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Speed Enters SEO Equation

admin — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 05:06:30 +0000

After noticing Google’s Page Speed feature in Webmaster tools, I began to suspect that page load time was affecting the Page Rank of Google’s indexed websites. Now officially Google has announced that load speed is a factor in their search engine algorithm. They are also quick to note that page speed does not carry significant weight in the ranking algorithm, as the change is new and will be evaluated. The argument is that with all other things being equal, speed deserves to be considered in page value and will also serve as motivation to create faster websites for viewers. Critics however charge that this move will disproportionately hurt content-rich websites, which could drive a devolution of this content in order to meet the demands of page speed. Others say that quick websites of little value will gain Page Rank points under this system – giving a boost to ad-ridden affiliate sites and spam. Hopefully this move will pressure Google to optimize some of its lag-heavy services such as Analytics so that websites aren’t penalized for using Google’s services under Google’s own system.

Google is challenging the marketplace in mobile, social networking, OS development, browsing, office collaboration, and more. But the blood of Google remains in search, so it only makes sense for Google to experiment with progressing this technology further. This is one area they cannot afford to lag behind.

Hackers Exploit All Browsers – Except Chrome

admin — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 18:43:01 +0000

This year’s annual hacking competition, Pwn2Own, has revealed Google’s Chrome browser as the most secure option for browser security. All other browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera) were exploited on day 1 of the event. By day 2, no one was even attempting to exploit Chrome. This is true despite a $10,000 prize from Google for successfully hacking into Chrome’s sandbox.

The news is a much needed boost for Google, who is seeing competition attacking from all sides. Security is likely to become a bigger issue as more of our personal lives get recorded and stored online. Google’s concentration on security may draw customers to both it’s browser and mobile software for the peace of mind. At the same competition, Apple’s iPhone was exploited in 20 sec. – allowing the hackers access to a full log of SMS messages, including those deleted.

It should be noted, however, that Chrome is relatively new and its security successes may largely be result of its relative unfamiliarity. The exploits on other browsers have largely relied on well-known existing vulnerabilities. It remains to be seen whether Chrome can maintain it’s secure status as it spreads throughout the market.

Google Pulls Out of China

admin — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 19:50:30 +0000

Search giant Google has ‘inconspicuously’ pulled out of China due to the recent flair up between the two bodies regarding internet censorship and a recent hack of Google’s systems originating in China. This delicate chess game has moved forward one more step as Google has now redirected all of its Google.cn traffic to its uncensored Hong Kong site Google.hk.
Users of Google.cn will still see filtered results however, due to China’s firewall. The move is more strategic on Google’s part rather than helping the cause of censorship in China. Google will no longer be filtering content on their own servers for China, but will be leaving the filtration to China itself.

Facebook Overtakes Google in Traffic

admin — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:55:10 +0000

Social networking giant Facebook has officially taken over the #1 traffic title on the internet with 7.07% of all internet traffic, with Google following closely at 7.03%. Facebook has been steadily increasing it’s traffic over the last year, and is proving to be a favorite home destination for users. I’ve received a lot of positive feedback from my own clients regarding Facebook Advertising, which is a serious threat the the Google market.

Google is the default home page for many users, but with Facebook’s livesearch integration, it is quickly becoming a popular ‘home’ for many internet users. Keep in mind that this comparison only looks at the Google.com page vs the Facebook.com page. This does not include any of Google’s other services such as Gmail, Calendar, Docs, etc.

Google has increasingly been trying to tap into Facebooks social networking market with the introduction of Orkut, Buzz, and Google Wave. However, so far all have been relative disappointments.

Twitter’s New @anywhere Platform

admin — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 23:32:54 +0000

Twitter has leaked a bit of information on its blog regarding the release of a new integration platform called @anywhere. This platform will make it easy for 3rd-parties to integrate twitter into their systems without the need to link back to twitter.com. What exactly is this good for?

Imagine being able to follow a New York Times journalist directly from her byline, tweet about a video without leaving YouTube, and discover new Twitter accounts while visiting the Yahoo! home page—and that’s just the beginning.

This is twitter’s way to infiltrate more of the internet by offering a simple ‘copy and paste’ method of integration, similar to YouTube’s embed. Smart play, and could be a convenient way to get out your tweets as you surf the web. It will be interesting to see how much flexibility to platform offers.

High Speed: Cisco Triples Bandwidth

admin — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 21:00:48 +0000

Cisco will soon release their next-generation commercial router (CRS-3) for public consumption. The new technology is claimed to have a capacity of 322 Tbps. In human terms that’s enough to download every movie ever made in 4 minutes, to download the entire library of congress in 1 second, or allow every person in China to have a video conference simultaneously. Fantastic. The speed at which information is moving creates incredible opportunities for innovation. If only ISP’s were able to catch up.

Google recently announced plans to experiment with offering fiber optic high speed internet access with up to 1 Gbps. Similarly in Canada, Shaw Communications has stated that they too are working on bringing 1 Gbps download speeds to residential internet users.

What can you do with this kind of speed? Well, imagination is the boundary, but think of High Definition Video, gaming, video conferencing, and of course, porn. How about interactive teaching tools and access to the world’s information collection at your fingertips…

Here’s Google’s take:

Google Launches ‘Apps Marketplace’

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:46:23 +0000

Today Google unveiled it’s ‘Apps Marketplace‘. Similar to the iPhone App Store, Google’s new baby allows developers to sell their applications directly through Google’s website, and have them easily installed for existing Google Apps users. Not only can developers create applications that communicate directly with Google’s services – they now have a large marketplace to offer them to the world.

Of course, like the iPhone App Store, Google will screen all applications for approval and take a cut. It remains to be seen how open and accepting they are of applications.

The Good

New Market to reach potential clients and bring attention to your services
New revenue stream
Integrate and make use of Google’s existing technology (Docs, Spreadsheets, Gmail, Calendar) in applications
Google name recognition for applications

The Evil

Looks like many of the apps are limited to Enterprise users. If you are used to making use of Google Apps Standard for your clients then many of the Apps will not be available
$100 setup to get your App in the Marketplace
Google takes 20% of your revenue sold on the Marketplace

Check out the release video from Google Campfire: