There is one important factor to remember whenever you are involved in improving the organic rankings of a website, and that factor is time. One of the most common questions I receive as an SEO is “How long till I start to see results?” This article is dedicated to anyone who has ever asked that question.

It doesn’t matter what industry you are involved in, or what techniques you follow, in all cases you will be a prisoner of time. In the vast majority of cases search engine rankings don’t come over night. Read more…

If you find that your Yahoo email account is being hit with too much spam, all that junk may be significantly cut back in the very near future.

On Jan 20th, it was announced that Yahoo will begin using the anti-spam services of Abaca to help protect Yahoo users from spam, phishing, and other email attacks.

Abaca is the only anti-spam company to guarantee a rate of 99% accuracy.

“As one of the world’s leading Internet companies, we take the security of our users very seriously,” said John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo! Mail. “Abaca offers superior e-mail security capabilities and has built a reputation for reducing unsolicited e-mail within mailboxes. We believe that by deploying Abaca’s solution with our anti-spam toolkit, we will offer Yahoo! Mail users not only added email security, but an enhanced user experience as well.”

Google market share is down – or level, depending on who you trust most. The December numbers are in over at both Nielsen and Comscore, and while both agencies are reporting very similar figures for Google, one is actually showing a loss.

Comscore is reporting Google seeing no change between November and December with back to back months being at 63.5%. Nielsen, after reporting a jump of 2.9% for November, is showing a 1.2% drop for December, down to 62.9%.

This drop in Google’s shares is really quite minor if you look at their performance over all of 2008. Nielsen figures show Google’s share increasing by 6% from 56.9 in Jan 2008. Comscore shows a similar increase of 5% over the same period up from 58.5.

I suspect that Google’s market share is not on the decline and that in the coming months we will continue to see their figures rise.

Well, another year has come and gone, seems like only yesterday we rolled over to 2008 and now it’s just about to end.

A lot happened in 2008. Here at StepForth we have expanded our families both on business and personal levels with the addition of some new personnel internationally and the pitter patter of little feet turning both Ross and I into new fathers. Our services have grown, and we have some exciting plans in store for 2009. Stay tuned to see what we’re up to during the next calendar year.

Everyone at StepForth would like to wish our readers and clients all the best 2009 will have to offer. Have a safe and wonderful New Years Eve!

The latest figures are in over at Comscore, and as far as search market share is concerned, Google continues to increase its lead.

It is never a surprise to see Google leading the pack, its been this way for several years, and it will remain this way for years to come. The only change is, how big is their lead.

Google has seen yet another small increase in its share, up 0.4% to 63.5%. Yahoo trails way back at 20.4% (down 0.1%) and Microsoft dipping 0.2% down to 8.3%.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 9, 2008

StepForth Web Marketing Announces Limited Time Offer for Free PPC Account Review

Save time and money with a FREE assessment of your Pay Per Click campaigns. Our PPC specialists will look at your paid marketing efforts to get a sense of overall performance and account management patterns. We will identify a number of key issues which, if focused upon would go a long way towards improving the long term value of your advertising spend. Read more…

From all of us at StepForth, we would like to wish all of our American friends and clients a happy Thanksgiving!

StepForth will also be closing early Thursday Nov 27 at 3:00pm (PST), for our annual Christmas staff party. Yes we know it’s still November, but with everyone’s busy work and family schedules in December, tomorrow just works out best. We will be open during regular business hours on Friday Nov 28.

Again Happy Thanksgiving everyone, and let the Christmas shopping begin!

It’s 9:20 am PST on Monday November 24th, and access to Both Google AdWords & Postini, appear to be down. It seems strange that both Google services would be down without any formal notice stating a maintenance outage. Read more…

As if Yahoo doesn’t have enough financial troubles. San Diego based DivX is suing Yahoo for $25 million in damages. Allegedly Yahoo had breached an advertising agreement with DivX accounting for more than 20% of their revenue. Read more…

The figures from Nielsen Netratings and comScore are not in as of yet, but Hitwise has posted their latest numbers for October, and they show Google closing in on the 72% mark.

According to Hitwise, Google now sits with 71.7%, up 0.54%, Yahoo is down 0.3% to 17.74%, and MSN is pretty much the same at 5.4% (up a miniscule 0.04%).

As Google grows ever so slowly month after month, it will be no surprise if they manage to reach the 80% point. Will Yahoo or MSN ever manage to steal back some of this market share? Not likely in the near future, but time will tell.