.1% in August, while Der Bingle also gained 0.3% to grab 14.7% of the U.S. market.

It’s the first time Google has dropped below 65% of the U.S. search market since May or June of 2010, depending on which comScore press release you’re looking at. A release from July 2010 shows Google with a 62.6% share in June 2010, but a month later comScore credited Google with a 66.2% share in June. Looks like a “2″ and a “6″ were flipped, but it’s hard to tell which way. (It also makes you wonder a bit about comScore.)

The 63.7% credited to Google in May 2010 is consistent, so we’ll use that as a reference point.
Either way, Google is below 65% for the first time since last summer.

It’ll be interesting to see if Google’s ever-so-slight downward drift continues through this year.

From:

http://www.itworld.com/software/202849/bing-yahoo-continue-nibble-away-googles-search-lead

Want to scale a huge startup? Think cloud

Startups No Responses »

Sep 122011

Introduction

Cloud computing enables entrepreneurs and technologists to bring innovative solutions to market. This article discusses why to adopt and how to use cloud computing when creating our startup.

Early on a startup, a good entrepreneur have to decide what technology to use and determine the best way to ramp up and learn a new set of skills. We also had to adapt to scaling challenges and make informed architectural decisions.

Your results may vary, but if you are considering open source for your project, these are a lot of suggestions:

Make technology choices based on community strength and depth.
Avoid the General Public License (GPL).
Get involved in the communities around the software you adopt.
Consider the cloud for scaling (although technically not open source, there is a lot of open source involvement around this approach to infrastructure).

Cloud computing is the savior for a lot of Web based start ups, letting them start with small amounts of capital and scale quickly in response to demand (That’s why they call them On Demand CRM sometimes).

New startups don’t own anything yet, so they don’t have a legacy investment in physical infrastructure. They also don’t have IT departments, who often have a stake in the old way of doing things.

Pay only on the amount you use
When something is a utility, you pay for it based on the amount you use. A startup can have, in this way, many months of minimal costs (without revenue), before finding product market fit and starting to grow.

Cash-Flow Positive Infrastructure
When something is a utility, you pay after using the service, instead of before you use it , that’s the difference between dedicated hosting and cloud computing. For a start up, the chance to delayed payment is real deal. Because revenues typically take time to collect, the business normally has to have a fair amount of cash on hand to continue to function while it waits to be paid.

Cash is the oxygen of business
Cloud computing allows companies to inhale the oxygen (by collecting revenue) before they exhale (pay their vendors). No wonder that in the last few years, web-based startups have grown like weeds even as the broader economy collapsed!

Many startups are told to use IT equipment and services such as exchange servers for email and calendar sharing. Now, with services like Google mail, this type of investment is no longer needed.

For a small amount per user per year, startups can have corporate-looking email systems and fully integrated calendar sharing.

Cloud computing lowers the dependency on startup capital and gives the business owner more freedom to focus on generating revenue.

5 SEO tips for your small business

seo, Uncategorized No Responses »

Sep 092011

Small businesses do not have personnel or ad budgets to market in the present economy, but fortunately, none of these factors actually matter for online marketing because small business SEO is the best way to steal market share and of course to level the playing field.

The following is a list of 7 Google SEO tips that I think are necessary for small businesses to generate results in a small business and I hope this list helps the new and inexperienced businesses searching to optimize his SEO knowledge.

Make sure that your website is easy to load
Google has initiated speed into the search engine ranking algorithm so its very important to us tools such YSlow or Web Page Analyzer to check out speed problems.
Optimize for local search
Use Google Places, Yahoo Local or Bing Local to get maximum benefi. No one will search you with “buy mobile phone”, el 90% of customers will search you with a phrase like: “buy mobile phone Manhattan”.
Connect with the customer by adding personal touch to your site
Add recommendations and reviews along with product features and how your services can benefit the customers. Get in touch with the customer.
Give importance to content
Content has always been the king for the search engines and it still is. Search engines not just give more importance to unique SEO friendly content, but, the better opportunities are given to users to find your products and services. Explain everything – services you provide, the benefit customers can get, feedback, improvements, everything that makes it easy for the customers to build trust.
Create content for people not only for search engines
A user visits your website to see how your services can benefit him, but when he comes to your site and finds a content that is confusing; he may leave and might not come back. If you want more inbound links and business profits, make sure to write for the customers because no matter how important search engines are, they cannot avail your services! If your sole purpose to create the content is to impress the search engines, you are missing on all your business profits. As per the Google SEO guide, creating a user friendly content can help you more as compared to just creating content for search engines.

Why is page loading speed so important?

Programming No Responses »

Sep 072011

A website that is responsive and fast-loading makes the user feel empowered and in-control, whereas long page load times make readers impatient, frustrated and increasingly resistant to your brand or proposition.Web publishers tend to forget that beyond a five seconds wait an online reader will get impatient and after ten, he / she will likely decide to go somewhere else.These are the key reasons why any serious web publisher today should devote time and resources to check, verify, test and optimize the performance, speed and responsiveness of its online content, no matter what the format.

0.1 seconds gives the feeling of instantaneous response- that is, the outcome feels like it was caused by the user, not the computer.
One second keeps the user’s flow of thought seamless.
Ten seconds keeps the user’s attention.From one to ten seconds, users definitely feel at the mercy of the computer and wish it was faster, but they can handle it.After ten seconds, they start thinking about other things, making it harder to get their brains back on track once the computer finally does respond.

Real world examples

Amazon: 0.1 seconds of delay involving a loss of 1% of income
Facebook: 0.5 seconds slower traffic causes a drop of 3% 1 seconds causes a drop of 6%
Google Maps: reduced by 30% the size of your files and the number of requests increased by 30%.
Yahoo!: 0.4 seconds of delay caused a fall between 5% and 9% of the traffic

Site speed is vital for effective SEO

Most of the people using google loves it because of its amazing speed. And, that is why, google has included “site speed” as one of the factors in computing the search engine rankings of the websites.

Internet users, all over the world, love websites with less loading time. And that is why google takes site speed into account in its search rankings. But do make sure that, it is not as important as “the relevance of your website” in computing its search engine ranking.

Factors affecting your website speed

While creating our websites, we are normally so much involved in its design and functioning that we don’t care about the factors, which affects its loading speed. The following are the factors, which affect the speed of your website:

Use of graphics.
Use of Flash and Java Script
Excessive use of videos
Multimedia presentation.
Use of themes and skin
Excessive code

In order to increase the loading speed of your website, it is very necessary to optimally utilize the above factors. But, the question is how can we calculate the loading speed of our website?

How to optimize your site?

Use YSlow by Yahoo. YSlow is a firebug plugin that analyzes web pages and suggests ways to improve their performance based on a set of rules for high performance web pages. YSlow is a Firefox add-on integrated with the Firebug web development tool. YSlow grades web page based on one of three predefined ruleset or a user-defined ruleset. It offers suggestions for improving the page’s performance, summarizes the page’s components, displays statistics about the page, and provides tools for performance analysis, including Smush.it™ and JSLint.

page loading speed yslow

Freddie Mercury Google Doodle

Internet, News No Responses »

Sep 062011

Google has created a new, interactive, animated Doodle that celebrates the life of one of rock’s greatest performers, Queen’s Freddie Mercury. The Doodle features a large play button that kicks off Don’t Stop Me Now as the animation cycles through iconic photos and moments of Mercury’s career.

The Doodle then launches a Google search for ‘Freddie Mercury’, bringing up websites, wikis and photos of the Queen frontman’s career and achievements.

Here is the video from youtube, enjoy it.

Older Entries

Yahoo Shut Down Site Explorer

jQuery Mobile 1.0 final released

jQuery Mobile RC3 Released! | jQuery Mobile

230 Automatic Ping Services & Update List for WordPress Blogs

Best 5 CMS for SEO

MODx CMS

Concrete5

WordPress

Joomla

Drupal

Google falls below 65% of U.S. share market for first time in more than a year

Bing, Yahoo continue to nibble away at Google’s search lead

5 SEO tips for your small business