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Monday, September 29th, 2008

Google Shares Drop Below $400

Google shares are at a considerable low today. They opened with a value of $420 and by 12:26pm ET, had dropped below the $400 mark to $396.29 (according to a Google search for “goog”)

Google Shares, Sept 29, 2008: 12:26PM ET

At one point the stock had reached a new 52 week low of $395.34 – a far cry from the 52 week high of $747.24 set in November of last year. That’s a drop of more than $350 since the peak which is a lot of coin for all serious Google shareholders. Read more…

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Friday, September 26th, 2008

$28.7 Million to Improve Digg

dig logoFunding to the tune of $28.7 Million, led by Highland Capital Partners, will be used over at Digg to incorporate a number of changes, Jay Adelson announced in the official Digg blog Wednesday.

Changes will include improvements in infrastructure, new feature development, international expansion, and hiring new employees to make the whole thing happen. New features will include personalizing the “Digg Experience” and incorporating a number of user suggestions from over the years.

Adelson notes that nearly half of their 30 million monthly users are from outside of the US, so making adjustments for localized tastes and languages are on the forefront for their growth strategy for 2009.

He also notes that they will be hiring, so if you are a techie in need of a job, you may want to take a look at their jobs page!

Yahoo has opened up another location, this time with a research center in Grenoble France. This follows shortly after news that Yahoo may also be opening up a location in La Vista Nebraska creating at least 50 news jobs.

Layoff notices for more than 1000 employees were also handed out near the start of the year, and Yahoo’s shares have just hit a 52 week low – interesting that they are expanding in all this turmoil.

Regardless, it looks like the new facility will employee 220 engineers and be Yahoo’s biggest center in France. The French minister of economy is offering sizable tax credits for research based operations, which helps to explain the choice of location.

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Thursday, September 25th, 2008

Google to Give Away Millions!

Google LogoHow would you like to have Google cut you a check for a few million dollars? Well, if you have the right ideas that could help change the world you just might get some cash from Google. There is of course a catch.

If your idea to help make the world a better place is chosen by Google, you will get a share of $10 million, but the money you get must go directly towards putting your idea into action. Google is putting up $10 million which will be divided up among the top five submissions to be used for project funding.

Submissions must be made by Oct 20, 2008. In late January 2009 Google will select 100 of the ideas and leave it up to the public to narrow down the list to 20 semifinalists. The five winners will be chosen and announced in February by a Google-sponsored advisory board.

To submit your project ideas or for more information, visit Google’s project10tothe100.com.

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Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

Google Answers Webmaster Questions

Yesterday Google Webmaster Central posted a video response to numerous questions the department had received from webmasters. The following video addresses duplicate content, search engine friendly web design, spider blocking, and more.

Note: The original post includes a transcript of the video if you would prefer a readable format.
by Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Web Marketing Inc.
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Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

August Search Marketshare

The latest search market share figures are in at Nielsen, ComScore, and HitWise, and, for the most part, Google continues to rise.

Depending on which provider you prefer, Google saw yet another increase in market share in August as did Yahoo. MSN has dropped according to all three providers. Read more…

Site Design from the Ground UpSo, you have finally decided to build yourself a website, but really have no idea where to start. The following 10 steps will give you some insight into what you need to address when creating a search friendly website from the ground up.

While this article is not an exhaustive list of everything you need to know, it does touch base on many of the important aspects of creating a new website. Read more…

24/7 Wall Street wrote a fascinating article today describing how Microsoft could quite easily buy its way on to far more computer screens for much less than buying Yahoo; there are powerful search engines that represent many of the Chinese, Russian and Czech viewers. It is a great short read and the economics appear to make sense. Read the article here.

At Search Engine Strategies San Jose I had the pleasure of interviewing my friend and mentor Dr. Ralph Wilson. Ralph is one of those amazing people who always seems to stay on top of his formidable workload while managing writers and his well known web site Web Marketing Today.

In this interview I asked Ralph how he keeps on top of his enormous workload while still writing ebooks and articles and as I expected he had some great tips to share. Read more…

google olympicsWhen poking into twitter earlier today I saw a post from Matt Cutts who had linked to an interesting TechCrunch article.

It seems that Kristin Armstrong used a GPS and Google Earth to help her train for her Gold Medal performance in Beijing last month. Read more…

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