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Mashable | Which Is Worth More? Product Search or Information Search….
Steven Hodson posts a great article about Microsoft acquiring Greenfield Online to boost their Information Search capabilities for just under $500 Million USD. Rumor has it, Microsoft just wanted their Ciao! subsidiary properties and technology. check it out below:
Earlier today Stan Schroeder posted the news on Mashable about Microsoft acquiring Greenfield Online for a princely sum. Much of the talk within the tech blogosphere about the deal is one of confusion. Many of the people are wondering why Microsoft would be interested in buying the company and then only keeping Ciao!, the European shopping and price comparison site. The other parts of the company apparently already have buyers lined up for the rest of the Greenfield Online company.
On the surface this would seem to be a rather strange acquisition for Microsoft, with some suggesting that the purchase is just a way to increase its reach into the European market. For Microsoft though the idea behind the purchase is to primarily integrate Ciao! capabilities into Microsoft Live Search
makes the company a fantastic asset to the future of our search offer. Integrating Ciao’s capabilities into Live Search will provide a strong launchpad for our commercial search offer in Europe and enhance our e-commerce offering on MSN.”
Just by itself this news really may not seem like that much. However, there could be another way to look at this which is what Allen Stern of CenterNetworks is proposing. The idea is that Microsoft may not be interested in the same type of information search business that Google dominates right now.
Read the rest of the article here at Mashable Which Is Worth More? Product Search or Information Search….
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Three Tips for Video SEO
Video sites like YouTube are enjoying incredibly large audiences to their website, but these ‘visitors’ are looking for video, and they want it NOW. This in my opinion presents a great opportunity, and submitting amateur videos has opened many different avenues for netizens across the world to express themselves. One thing I’ve noticed while surfing YouTube, is that most users tend to overlook is video SEO completely (especially in their video citations).
Below is a sample of the citation in a video:
As you can see above, the captions have a Headline and Desctiprion area - remember this is your opportunity to tell the search engines what your about, so do it right! I see many times opportunity in niche markets, where literally 90% of the sites in the top 10 are poorly optimized. Check it out when you have time yourself, you will see what I mean. The reality is that video search optimization is still in the infancy stage, although it is growing rapidly. As the availability of broadband increases, it will increase the use of videos as well - so this isn’t going away, it is just beginning.
One of the primary reasons why video SEO has not been successful so far is because search engines don’t have the ability to look inside a video (yet!) and read the streaming images or media to identify and analyze the content (relevancy!). This is why most search engines must rely on several page factors as well as on the metadata that has been inserted within the video file. Search engines will also rely on anchor text as well as inbound links for determining the content or purpose of the video. Now we come back to the basic question: how do you optimize your videos?
You can choose all of the 3 or any of the three scenarios for optimization of your video. Of course, if you integrate all the three it will maximize the chances of driving targeted traffic. Here are the 3 scenarios:
1. Video specific search engines: In this scenario, you will be hosting a video on your website. A video search engine will crawl on your site to index the video. One of the popular video search engines is Truveo. These search engines will offer different optimization opportunities like:
• Accommodating titles: They can accommodate with ease titles, descriptions, summary and even specific keywords or tags.
2. Video Specific websites: There are several video specific websites that accept MRSS feeds. So basically, you will have to submit a RSS feed or an MRSS feed at a third party website. Some of the websites who will accept such files include Blinkx and Yahoo Video. You will have to enter titles, keywords, description, categories, thumbnails, and a transcript to enhance optimization.
3. Other Sites for video upload: There are several third party websites or video search engines that will allow you to upload your video on their website. Some of sites that will allow you to upload video include AOL Video, YouTube, and Yahoo Video. You will need to provide metadata and include keywords, title, and description. You will then need to link it back to any related content on your website.
Some of the other optimization tips for videos include:
• Compelling content: If your video doesn’t have compelling content then you will not be able to get targeted traffic.
• Ensure that your video is able to reinforce the brand image.
• Include caption language (or transcript in your metadata because this will help video search engines.
• Use standard format for video like .avi, .mov, or .wmv.
Best Practices - Increasing Your Page Ranking
Page ranking is one of the most important aspects of online website visibility, therefore pages that have poor page rank can exclude themselves from getting maximum online exposure/traction. But how does page ranking work? There are some complex algorithms that go into it, but the basic ‘modus operandi’ for page ranking remains quite simple (I will explain in a minute). Basically, there are certain best practices that you need to follow to get a good page ranking on any of the top search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN etc. Let us take a look at some of the best practices.
Best Practices
Keywords: Visibility, search engine optimization, SEM, meta tags, Alt tags, Google Adwords and other forms and strategies of online advertising depend on just one word – the keyword. There are two types of keyword that you can use: primary keyword and secondary keyword. Now for example: if the primary keyword is adventure travel then secondary keywords can be travel cruises, trekking, hiking, mountaineering, river rafting and many more. It will then come down to how well you are able to use your primary and secondary keywords without making your content sound more like a drag. So you need to avoid keyword spamming. You need to place your primary keyword strategically on your website so that the search engines can find them with ease and treat them as the most important words to appear on your website.
Optimizing website content: The factor that drives page ranking is textual content on your web page. You need to hence ensure that your web site should have sufficient text on each of the web pages in order to facilitate proper indexing by various search engines. You need to keep in mind that the text on your web page will not include images or Flash elements. The body copy of a web page should have the correct and most important keyword phrases.
Links from external websites: Page Rank is often increased based on the number as well as quality of links. This means that if your web page is linked to other good or high page ranking websites then it will have a positive affect on the page ranking of your website as well. You can start by sending linking requests to other top ranking websites. This should also be followed by reciprocal linking.
JavaScript navigation: If you are thinking of using JavaScript navigation then you need to reconsider the decision because search engines have difficulty indexing websites using JavaScript based navigation.
Page titles: You need to create appropriate page titles for each of the web pages on your website. A page title is the first line of copy that is displayed during search listing. To attract visitors, you need to apply the right keywords and compelling copy in page titles.
Dynamic URLs: If you are using a dynamic URL then search engines will face difficulty in indexing your web pages. Try to avoid using dynamic URL’s.
Flash content: As of date, search engines are unable to index flash based web pages. So if you need to use flash then limit it to images only and for text, you can use simple HTML. This will serve all your purposes.
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