Don’t take this too seriously unless you have experienced a similar issue. We are now receiving Email from non-clients asking for advice regarding their websites’ loss of position at Google. Regardless of whether or not they are clients, we try to help anyone who asks us for our opinions and advice. What is bugging me is that many of the people writing us DO NOT have commercial sites or SEO techniques applied to their sites! Several SEOs have speculated that it is only commercial sites or sites with obvious SEO techniques that have had their rankings disappear at Google.

I can’t say I know why this is happening but it is a heads-up to others studying the FLORDIA update. It’s not only commercial and/or SEO driven sites… have a nice day.

Happy Thanksgiving to our friends in the United States. American Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the end of the previous year and the start of the holiday season. It is the perfect time to kick back, visit family and friends and reminisce about the year gone past. It is also a great time to look forward to the coming year and have a little fun. That’s what our staff wanted to do today so here is our predictions for the State of Search, 2004.

* Google will issue an IPO in March (odds = 99%) via the Dutch Auction format. (odds = 50%) Google will make billions on the IPO and will purchase the financially strapped Calgary Flames Hockey club, move them to the Silicone Valley and rename them the Silicone Flameouts. (odds = 5%)

* We will see a continuance of large mergers, takeovers and buyouts until the end of the first quarter of 2004. More of the smaller players will be absorbed by the larger ones including at least a portion of ASK.Com. (odds = 60%). Jeeves himself will be found drunk in an alley behind the Stardust Lounge on Rodeo Dr. slumped over his friend, that other unemployed mascot from Pets.Com (odds = 5%)

* Yahoo will become the dominant search service in China (odds = 85%) and will become known as the “Portal to the World’s Largest Marketplace” (odds = 65%)

* Terra Lycos will surprise the search world with successful innovations and services. (odds = 99%) Furthermore, Lycos will become one of the top international search tools with a strong focus on European and Spanish Language search technologies. (odds = 55%)

* Contextual Advertising opportunities will expand, allowing more opportunities for the advertiser to become the advertising medium for other ads. (odds = 85%)

* Asian language SEOs will be a driving force of the SEO industry as the focus of the international economy continues to move from North America to Asia. (odds = 75%)

* The Toronto Maple Leafs will finally win the Stanley Cup. (odds = .05%)

* Google will be officially labeled a weapon of mass destruction based on the recent Florida update. (odds = 99%)

* Non-Spammy results will be found at Google very soon. (odds = 10%)

* Every major search engine will introduce their own tool-bars. (odds = 90%)

* MSN will make a major purchase, possibly ASK.Com’s TEOMA (odds = 50%)

* StepForth Placement will expand to double it’s current size and staff (odds = 80%+)

* StepForth Placement will add a new division (details pending, odds = 100%)

LycosUK has introduced an extraordinary tracking service allowing users to shop between various financial services in a partnership with MoneySuperMarket.Com. The service promises savings of up to 10% of a users annual salary, if used properly. Users can check different rates, move money between credit cards, see different loan and credit opportunities and track bonus offers such as loyalty points and programs. This looks like an excellent tool for individual users and small businesses. If successful in the UK, Lycos will expand the program to Europe and North America sometime in 2004.

Google’s recent update (FLORIDA) has been discussed and dissected by the SEO community for the past three weeks. WebMasterWorld moderator, Barry Lloyd has taken the time to compile and analyze much of the discussion and has packaged it in a well written and easy to understand article. This is a must read of SEOs and webmasters interested in Google (this likely means you…).

Spam makes lots of people angry. Lots of spam makes certain people too angry to control themselves as was found by a Victoria company earlier this week. Douglas Mackay, president of DM Contact Management was repeatedly threatened by a man in southern California who had received one too many penis enlargement spam emails, and mistakenly targeted DM Contact Management as the senders. Since the spring time, Douglas Mackay has received strange and threatening emails from Charles Booher, a 44 year old computer programmer in Sunnyvale California. Booher was frustrated by the same level of spam we are all frustrated by except Booher foolishly decided to try to scare Mackay’s company into making the spam stop. Problem is, Mackay’s company never sent the offending emails in the first place. Booher said he would, torture Mackay with an ice pick, deliver an envelope full of anthrax spores to his office and disable him with a bullet to the knee-caps. He was arrested earlier this week and could face up to five years in jail and a $250,000 fine. According to the Globe and Mail newspaper, “…News accounts say that Mr. Booker is a survivor of testicular cancer, and therefore found repeated messages dealing with penile extension ‘frustrating.’”.

Google has been showing really bizarre results today. Just when I start to think Google is coming back to some sense of normal I see a client report or conduct a random search that shows that Google has not gotten back to normal. Before the recent Florida Update, I could be reasonably sure that if a site was in the Top10 at Lycos or Alta Vista, it was almost certainly Top10 at Google. Today, that is not the case, or at least not all of the time.

Ross noticed something interesting a few minutes ago. Google does not seem to be measuring back-links in any noticable way. Ross re-worked an optimization effort for one of his clients’ sites last week on the assumption that really strong SEO would beat sites with high link-densities and suddenly, the site is in the #2 spot on Google after being dropped during the Florida Update. We are attempting the same practice on another couple of sites (with client permission of course) in the hopes that our assumption is correct. With Google spidering and re-spidering like mad these days, we hope to see results withing three or four days.

Today’s Globe and Mail (Canada’s National newspaper) has an amazing disection of Microsoft’s emerging OS, Longhorn. This article should be required reading for any SEO or anyone interested in SEO. Read more…

Ross just received a call from another SEO asking why we haven’t publically bashed Google for their most recent ranking weirdness. In reality, I think we’ve taken it to Google several times in the past year and rightly so. Google has a tremendous impact on the world of search and the availability of information to the general public. On a business persective, companies can be made and broken based on their Google ranking. This is important and we can’t forget that every business has an impact on real people’s lives. I think Google has a responsibility to live up to but I have no idea exactly how they should live up to it. More warning perhaps.

I think I will start taking pot-shots in print at Google’s expense and here’s the first. Google’s rankings were thrown totally out of whack last week with the oddest update we’ve ever seen. SPAM and totally unrelated sites ending up with the top rankings under specific keyword phrases. Sites that had been placing in the Top10 for months or even years suddenly gone from the listings… ARG. This update has been named the Florida update and, in a strange way, that figures. We’ve suspected the math in Florida to be sort of whacky for a couple of years now…

Garrett French has pasted StepForth all over the front of WebProNews and his newsletter today. Amazing… We’re getting a lot of attention and a lot of visits to the site. We just wanted to say thank you Garrett, you are the entire Top10, IMHO Read more…

Last week it was reported that Microsoft and Google had met to discuss a possible buy-out. This week, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates stated that the discussions never happened. Four weeks ago, it was reported that Google was going to issue an IPO in February 2004 through a “Dutch Auction” format. The next day, Google Communication Director David Krane, was all over the phones demanding retractions of the story. Obviously someone is telling stories somewhere along the line… Read more…