By John Young (c) 2006

Bill was getting frustrated and desperate. He’d being trying to promote his website for months with little or no success.
Adwords didn’t seem to be working. He’d devised the most fiendish ads he could think of and set them up on Google only to find that nobody clicked on them.

He had written several articles and, using an automatic article submitter, had placed them on hundreds of Article Barns across the web. There had been an increase in his Alexa Ratings, but that was it. Maybe there was a slight flurry of hits when he first placed the article, then nothing.

By Jim Hedger (c) 2006

The mysterious “Google Sandbox” has been a hot discussion topic for search engine optimizers since the phenomena was first noted and named in late April 2004. Since then, ideas on the function, scope and even existence of the sandbox have been a mainstay in SEO and Google related forums, chats and articles.
The term, “sandbox” describes a process of Google’s ranking formulas that appear to slow the debut of new sites in the Top10 listings. Whether or not the sandbox exists tends to depend on the side of the black hat / white hat debate one comes from. SEOs dedicated to “pure”, non-spammy SEO tend to downplay the effects of the sandbox while those who use dark-art tactics know from personal experience that the effects are very real.

GAG Group consists of Garage & Gate, Exmouth Engineering and Honiton Engineering. The Group offer a range of structural steel fabrication services, from bespoke creations and security features, to bollards, railings, stairways and auto additions. Marine engineering surveys and metalwork is also on offer, as is a range of building and welding services. GAG Group has launched their new website, consisting of a main page and individual sites for each member of the group, with examples and images of structural work.

Visit their new webpages here: GAG Group, Exmouth Engineering, Honiton Engineering and Garage & Gate

There are a number of ways and locations to purchase domain names, and research and knowledge are keys to making the right decision. Therefore, it is important to know a number of things when purchasing a domain name.

1) Accredited Registrars

All domain names must be sold by accredited Registrars certified to do so by ICANN. Registrars are required to follow the procedures set forth by ICANN, giving consumers a dispute organization in the event one is needed.

Microsoft may set up an online version of its low-end Works productivity suite to compete with offerings from Google and a number of startup companies.

Just as users of Google’s Writely online word processor were receiving emails that their logins were becoming Google accounts, Microsoft began to more openly talk about productivity software in the online arena.

Microsoft’s Alan Yates said in a Reuters report the company wants to find more ways of reaching potential customers:

“We’re also thinking about how we might take advantage of new business models like advertising and other payment models, as well as new forms of distribution,” said Yates.

By Jason OConnor (c) 2006,
Oak Web Works, LLC

One of the biggest reasons people visit websites is to get information. If you can regularly provide fresh, quality content on your website you can expect to be rewarded by visitors and return visitors. What’s more, you will be rewarded by the search engines. I recommend that you add new and original content to your site as often as possible, ideally once a day.
Regularly adding fresh and original content:

By Scott Buresh

The search engine marketing industry is consistently evolving, sometimes at a pace that makes it hard to believe that search engine marketing services can stay on top of all the latest developments. The one constant for search engine marketing firms, and for the industry in general, is change–usually for the better, sometimes for the worse, but almost always significant. The industry is not for the faint-hearted or those who abhor change. However, savvy search engine marketing firms try to look ahead to anticipate trends. Here are my predictions of issues that search engine marketing services will face in the short term.

By Danny Wirken

Google’s Goal of Quality Search

In their paper ‘The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine’ it is very evident that Google’s goal has always been to be one of the best search engines there is in terms of the quality of the results it gives. Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page, however knew that in order to do this, Google needed to be able to store information efficiently and cost effectively and to have excellent crawling, indexing, and sorting methods or techniques. Google not only aimed to give quality results but to produce the results as fast as possible.

By Scott Buresh (c) 2006

When people hear about online marketing, they often think of two of the more popular methods that a company can use to enhance its visibility on the Web: organic search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising. In an ideal world, you would use both strategically to maximize your site’s profile. However, budgetary constraints often make this impossible, and trying to do both on a limited budget or with minimal resources can result in neither campaign producing ideal results. In this case, it’s usually better to focus on one or the other. But which is best for you?

As Web 2.0 becomes less of just a buzz word and more of a reality, the types of sites webmasters need to publish will increasingly become more important. In other words, mini-sites are slowly dying and cookie-cutter article sites are on the way out as well. Web surfers will become more value-focused and web companies will become larger.

Over the next few years expect larger conglomerates to be buying up profitable websites in their chosen markets. Expect smaller sites to either be bought or driven out of business. My intention is not to scare you but this outcome is inevitable.