By Steve Buchanan 

The Google freshness factor is a patent application in the US Trademark Office from Monika Henzinger, published in July, 2005, that certifies that she has figured out a way of determining a document’s “freshness.” In an attempt to associate this new term with Google’s other patented terminology (namely PageRank and TrustRank), forum posters are now referring to the concept as “FreshRank.”

The abstract of this patent application states that one of the problems of determining the freshness of a document indexed in a search engine is that the “last-modified-since” attribute isn’t always correct. Some webmasters have figured out they can change the modify date, but obviously a pattern of abuse developed. It doesn’t fool Google, because what Google looks for is actual modified content. As far as how Google determines how old or “fresh” a document may be is still somewhat of a secret. Lately, in the estimation of many, Google has done a very poor job in determining which web sites present as the freshest content in relation to relevancy.

This brings to mind a pertinent question. How does the freshness factor rank in determining relevancy? It has been determined by some that it doesn’t necessarily matter how fresh a document is to Google, especially if that document has many inbound links pointing to it. Henzinger is attempting to patent a more explicit form of freshness, since not all search engines use the “last modified since” attribute anyways, and stating that search engines need a more reliable way of determining overall updated content.

Unfortunately, with the implementation of the duplicate content penalty, we’ve been seeing problems with the freshness attribute of documents. With Google, in particular, the filter employed to whittle out duplicate content doesn’t appear to be taking into consideration the actual origin of the content. For many, this is becoming a great frustrating point. With the onslaught of the technological advances that Google has placed into the public realm within the last decade, it seems impractical and almost ridiculous that they would leave out the very concept of being able to determine the source of the fresh content. Yahoo and MSN do not appear to have this particular problem, so why does Google?

Another particular problem recently presented to the freshness factor, is Google’s own Removal Tool. Experiences with this tool have been much on the side of unpleasant, if at all useful. For some, the Google removal tool has been often mentioned “as a cure against many diseases.” Diseases such as duplicate content or temporary redirects, for example. While I have used it from time to time, I have done so with a cautionary tone, and never used it on a commercial website; rather only on my personal website or blog. Some of the side effects observed are definitely worth mentioning here, and I know I’m not alone.

If you’ve ever used the removal tool, you’ll notice that the page count of the website in question has not been changed, but rather the pages simply fail to show up. Why is this? Because with the URL Removal Tool, these URLs have not been deleted; they have only been filtered out. So even though these pages appear to have been removed, they are certainly still in the database somewhere.

The period of time Google uses to remove these URLs from their index is anywhere between three and six months. I say from three to six months, even though the Google documentation tells us 180 days; in my personal experience, it has been more like 90 days. Regardless of the period of time, rest assured, they are actually still there. How do I know this? Two reasons: one, I mentioned before that the number of pages are still listed as the same amount before the pages were removed; two, after the removal period, they show right back up in the index, as if they’d never left.

Steve Buchanan writes article on many topics including John Deere Lawn Mowers, Honda Generators and Snow Blowers

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By Joel Walsh
Content really does play a big role in getting links in the first place:
•At the very least, good content will make potential link partners more comfortable with linking to your site. No one wants to link to a link farm, splog, junk site, or even just an unprofessional-looking site.
•Lots of good content gives other webmasters (and particularly bloggers) a reason to link to your site spontaneously without being asked.
•You can allow other websites to post your content in exchange for a link back to your site.
2. Web Content Mass
More web pages of content = more search engine traffic
Here’s why:
1. Adding pages to your site is like putting out extra nets to catch surfers.
2. Search engines see bigger websites as more prestigious and reliable.
3. The more content you have, the more reasons you give other webmasters, particularly bloggers, to link to your site spontaneously, without being asked.
3. Web Content Keyword Optimization
Keyword optimization used to be the most important step in SEO. Now it matters little in ranking for highly competitive keywords. Still, keyword optimization can really help you get traffic from searches not on competitive keywords. While you may never rank number 1 for “finance,” you may still show up tops for a search on “household finance rent federal tax deductions” if you have that phrase somewhere in your content. Such non-competitive searches make up a very large proportion of total web searches.
Web Content Keyword Optimization Checklist:
There are four legs to keyword optimization:
•Research/selection
•Density
•Prominence
•Stemming/Variation
Keyword Research and Selection
You need to identify keywords searched on by your target audience. Use tools such as those offered by Word Tracker and Yahoo Search Marketing (formerly Overture).
There are two big pitfalls to avoid:
•”Negative keywords” that look relevant but are not really searched on by your target market. For instance, “website copy” is a synonym for “website content,” but most people searching on “website copy” are looking for software that copies an entire website to the hard drive for offline browsing.
•Impossibly competitive keywords that you have no realistic chance of ranking high for them. How do you know if a keyword is impossibly competitive? One rough measure is to look at the PageRank of the webpages currently ranking in the top three for that keyword. If the PageRank of those pages is much higher than the PageRank your site will likely have in the future, you will probably never outrank those pages.
A pay-per-click campaign with Google Adwords of Yahoo! Search Marketing will help you to find which keywords really are searched on by your target audience.
Keyword Density
Keywords appear in the content the right number of times for search engines to recognize the page as relevant, but not so often that it looks like keyword stuffing. The longer the content, the more times the keyword should appear.
Keyword Prominence
Keywords appear in just the right positions within your web pages for search engines to recognize them as relevant. The page title, headings, and first lines of the page are often considered the most prominent positions.
Keyword Stemming/Keyword Variation
•Using variations of the keyword will help ensure web pages appear relevant to the next generation of more sophisticated search engine algorithms.
•In the meantime, variations of popular keywords help your site appear for the “non-standard” searches on variations of the keyword.
There are three main types of keyword variations:
•Word-stem variations. A stem of a word is its base. For instance, “optimize” is the stem of “optimized.” Other stem variations of “optimize” include “optimizing,” “optimizer,” and “optimization.” You can also shuffle the component words of multiple-word keywords. Variations of website content would be web site content, web content, content for websites, and site content).
•Synonyms (such as web page content, internet content, or writing for the web for website content)
•Related terms (such as internet, SEO or web page).
For many people, the SEO side of content feels like a moot point. You need to create content for your visitors even if no search engine spider ever notices. But there is a case to be made that an extra page of content is good not just for visitors but search engine spiders, too. Every website budget, both of money and time, is finite. If you’re ever choosing whether to invest in another link to please search engines or another page of content to please your visitors, don’t forget: search engines still like content, too. About the author: Joel Walsh is a writer and owner of Up Market Content, a website content provider. Request a no-cost, no-obligation proposal for your website content: http://www.UpMarketContent.com/website-content 
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Wendy Suto 

Did you recently learn what search engine optimization means? Learn a brief history behind this new industry, including which search engine first implemented what later became known as search engine optimization, and how initial unethical SEO practices forced the search engines to tighten their measures on how their robots rank and index Web sites. 

As long as the Internet has been around, it has remained a mystery to the mainstream public how Web sites are listed at the top of search engine results. There are many theories of how search engines and search engine optimization (SEO) initially began. 

The 1990s 

Alan Emtage, a student at the University of McGill, created the first “search” program in 1990 called Archie (still in use today), to archive Web documents. The following year, Gopher started at the University of Minnesota, and this is when the concept of search engines began. In 1993, Matthew Gray created the World Wide Web Wanderer, the earliest known search engine robot that assists with ranking Web sites. But search engines as we use them today were born in 1994. In that same year, Galaxy, Lycos and Yahoo! were all started, two of which are still widely popular search engines today. 

Yahoo! was among the first to implement SEO techniques, even though at the time they were unaware of the potential growth the industry would soon have at the turn of the century. Yahoo! Founders David Filo and Jerry Yang were trying to get their site seen by others on the Internet by giving it more exposure. Some excellent structure and tricky hand-coding, their site became more available for new visitors. They were not questioned about ethical business practices because nobody was sure what was considered ethical or unethical – there were simply no standards in place yet. 

As the initial search engines were cataloging the early Internet, many business owners soon learned to appreciate the value of their Web site being listed in the search engines, as they first saw increases in visitors to their Web sites. They began submitting their URLs on a continuous basis, and changed their sites to support the needs of search engine robots. SEO companies started showing up, when they began experimenting with the concept of search engine optimization, with the emphasis initially on the submission process alone. Soon afterwards, the first automatic submission software was released, and it was then the notion of Spam came into existence. 

The 2000sSEO professionals have been seen in a negative light over the last five years, due in part because in early 2001, enthusiastic webmasters quickly realized they could overwhelm search engine result pages by over submitting Web sites. Unfortunately, as the Internet industry developed, search engines quickly became cautious of new SEO companies attempting to generate visitors for their clients at any cost, however unfair or unethical. Tactics such as keyword spamming, doorway pages, cloaking, and hidden white text placed on white backgrounds proved too much for the search engines to tolerate. As a result, the search engines replied with numerous countermeasures, created to filter out any techniques considered spam. That is good news, although it forced ethical SEO companies to start using more subtle techniques to assist their clients Web sites with obtaining rankings in the engines. 

The “big 3” search engines, Google, MSN and Yahoo!, have recently come to the realization that SEO as an industry is here to stay, and to maintain effective results, they needed to accept the industry, even embrace it, and engines eventually partnered with successful, ethical SEO companies to establish typical standards for fair and ethical optimization. This is important to help keep information relevant and beneficial to visitors while still being unbiased to people who create the content on their Web sites. 

The Current State of SEO 

Today, there are major differences in how search engines work and how to get ranked in them. With the assistance of proper search engine optimization, Web sites can now have a equal fighting chance of obtaining high rankings. Because SEO is a highly specialized trade that requires both technical skills and business marketing knowledge , it is only through the combination of these two skills that one can properly implement SEO techniques to obtain high search engine rankings. Many SEO specialists have since now realized it is “search engines or bust.” 

Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Wendy Suto is president of Search Circus, a business web site marketing company based in Ohio, specializing in marketing your web site. She keeps pace with the latest search engine optimization, link popularity and article submission tactics. As a certified SEO consultant, Wendy teaches SEO training classes in Ohio.wendy@searchcircus.com

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By Jim Dalrymple 

Adobe on Tuesday released Adobe Digital Editions 1.0, a new application for managing, acquiring and reading eBooks, digital newspapers, and other digital publications. Adobe is making the software available as a free download from its Web site. 

“We are seeing a tremendous amount of growth in this market, even though the general feeling may be that eBooks fizzled away in 2000,” Bill McCoy, general manager of Adobe’s ePublishing Business, told Macworld. “We were told very clearly that users didn’t want to be limited to the browser for content, but they didn’t want to have to download huge files either.” 

Weighing in at 2.5MB, Adobe Digital Editions has native support for Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) and XML-based publications, which means it is already compatible with 150,000 commercially published titles, according to Adobe. 

Adobe Digital Editions differs from reading a PDF document in a couple of significant ways. First, when a digital document is resized for different screen sizes, the text and images will actually reflow to fit the screen. The software also features support for Flash, allowing integration of rich audio and video. 

Other features of the software is the ability to annotate content through bookmarks, highlights and text notes, as well as a library view for organizing multiple bookshelves. 

Adobe said that the beta of Digital Editions has been downloaded more than 300,000 times in less than six months. In addition, the company said that publishers and retailers have shown their support and Sony has committed to embed Adobe Digital Editions technology into its portable reader product line. 

“We don’t think of digital publishing as digitizing books, but creating new content,” said McCoy. 

Adobe is also offering publishers a way to protect their content with Adobe Digital Editions Protection Technology. Adobe said the new hosted content protection service will guard publisher’s rights while maintaining ease-of-use for consumers. 

Adobe Digital Editions requires Mac OS X version 10.3.9 (or higher), a 500MHz or faster PowerPC G4 or G5 processor and 128 MB of RAM. For Intel based Macintosh systems, Adobe Digital Editions requires Mac OS X version 10.4.8 (or higher), 500MHz or faster processor and 128 MB of RAM.

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By Grant Gross, IDG News Service 

Google has launched a blog focused on U.S. government legislation and regulation, one sign of the company’s growing interest in Washington, D.C., affairs. 

The blog is part of Google’s efforts to step up its focus on the U.S. government since early 2005. Last year, it was one of the leading Web-based companies calling on Congress to pass net neutrality rules that would prohibit broadband carriers from blocking or slowing Web content offered by their competitors. 

This year, Google has joined a debate on how the U.S. Federal Communications Commission should auction 60MHz of spectrum in the 700MHz band being vacated by U.S. television stations. Google has called on the FCC to open up bidding to small companies through real-time auctions and designate a chunk of the spectrum for wireless broadband services. 

Google is also focused on issues such as privacy and copyright protection, said a post on the blog Monday. Google launched the blog internally two months ago but opened it to the public Monday. 

Google has recently complained to the U.S. Department of Justice about what it sees as antitrust violations in Microsoft’s Vista operating system. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission in May also began investigating Google’s proposed US$3.1 billion purchase of online advertising seller DoubleClick. 

Google now has eight senior policy and public relations employees and four support employees in Washington, compared to just one public policy staffer in early 2005. 

“We’re seeking to do public policy advocacy in a Googley way,” Andrew McLaughlin, Google’s director of public policy and government affairs, wrote on the blog. “We want our users to be part of the effort, to know what we’re saying and why, and to help us refine and improve our policy positions and advocacy strategies. With input and ideas from our users, we’ll surely do a better job of fighting for our common interests. 

“This blog is part of the dialogue we’re hoping to foster.”

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by: Pete Prestipino 

Monitoring Server Uptime to Avoid Revenue Reduction 

Monitoring your website’s uptime is imperative to the success of your online endeavors. Why? While it’s important to know if your website is running and your host is providing a good service (so you can receive money back or a credit if there is a guarantee), it’s even better to be proactive about getting it back online faster so you don’t lose search engine positions, miss out on possible revenue or blow your advertising budget. There is no other way to ensure a high percentage of server uptime than to monitor website availability. 

Monitor Up to Three Websites Free at InternetSupervision.com
http://www.InternetSupervision.com 

Most web based businesses do not operate their own servers, they outsource that function to professional web hosts, and for good reason – if your website (or your web server) goes down, i.e. becomes inactive, your business and your revenue can suffer greatly. Whether it’s the inability to gather information from surfers through forms or the ability to generate revenue through clicks on affiliate banners or contextual advertising, it is essential that your website be available for surfers to visit. 

Monitoring Website Uptime for Search Engines 

The main reason to monitor your website is that when search engine spiders visit your web pages, if those pages are down, you may lose the search engine positions that you have worked so hard to develop. If your website stays down for too long, you may be dropped from the search engine databases altogether. Whether your website receives ten or ten thousand visitors a day, you will not last long on the Internet if surfers and prospects can not access your web pages through search engines. 

Monitoring Downtime for Advertising Budgets 

Another important reason to monitor the uptime of your web pages is to make sure that your advertising is doing what it should – bring visitors to your website. While most pay per click search engines do not charge you if your site is down, many still do. If your site is down for any length of time, you run the risk of draining your account very quickly. In addition, if you purchase any sort of cost per lead or cost per impression advertising (i.e. banners) you again run the risk of losing valuable visits from surfers. 

About The Author 

As an advocate for webmasters, Pete Prestipino suggests one way to avoid server downtime is to be proactive about monitoring website availability. Monitor Up to Three Websites Free at InternetSupervision.com - http://www.InternetSupervision.com

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