Looking at the World with Google Blinkers On
The world more and more depends on the Internet to go about even its most basic everyday business; and this would be a good time to begin thinking about how effectively the Internet is regulated. The FCC in the US is beginning to put together a set of conventions for the Internet, that aim to make sure that Internet infrastructure providers, are never given the freedom to discriminate among different kinds of services in the setting of prices for the use of infrastructure. They call it the network neutrality rules. Any kind of Internet service or website needs to be given the same terms of service as anyone else. But these rules are only mainly aimed at Internet giants – the Warners and AOL’s of this world, and the FCC needs to expand the scope of its rules.It isn’t just the service providers that own the Internet’s hardware that need to be regulated this way; the software and services that form the backbone of the Internet, the search giants Google, Bing and Yahoo, need to be brought in as well. New companies and services are discovered by users through these gatekeepers of the Internet; and little startups have their entire survival controlled by how well they are visible on these search engines. Any kind of discrimination they face, would be their undoing. The FCC needs to make sure of this.
So do any of the major search engines actually use active discrimination? Google is a company that has a finger in all kinds of pies at the same time: maps and directions, e-mail, Internet payments, among others. Google doesn’t feel any compunction plugging its own products with top billing on its search results with no mind paid to what its own algorithms think of it. Without a doubt, Google is not impartial; and for a basic service that ought to belong right up there with the other human rights, this is intolerable.There is also the Google sandbox that lots of companies and get permanently lost in, because they can never make out what rules Google has that they have broken.Google has near-complete domination of the Internet; if something doesn’t appear on Google, chances are it will never be found. And this is not good for innovation.
Most of Google’s greatest services, YouTube, Google Maps, or even AdSense, were developed by others,and when they became popular, Google acquired them one way or another. What if a Google stranglehold over the Internet prevents new services like this from ever having a fair chance?
Is it Really Relavant – Following Bing’s Market Share?
People can’t stop breathlessly following Bing’s core search share in the US and across the world. Every fraction of a percentage point that Bing gains over Google and Yahoo is noted, analyzed and digested like it was a sports statistic. For instance, Bing is reported to be growing at a faster pace each month than the month before. In December, Bing took an additional half percentage point to bob close to an 11% market share. Following the search engine share battle very closely is serious business; why then should these statistics close the club to Google, Yahoo and Bing? Why ignore the elephant in the living room, namely,China’s Baidu?Google has been in the news (and when hasn’t it) this past week for holding its ground in taking the moral high road in not submitting to China’s demands in censorship. Google’s announced pullout from China has earned it quite a shine for its reputation. It’s dignified walkout in China has done more for its business than just earn it a good name though. China’s Baidu search engine is no longer just a Google copycat making do with scraps in the dark. Baidu happens to be bigger even than Bing, and will easily soon overtake Yahoo to be number two after Google. Baidu now has 20% of the search market worldwide, not just in China.
If you really want to tabulate search market shares, how can you do it when you ignore the soon-to-be number-two player? With China’s search market losing Google, the market share that is now up for grabs iss already being carved up by other local Chinese players in search. China’s Internet businesses seem set to become great competition to Google for everything on the Internet, valuable Internet company acquisitions included. The other American search companies hardly seem primed for aggressive market positioning anyway. The fear now is that,China could end up owning valuable Internet properties in the US, and that that would be a blow to Internet freedom.
Is Yahoo Really an Illusion?
Bing is full of surprises these days in its unending competition with Google. Bing adds new features regularly like the Wolfram Alpha function and mapping tools that are visually stunning. Integration with the Wolfram Alpha computational engine means that they will now be able to interpret what you ask in human terms. If you search for “fast food”, it will give you the usual restaurant information, but also exercise tips and indigestion information. Yahoo has introduced a major search feature too – as of last year. The feature is called Bing. Yahoo is finally throwing in the towel in search; they may have snubbed Microsoft’s $44 billion takeover offer two years ago, but they have other Microsoft-friendly attitudes in place.Yahoo has closed its search business, and is allowing Bing to do the backroom work. They closed down their shopping API as well, and chose to power their shopping site with Price Grabber.There have been other reports out there wondering if Yahoo is preparing to shut shop entirely; if they don’t do their own search, what is it they do? Yahoo’s management has put out a vehement statement about how it isn’t fair for anyone to consider Yahoo a spent force. The statement claims that Yahoo has a great relationship with its developers and a commitment to open platforms; well, my Log Blog was an innovative service that developers and geeks loved too. And that’s been closed by Yahoo as well. GeoCities recently got the ax, and it looks like Yahoo these days is all about closing down and outsourcing. It would appear that pretty soon, the US search market will be left with just a big two – just like the US auto market when it lost Chrysler.
But Yahoo is still in the search business to all appearances. They take care of all the advertising business on their own site as well as on Bing’s. Yahoo’s plan is to cut costs, of course. But to do that, it still needs to be around, doesn’t it? Yahoo is no longer a website that provides original services; it is just an aggregator. And this makes for the passing of an era.
A Website Redesign Can work Magic – If you Know How to Work It
Website redesigns are suddenly on everyone’s minds these days now that both Yahoo and MSN are voting on this strategy to raise their prospects in the popularity stakes. Yahoo has actually managed to have people spend a fifth more time on its website with the new design. When the bigwigs publicly put their stock in an idea, you can be sure that discussion boards around the world will swing into action wondering why they did it, exactly what lessons there are to learn of the situation. But often, people try the DIY route to get the MSN-Yahoo advantage in a hurry. Google’s forums are full of questions about why website page visits go south the moment a website is casually DIY redesigned. The answers from the mediators usually point to how the little things can trip people up: like how appearance and the structure, if done incorrectly, can make it difficult for Google to crawl the site effectively, or how URL-naming protocols can get messed up after a redesign. So what is the general philosophy Yahoo kept in mind for a redesign?
Yahoo seems to have a better measure than Google’s PageRank, of how effective a web page is: Yahoo calls it PageYield; it measures how much time a visitor spends on a page, and how many repeat visits there are. Yahoo’s PageYields have gone up 20% after the redesign. The design philosophy with Yahoo this time has been to give up jealously-guarded personal space on the website to allow people to do just about anything on it. One particularly popular idea has been Yahoo allowing members to customize their homepage not just with Yahoo applications, but any applications on the Internet at all. True innovation comes in small steps like this: opening up in one way or another. Personalization has been the philosophy behind the other popular feature on the new Yahoo; an intelligent Today module for example, targets news to members’ individual interests. The customization philosophy has helped of course, but so has the fact that the Today module happens to be very successful at making relevant suggestions. Customization and localization have been MSN’s mantra too. Basically, the thing to gain from a close look at renovations at these two behemoths could be this: redesign well, but only when it is necessary to enable a great new idea.
Is it worth optimizing your site for Yahoo and MSN?
Search engine optimization is essential for getting top ranks in major search engines. We know that implementing optimizing strategies effectively will help us get loads of traffic and higher rankings in Google. What about Yahoo and MSN? Is it really worth optimizing your site for Yahoo and MSN? Let’s take a detailed look at it.
Optimizing site for Yahoo:
According to one study, 25% searches are done through Yahoo. It means that if your site is not coming up on Yahoo, you will lose 25 percent of your potential visitors.
The following things are the current generalized specifications to achieving better rankings in Yahoo.
The yahoo search engine gives more importance to keyword density. Placing right keywords in the content is very important. Use keywords in link text, while linking pages to each other. Remember keywords with catchy titles will attract maximum number of readers.
Sometimes, Yahoo may fail to index dynamic pages so try to have static pages with keyword-rich content; it will increase the rank of your site on Yahoo. If you have some important dynamic pages on site, prepare a site map or quick links with links to all Web pages. This will help the Yahoo spider to crawl all your pages.
Try to avoid using frames on your site, as Yahoo spider finds it difficult to crawl them.
Optimizing site for MSN:
Optimizing for msn can certainly increase your site rankings on MSN. If your site has fresh & original content that is being added regularly, you can receive tons of traffic to your site.
In order to get better search engine ranking on msn, you have to follow the MSN search engine optimization rules.
Don’t forget that MSN is a keyword sensitive search engine. If you have strong keyword density throughout Title, Description and Keyword Tags, MSN will reward your website with strong search engine rankings. Keep in mind that, you have to place your most important keywords in the title. Keyword rich link text helps in good msn ranking.
You ought to add fresh content on a regular basis to your site so that you can get top rankings on MSN.
Google & Yahoo To Swap Ads
In what seems to be a shot across the bows of the dreadnought that is USS Microsoft, Google and Yahoo today announced a two week long ‘experiment’ of swapping ads with one another.
Effectively this means that Google can serve ads on Yahoo’s results page. The percentage is around 3% of all Yahoo searches will show Google ads.
Is this a calculated shot from the two internet monsters that they will not accept Microsoft’s pestering of Yahoo lying down?
Read the full story on BBC News
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