With the Internet growing so rapidly do you ever wonder if you are missing a new trend or technology that could boost your bottom line? Well, there just happens to be a piece of the Internet that I bet you haven’t made the leap to yet and it is going to be BIG. This new space is mobile search and mobile Internet surfing. Read more…

Just under a couple of hours ago Yahoo! announced a “Weather Report”, which, in Yahoo terms means that their search results are getting revamped (if only slightly). Apparently the update began on Sunday and is expected to be completed by Wednesday morning. There isn’t much to this notice other than it is being applied, but it is worth knowing about.

Remember not to panic if you see your Yahoo rankings fluctuate over the next couple of days. Search engine updates like this tend to produce a ranking shuffle and it is useless to act on any changes until the dust settles.

I will keep you up to date if any of the changes have a measurable impact.

For those that missed my interview with Jim Hedger on WebmasterRadio.FM last Thursday here is a direct link to my archived interview. Please note that you will have to fast forward about 20 minutes (about a 1/3 of the way on the Quicktime status bar) to get to my interview.

WebmasterRadio.FM has released a fascinating, if not alarming, story series based on the issues of click fraud and terrorist fund raising that is sure to be the subject of many water cooler sessions. As the story unfolds we will know more but here is a snippet that describes the concerns/accusations against the pay per click industry:

“The series starts with an interview with Clarence Briggs, CEO of hosting firm AIT.com. Mr. Briggs was a lead proponent in one of the class action lawsuits Google settled in the spring of 2006. Because the case was settled out of court, Google was never forced to show how they charge for some clicks and dismiss others as invalid. Mr. Briggs maintains Google is doing business as usual, just as they did before the class actions were initiated.

“During the interview, Mr. Briggs noted the use of click fraud by criminal and terrorist organizations. Our investigation has found several incidents of this type of activity. We have also found evidence of bot-nets used to facilitate click fraud, primarily against Google advertisers.” (source, WebmasterRadio.FM – linked here)

Jim Hedger, a past writer at StepForth and a good friend is one of the leaders of this investigation so I am sure to get notified as soon as more information is released – at which time I will post a follow up ASAP.

Google engineer Matt Cutts wrote an extensive post describing Google’s response to a website that had undoubtedly been hacked. If you are at all curious as to what would happen to your website rankings on Google should it be hacked please read this post – it is an excellent read and comforting in my book. Read more…

Now this is a coup that must have PayPal shaking. Google has announced that it will be extending its waiver of fees past the end of 2006 to December 31st, 2007! Unfortunately, however, there are reports that companies with affiliate programs have switched to this affordable system way too soon.

The problem is that Google Checkout requires serious tweaking before affiliate codes are passed along and properly recorded. And when I say “serious tweaking” I mean that even Commission Junction (CJ) has been reported to having some difficulty with the switchover; I smell some unfriendly programming! As a result, if companies with affiliate programs switch to Google Checkout too soon they may be alienating their bread and butter – affiliate sales. Read more…

GigaOmniMedia Inc. has launched a new website called NewTeeVee.com that is designed to cover the massive growth of the online video industry.

Liz Gannes, the editor of NewTeeVee.com introduces the site in her first post with the following paragraph: “We aim to cover online video from end to end and front to back. We’ll point you to hot startups, hot videos, hot pipes — tracing the talent, money, code, and data across the network. We’ll combine the signature GigaOM skepticism with a healthy sense of wonder for all the cool stuff that’s going on out there. And lots and lots of pictures and video.”

GigaOM.com is named after Om Malik; a highly respected technology writer who has written for the likes of Red Herring and Business 2.0 among others. His GigaOM network has a host of quality information resources that I refer to regularly for intelligent insight into emerging and existing technologies. If NewTeeVee.com maintains the quality of content I have come to expect from other Om Malik sites then I expect it will be well worth the read for anyone interested in keeping tabs on the emerging video sector. In addition, if you have any invested interest in online video perhaps it would be worthwhile to look into advertising; after all it is a new website so perhaps the price will be right!

Here is a great peek at what the world appears to be searching for: Yahoo!’s top searches of 2006.

My favorite listing happens to be the “Top News” where the average searcher’s priorities are inexplicably out of order. For example, the search “North Korea nuke” is the 7th most popular search and “Anna Nicole’s son dies” merits a second ranking; what a warped world we live in!

Jim Hedger, our favourite SEO columnist and the first-ever employee of StepForth is having me on his talk radio show this Thursday at 2:00 Pacific at www.webmasterradio.fm. I hope you will listen in as Jim and I discuss the latest SEO news and our experiences in this rapidly growing industry. Until then!

QUESTION: I have just started my own design company and although very well trained in both designing and programming, earning two associate degrees in this field, not one professor ever said anything about making your websites search engine friendly. I recently designed a website for my sister and i cannot even get her site to show up in any search engine. I have several keywords at the top including a description as well. one problem may be that the index page is sort of a splash page except it is just a handler that detects whether or not the user has flash installed and whether or not they have the bandwidth to view the flash page accurately. it then redirects them to a new page based on the feedback. therefore, there is no real content on the index page. Another possible problem is that she is mentioned on hundreds of other websites. do you have any suggestions for me? Any advice would help. — Laura P. Read more…