Pandia Search Engine Weblog March2005

(April 28 2005) There are search engine optimization techniques that not only bring in new visitors, but that also encourages them to come back to your site.

Tansy O’Bryant and Mark Schurtman has more on returning customer keywords.

RSS: Cool Tool for Search Engine Marketing

(April 26 2005) More and more sites are syndicating their content by the use of RSS feeds, i.e. text files that list headlines and links to new webpages.

Site owners use RSS feeds to get you content, while web surfers use RSS newsreaders to keep track of their favorite web sites.

Paul J. Bruemmer tells you how to make use of RSS and get new visitors and inbound links.

Google My Search History

(April 24 2005) Google is testing a new feature that lets you access your previous searches from any Internet connected computer anywhere in the world.

This is the kind of tool you you will like if you are a "I know I have seen it somewhere, but cannot remember where" kind of person.

You can sort searches according to date or by topic (e.g. any information Google have found for you pertaining to the topic of "search engines").

My Search History, as it is called, also adds info to your search engine result pages.Next to your search listings, Google will display the number of times you've visited a certain search result and the last time you viewed it. Google may also add already visited sites to the top of your search results.

You will need a Google Accounts user name and password (e.g., Gmail, Google Groups, Google Alerts or Froogle) to use the feature. Needless to say, you can get a passport for free. You sign in by visiting the Search History home page or Google Labs.

Google will not record and store your searches unless you are logged in. Hence, if you are searching for something "sensitive", do not log in. You can also delete searches from the search history.

Javascript must be enabled for My Search History to work . The following browsers are supported: Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 and newer, Firefox, Netscape 6.0 and newer, Mozilla, Safari 1.2 and newer. By the way, Ask Jeeves and A9 have similar features, and Yahoo! launched its version right after Google.

Log file analysis for search engine optimization

(April 18 2005) An important part of search engine optimization is analyzing the web server log files in order to study the effects of the campaign.

If you own or manage a website, you are probably already aware of the importance of your log files or site statistics. Such data can give you insights about your site's usability, errors in your HTML code, the popularity of your site pages and the type of visitors your site attracts.

But did you know it can also highlight the success or failure of your search engine optimization campaign?

Read the whole article by Pandia Guest Writers Kalena and Jerry Jordan.

Here are some articles and other news items that Pandia has found particularly interesting lately:

Google searches for quality not quantity
New Scientist on a new Google patent (April 30 2005).

If done correctly, blogs can be great marketing tools
How online journals can build an open relationship with customers, from The Salt Lake Tribune (April 23 2005).

A desi answer for Google
About a Hindi search engine in the making from expressindia.com (April 25 2005.)

Search add-ons perform unevenly
A review of desktop search tools from delawareonline/Washington Post (April 5 2005).

Do you still need meta tags?

(April 14 2005) Years ago, meta tags were the magic bullet for achieving high search engine rankings with organic search engine optimization. Today, most meta tags are not as powerful as they once were -- except for the Title and Description Tags.

Used in SEO and web site development, a meta tag is the hidden HTML code containing text describing web page content information for search engine spiders. Meta tags exist behind the scenes and are not ordinarily seen by site visitors unless they click on View Source.

Read Paul J. Breummer's tips on how to write compelling meta tags and more.

Google wants women

(April 13 2005) Google has released a video especially aimed at recruiting female engineers. Like everything else that comes out of Googleplex, it is colorful and cool, featuring a lot of dynamic, young people.

Among other things, the video tells you about Google's special arrangements for new mothers, including 12 weeks of maternity leave and take out dinner for the entire family for two weeks after the delivery. What's interesting about all this, is that it says something about how Google perceives its own corporate culture. This may explain at least part of its ability to innovate.

One of the reasons why Google's engineers are so inventive: is that 20 per cent of their time is reserved for them to work on their own projects. Many of these projects are rather radical and outside the box. Quite a lot of them still show up as new functionalities in Google's services.

If you would like to have a look at the video (and get a glimpse of Sergey Brin in high heels), the link can be found in the Google Blog.

Be warned, though, that it is a quite large file.

Hiring Expert SEO Copywriters

(April 10 2005) You may optimize your web page copy for the search engines yourself. However, often it is better to have the help of an expert. But how do you find the right one?

Read advice from SEO copywriting expert Heather Lloyd-Martin.

This article is taken from Heather Lloyd Martin's excellent new book Successful Search Engine Copywriting: How to Write Prime Positioned Webpages That Convert Like Crazy.

What is Google Q&A?

(April 9 2005) Google has introduced a new service called Google Q&A. In their own web log, they write: "We've pulled together facts from all over the Web to help give you the fastest possible access to the quick bits of information you need every day; just type a query into the search box, and you'll get back the answer at the top of your search results."

This works by entering a natural language query into the regular Google search box.

At the moment, there seems to be more questions than answers: Is this yet another copyright-infringing feature? Why does it not work at all from Pandia's Macs? And how is the quality of the answers controlled?

At WebmasterWorld you can read that to the question "Who is prime minister of Britain", one searcher gets the answer "Margaret Thatcher" and another "John Major".

It is certainly an appealing idea, but it seems Google Q&A was launched prematurely. For the time being, Pandia will stick with Answers.com.

Google adds satellite photos

(April 5 2005) It is all very James Bondish really. We can now all get access to those secret satellites that spy on us every hour of the day.

To get access to the images, you should do a search using Google Maps or Google Local.

The Google blog says that "...when you type an address into Google Maps, you can click the 'Satellite' link and see a view of the area. You can zoom, move the view by dragging, and even resize the window just like the normal 'Maps' view."

As search engine expert Chris Sherman points out the feature is based on technology acquired from the Keyhole company.

This service is limited to North America for the moment, and no, there is no death ray included.

Submitting your site to search engines and directories

(April 5 2005) Guest writer Kalena Jordan looks at how to prepare your search engine and directory submissions.

" Now there is such a huge amount of misinformation on the Web about search engine submission," she says: "I thought it was high time I wrote a basic tutorial to help webmasters sort fact from fiction."

How to succeed using pay-per-click text ads

(April 2 2005) Chet Childers look at how you can create a successful pay-per-click campaign that brings in visitors as well as money.

Read more about pay-per-click text ads.

Google doubles GMail storage (and beyond)

(April 1 2005) Google's free online email service is still in the beta testing phase, meaning that it is not available to all. That being said, the number of invited users is increasing fast and Google is for all practical purposes competing with existing service providers like MSN HotMail and Yahoo! Mail.

Yahoo! recently announced that they will increase the amount of online storage space to 1 gigabyte for free accounts. Google can't afford to be left behind and has now decided to double its storage space from 1 to 2 GB.

Google has also announced that it will add a yet-to-be-determined amount of extra storage daily beyond this, with no plans to stop. This is called the "top secret Infinity+1 storage plan".

Hm. We should probably keep today's date in mind. On the other hand, Google announced GMail on April 1st 2004, and that was no joke. Hence SE Expert John Battelle argues that Google actually does plan to increase the limit to the sky.

Pandia gives away GMail accounts

If you are among those who does not have a GMail account and would like to get one, Pandia has more than 50 invites to give away.

Send a mail to

with the headline "I need a GMail account". Include your full name and email address in the mail.

Search Engine Watch Awards 2004

(April 1 2005) Search Engine Watch has presented the winners of the prestigious SEW 2004 awards:

Outstanding Search Service: Yahoo!
Best Meta Search Engine: Jux2
Best News Search Engine: Google News
Best Blog/Feed Search Engine: Bloglines
Best Image Search Engine: Yahoo Images
Best US Shopping Search Engine: Froogle
Most SEO/Webmaster Friendly Search Provider: Google
Best Search Ads Provider: Google AdWords

So why didn't Google win the Outstanding Search Service Award? Danny Sullivan says that "We ultimately decided Google's couldn't win the category given its failure to maintain Google Images." Fair enough.

See 5th Annual Search Engine Watch Awards for more about the awards.

Search Engine News Weblog Archive April 2005

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