Google have reached the 5000 employees mark

Google have probably reached the 5,000 employees mark if we look at the Financial Release in the Google Investor Q3 earning of 2005.

On a worldwide basis, Google employed 4,989 full time employees as of September 30, 2005, up from 4,183 as of June 30, 2005.

Goog : Huge jump on after hour trade after Q3 2005 earnings

Almost 40$ up in one night ?

Pour un Quebec lucide : Too funny bad use of Web

Here is the first part of the worst Html code I never saw. of the main page (seem working only for microsoft browser :-) for a manifesto of a new Quebecer's group... "For a clear-eyed vision of Quebec" ! Excuse me folks but your site don't work for an open souce browser who get this week the 100 million download mark ! Allo la terre les standards ça se respecte, surtout si on veux être lucide !

Note : The above code have; greater than and lesser than sign, been replace by slash and back slash for the publishing purpose)

/HTML lang=fr /HEAD /title\Pour un Quebec lucide//title
/SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" src="../_cs/js/fnc_cshyperlink.js"\//SCRIPT /SCRIPT Language = "JavaScript" var gsCurrentLang = "1";
patate2="";
var gsSinglePagePopupLinkParam = "true"
function displayManagerWindow(sAction, sDataId, sLevel, sTopic, sIdParent, sFields, sIdLayout, sLayoutField) {
features = 'toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,' + 'scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes,left=0,top=0,width=' + (screen.width - 12) + ',height=' + (screen.height - 55)

if (sDataId != "") {
sDataId = "&data__id=" + sDataId;
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if (sFields != "") {
sFields = "&fields=" + sFields;
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sIdLayout = "&id_layout=" + sIdLayout;
if (sLayoutField != "") {
sLayoutField = "&layout_field=" + sLayoutField;
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}
dlg = window.open ("cs.wadata.edit@saction=" + sAction + sDataId + "&level__level=" + sLevel + "&data__id_topic=" + sTopic + "&data__id_parent=" + sIdParent + sFields + sIdLayout + sLayoutField,"displayWindow",features)
dlg.focus();
// window.parent.parent.location = "cs.wadata.edit@saction=" + sAction + sDataId + "&level__level=" + sLevel + "&data__id_topic=" + sTopic + "&data__id_parent=" + sIdParent
//OpenWin = this.open("cs.wadata.edit@saction=" + sAction + sDataId + "&level__level=" + sLevel + "&data__id_topic=" + sTopic + "&data__id_parent=" + sIdParent, "CtrlWindow", "toolbar=yes,menubar=yes,location=yes,scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes");
}

function displayLevelInfoManagerWindow(sAction, sLevel, sTopic, sIdLayout, sLayoutField) {

features = 'toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,' + 'scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes,left=0,top=0,width=' + (screen.width - 12) + ',height=' + (screen.height - 55)

dlg = window.open ("cs.walevel.editintro@saction=" + sAction + "&level__level=" + sLevel + "&level__id_topic=" + sTopic,"displayWindow",features)
dlg.focus();


}

function displayManagerWindowCalendar(sAction, sDataId, sLevel, sTopic, sIdParent, sParameter) {
features = 'toolbar=no,location=no,directories=no,status=no,menubar=no,' + 'scrollbars=yes,resizable=yes,left=0,top=0,width=' + (screen.width - 12) + ',height=' + (screen.height - 55)

if (sDataId != "") {
sDataId = "&data__id=" + sDataId;
}

if (sParameter != "") {
sParameter = "&" + sParameter;
//sParameter = sParameter + "&day=" + sParameter;

}

if (sAction == "create") {
sParameter = sParameter + "&month=" + frmData.monthlist.options[frmData.monthlist.selectedIndex].value;
sParameter = sParameter + "&year=" + frmData.yearlist.options[frmData.yearlist.selectedIndex].value;

}

dlg = window.open ("cs.wadata.editcalendar@saction=" + sAction + sDataId + "&level__level=" + sLevel + "&data__id_topic=" + sTopic + "&data__id_parent=" + sIdParent + sParameter,"displayWindow",features)
dlg.focus();

}


function VersionNavigateur(Netscape, Explorer) {
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return false;
}
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This is a real joke ! No search engine will never crawl that site. Bravo à Soleweb et le cabinet National.ca pour cette belle bourde !

Open Office 2 have been released

A lot of new features and advanced XML capabilities make it a nice alternative to Redmont software.

Splogs Search

Nice initiative this database of Spam blogs.
Technorati Tags: splogs, spog, spam

Exalead Makeover and Passes 2 Billion Index Mark

One of my Top 5 search engine have seen his front page change to a new look and his index passes the 2 Billion Mark. With the Google Algo bugs on the 5 october, I think I will try to change it to my default SE for the week to see if he will replace my old love. I will give you news on it next week.

Google Algo Update

Matt Cutt confirmed what WebmasterWorld users have seen on a 40+ pages thread at the beginning of october, an algorithms and scoring change. For the first time, one client lost his first page on his main keyphrase and been pushed on page 10. Ouch !

It's a good thing his site is bilingual and with the french keyphrase he is still on page 1. I personnaly think he will retreive soon his good spot, because it's not normal for a site who was not update in the last year to been pushed so far away. Also when your keyphrase bring a few directories site your in, before your own site, that's definitively a bug.

Wikimedia Foundation Grew 289 Percent in Year-over-year Growth

The two London bombings, Katrina and Rita have probably helped a lot of this growth.

College Students Rely on Search Engines More than any Other Media

I'd like to view a similar study five and ten years ago.

Planete Discount Spam Google, Yahoo and MSN

The filtering of the big three is not yet perfect. Look at this query at the main search engines

Google at 19th position on 988 results:

Souris - planete discount: recherche - achat prix discount - [ Translate this page ]
Bleuetiers: Tableau comparatif Bleuetiers: Méthode culturale Bleuetiers: Variétés
Mûriers: Tableau comparatif Mûriers: Méthode culturale Asperge: Variétés ...
souris.microdiscount.com/fr/A.htm - 78k - Cached - Similar pages - Remove result

Yahoo make a bit better with a 37th place on 317 results:

Promo - Souris - planete discount: recherche - achat prix discount - Translate this page

Promo - Souris - PlaneteDiscount.com: recherche de produit discount ... Bleuetiers: Tableau comparatif Bleuetiers: Méthode culturale Bleuetiers: Variétés Mûriers: Tableau comparatif ...

souris.gallerydiscount.com/fr/Promo.htm - 49k - Cached - More from this site - Save - Block

MSN even better with the 39th spot on 49 results :

Souris - planete discount: recherche - achat prix discount
... Feedback No comments posted yet. souris.microdiscount.com Bleuetiers: Tableau comparatif Bleuetiers: Méthode culturale Bleuetiers: Variétés Mûriers: Tableau comparatif Mûriers: Méthode culturale ... souris.microdiscount.com/fr/A.htm Cached page

Hope those guys will be kick out from there !

Ad Dollars Shift to the Web Continues

Nice news for the Web community, but I'm not sure the sample of an hundred leading advertisers that spent over $1 billion with newspapers will reflect the real life ?
For my point of view it's usually the small and medium companies who have been early adopters of the Web ad market, not the big guys.

Yahoo Blog Search Integration in News

Contrary to Google which preferred to separate research between news sites and blogs, Yahoo! News post side by side results from "official" news sites and Blogs.

I hate that. I was searching for a person and I click on the More Blogs Results to check the relevancy of the results and decide to double quotes the name. Bang, back to official news results !

I think Yahoo do that to measure the favour of the public for information coming from alternative sources.

Yahoo Podcast : Nice interface, but bad crawling !

Nice interface and the possibility to add Tag to podcast is great. But the index has tons of errors in it.
If you look for one of the first Podcaster around here, M-C Turgeon, who produce almost 50 podcasts since the last 9 month, you will get 19 episodes from her but only one is really a Podcast (episode 6), all the other are wrong links to picture files.
If you want to find her Podcastography * you should go to Odeo, where Yahoo should have start is crawling for real Podcast's file !

They should offer the possibility to host the file directly there with a form to populate all the data, -ie- so many different format are possible in podcasting, it will simplify the crawling process and gave more accurate information on each Podcast.

* Seem I'm the first one to use that word ?

Technorati Tags: podcast, podcastography

China Telecommunication

Falun........ gone
;-)

Internet Trends

Here some interesting fact from Internet Trends at Web 2.0 by Mary Meeker (pdf) :

• Denmark VoIP minutes > landline voice minutes
• N. America = 23% of Internet users in 2005; was 66% in 1995
• S. Korea Broadband penetration of 70%+ - No. 1 in world
• China : More Internet users <>
• Mobile Messaging : 1.1T SMSs sent with $50B in revenue in 2004
  

Google + Yahoo! + eBay + Yahoo! Japan + Amazon.com

• $2B = market value - pre-2000 IPO
• $178B = market value - Nasdaq peak – 3/10/00
• $ 32B = market value - Nasdaq trough – 10/9/02
• $261B = market value - 10/3/05

Google Reader will launch soon

Scoop : A new entry in the Google's Robots.txt today :

Disallow: /reader

Also the http://reader.google.com redirect you to http://www.google.com/reader/ like all new Google apps and this time give you a 403 forbidden, which make me think it's in internal testing.

But what will be the reader ? After the viewer disparition, an Google Reader will be an RSS Aggregator or a place like Bloglines ?

Will see soon problably at this location !

Technorati Tags: Google Reader, Bloglines, RSS

Google Maps and Local Merge and Out of Beta : Too Soon !

Google have merge Local and Maps and put them out of beta in US and Canada a bit to soon in my opinion. If you choose the second largest city in Canada, where I live now, and ask Google Local to find you an hotel you'll get this ! On the ten first results only three are really place you can sleep. The seven other are hotel suppliers or even worst commercial equipement manufacturer. Not very a good score boys !

Keyword-Based RSS Feed Generator

Really nice tool by Tara Calishain of Research Buzz to generate keywords RSS Feeds from a lot of News site. Bravo Tara !
Technorati Tags: keyword based, rss, feed, generator

Google's Patent Strategy

Really good paper on the Stephen E. Arnold e-book The Google Legacy. Here a few snips :

“Bill Gates is basically in the same spot he had IBM in. IBM was challenged by Microsoft and IBM didn’t understand Microsoft’s business model. It’s history repeating itself.”

...

“These patents suggest that Google is looking beyond search, possibly targeting such companies as Microsoft, as Google tries to become the leading info tech company of the 21st Century,” he said.

Arnold has identified 72 patents with Google heritage that were filed during the first six months of 2005. That compares with the 47 Google patents he found from 2001 through 2004.

...

With Wi-Fi currently working its way into communities across the world and with wide area WiMAX ready to be deployed in a big way next year, it could be a natural fit for Google to deliver its technology over these high-speed links, free of charge. Noting that Google is moving to VoIP via its recently-announced Google Talk, the high-speed connections appear tailor-made for delivering streaming video, Arnold said.

Google is testing Google Wi-Fi in locations near its headquarters in Silicon Valley. Arnold said China, India and Japan are attractive and ripe for Google to deliver its services over high-speed wireless links.

Technorati Tags: google, patent, microsoft, ibm

Google more and more in the Microsoft fields

Google and Sun will held an conference today at 13h30 EDT to talk about an possible transposition of StarOffice to Google users.

I don't think will see that today on our web browser, ie- the usual URL's are not activated and nothing in the Google's robots.txtr file !

Scoble, Sullivan and Bray on the future of searching

It's start by Scoble's reading John, Danny add it's points and Tim Bray conclude !

Internet Archive and Yahoo! in Open Content Alliance

Google's library project having competition.

Google also applauded the Yahoo-backed alliance. "We welcome efforts to make information accessible to the world."

The Top Ranking's Factors and the one to avoid

Nice compilation by Rand Fishkin of the main factors to get a nice ranking.

Google Wi-Fi in New -York

The beginning of the Free Wi-Fi North American strategy ?

Blogs help conversion

True.

Podcast a year later... and Google Index Size

Doc Searl post this exactly a year ago :

But now most of my radio listening is to what Adam Curry and others are starting to call podcasts. That last link currently brings up 24 results on Google. A year from now, it will pull up hundreds of thousands, or perhaps even millions.

Right on Doc : 63,800,000 results here !

BTW and all the blabla about Google index size : Around 200 millions more pages

September 9, 2005

the = 9,380,000,000 / a = 8,920,000,000 / for = 8,530,000,000 /
to = 9,180,000,000 / of = 9,220,000,000 / and = 8,920,000,000 /
in = 8,410,000,000 / is = 6,670,000,000 / that = 5,000,000,000 /
it = 4,760,000,000 / he = 959,000,000 / was = 2,170,000,000

September 28, 2005

the = 9,640,000,000 / a = 9,190,000,000 / for = 8,730,000,000 /
to = 9,460,000,000 / of = 9,440,000,000 / and = 9,110,000,000 /
in = 8,660,000,000 / is = 6,910,000,000 / that = 5,350,000,000 /
it = 4,950,000,000 / he = 1,040,000,000 / was = 2,290,000,000 /
*.* = 11,900,000,000

RWB release an handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents

A new guide from Reporters Without Borders.

Happy Birthday... Yahoo

Read this. Try it. Compare it.

Podcasting : Early Adoption by Marketers

After the Kraft food recipes on IPod, now the American family issues Whirlpool's podcasting zone !

Google Blog Search Indexing your Threads in Less than 3 Hours !

I post this morning (9h41)a thread on a Pay-Per-Call article by ClickZ. Less than 3 hours later, (12h37), I saw a referer from Google Blog Search for that post in my log. Wow ! That's the first time I saw a result so quick !!!

GOOG Reached an Historical Peek

GOOG open this morning above the $320 mark !

Is Pay-Per-Call for You ?

This is one of the best Pay-Per-Call case studies to date by Pamela Parker of ClickZ.

Chinese's Scam Hit Google

The tip of the Chinese's iceberg ?

As seen on GoogleTv !

May be a future Google IP TV.
More on Bladam !

Reuters Adopt the Podcast

Wow ! Even Reuters jump in the Podcasting bandwagon ! But it's not a human one ;-(

Star dot Star give you Google Index Size

I'd love the wink Google gave us sometimes. In the old day, if you want to get your directory listing you type in Microsoft Dos : Dir *.* Now if you want to know the index size of Google you search for "*.*": 11,830,000,000 results here. Note the dot is optional and have the same value as a space in a Google query !

Search Engine for the China Battleground : Google and... Microsoft

It's the most interesting chinese news I saw on the subject since I monitor the Asian's market.

The online search business is also a political business. China's Internet is closely monitored, and without close Chinese government supervision, Google can easily become the hostess leading Chinese web surfers into dens of sin. This is why services like Google's web caching feature have been fuwu non grata in China for at least two years. And this is why it is important for Google to have great public relations professionals on the ground in China working with the Ministry of Information Industry, the Internet Society of China, and the National Public Security Bureau. Google can't wine and dine Chinese officials if it stays on its California campus.

This is one of the many good paragraphs of that story by Perry Wu who seem to me very one of the best article in the Chinese publishing in this first short history of SE information. Hope will see more story by this guy, -- while I don't agree with his conclusion of the article -- !

Hurricane Rita path right on the Katarina refugees

Hope this projected path is wrong. Nothing to slow it down and hot water to take force. They don't need that now even on the Bush state.

Google Fiber Network Rumour is Back

Nine month after that CNet story, a few day after a second stock sale, a meme is coming back and seem more and more to be a fact :

Google is reviewing bids it solicited from tech vendors to build a national optical DWDM network capable of pushing massive amounts of voice, video and data very close to end users. Even more interesting is that the purported cost of this dynamic national fiber fabric is under $100 million (not including dark fiber) and can be launched within a matter of months. But the last-mile is, as always, the problem.

Reinclusion Tips from a Googlers

Matt Cutts give a few clues to get back in the Google index.

Myriad Search : An MetaSearch you can Tweak

Very interesting but a bit slow.

Finding Roman ruins with Google Earth

You can't find you keys with Google, but you may find ruins !
Via Google Blogoscoped.

Z-Space's site : Nice for Viral Marketing

Can be a powerfulll thing for fast spreading a message, group, movie, what ever !!!

Doctor Kai-Fu Lee's Google Blog

Here the latest development on Kai-Fu Lee's saga and the mandarin blog (auto translate) setup by Google to explain to chinese peoples about that case.

Goog : Tonight is the start of the 4 billion $ new stock sale

The news from Reuter and in french by La Presse Affaire.

Google launch Blog Search

After 2 minutes on Google Blog Search, I'm flagerblasted. Some good results and some others not so. It take account of diacritics, ie- "Éric" and "Eric" have differents results compare to Google Search.

On a query it show you the title of the page, the time it was published and the author. Sometime you'll see a clustering on some subject.
You can also subscribe to each results pages for 10 or 100 results to see if something new will come out.

Also, despite what's in the About section, you can find some forum threads in Google Blog Search. More reviews laters...

Microsoft Response to Yahoo Widget

The site Microsoft Gadgets open today, but it's empty and the comments system is down. What an opening !!! For the moment you'll get more fun here.

Yahoo and Flickr : Bigger Equal Knottier

Nice analyze of the new Flickr Signup page before and after the Yahoo acquisition !

The Google Maps Scrapping won a price for innovations in journalism

ChicagoCrime.org scrapping won the Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism. This news let me explore again that site and I was amazed by the new Route functionnality. Nice work boys !

Via the new and interesting Tech-Memeorandum site.

Algo Chaser or Content Pusher ?

After the Black-hat / White-hat search engine optimizer, we have also the Algo Chaser and the Content Pusher.

For my part I'm more on the side of the second. When you're more on the Algo Chaser side, you'll have to been almost full-time dedicated to one project and when the holes you have exploited have been blocked by search engine algorithms, the drop is sometime fatal for your client. Remember the Florida Update ? A lot of AlgoHolics have gone in a thaht huge depression !

When you're pushing content, give historical facts to users or/and an encyclopedia turn to your products or services to enhance your site and inform your clientèle, It will pay sooner or a bit later.

Google and Katrina : Nofollow for charity links but ours OK ?

When you company grow to fast you have good move and bad integration of others:


The links highlight are Nofollow links (ie. this prevent popularity been stick to thoses charities organizations ???). Only the links for Google are legit !?!

World Bank Urged to Embrace Open Technology Standards

Another good news for the Open Source community ! It's not a promotion directly for Open Source, but it's a good first step.

Google customer's service

That's a way of doing it !

Seth Godin's eBook about blog

After his KnockKnock, Seth Godin now put out Who's There (pdf), Incomplete Guide to Blogs and the New Web. I agree with the title, a bit incomplete but worth the reading. He should also quote some author like :

On September 28, 2004, a search on “podcast” in Google turned up 24 matches.
AS I write this, the number is 17,000,000.

That's was been said by Doc Searl, and the count is now at 55,600,000.

WsFinder for API

Api and Web services finder à la Wiki

eBay to Acquire Skype

Yes, the deal will be, approximately $2.6 billion in up-front cash and eBay stock, plus potential performance-based consideration.

Google make fun at Yahoo with Splog

I totally agree with Jim Boykin on the really weird attitude of Yahoo to not better filtering spam blogs (splogs) where the majority of thoses use Google Adsense ads on them. Here what he make me laugh too :

It’s so ironic that Google buys and sells advertising space on the shittiest of pages….and it’s part at the expense of Yahoo because Yahoo doesn’t do a very good job at filtering tons of this regergitated shit... These pages which Google allows adsense on, but won’t allow them into their index?? I can just see the engineers at Google laughing at Yahoo, “Let them find our advertising on your indexed pages of crap! We’ll even pay people to spam your results”.

I guess though that it’s not Google’s fault if Yahoo’s eating these pages up and serving them….after all, Yahoo want the “biggest index” (20 billion pages??) which includes a few billion of adsense spam pages.

Jim just forget the second funiest part of the Google Splog dirty technique. The owners of Splogs have to buy Google Adwords to get traffic to them. On a "deluxe" query like "private jet charter" you get between 25 to 45 Adwords ads when you display 30, 50 or 100 results per page. On thoses ads link, you'll have between at least since a few weeks 80% of splogs, spam sites and fake directories ! Almost all of them even get listed in top ten on their domain name in Google !

May be Yahoo should hire Jean Veronis (auto translate) and implement the Zipf's law (auto translate) to their algo ?

Most Used English Words : 2 to 5 time more on Google

January 14, 2005

the = 8,000,000,000 / a = 8,000,000,000 / for = 8,000,000,000 /
to = 8,000,000,000 / of = 8,000,000,000 / and = 8,000,000,000 /
in = 7,560,000,000 / is = 3,820,000,000 / that = 2,690,000,000 /
it = 2,570,000,000 / he = 687,000,000 / was = 69,100,000

Note: Google have manipulate the number of the six first one.

March 9, 2005

the = 2,880,000,000 / a = 2,570,000,000 / for = 2,520,000,000 /
to = 2,680,000,000 / of = 2,760,000,000 / and = 2,700,000,000 /
in = 3,350,000,000 / is = 1,770,000,000 / that = 1,090,000,000 /
it = 1,170,000,000 / he = 259,000,000 / was = 550,000,000

September 9, 2005

the = 9,380,000,000 / a = 8,920,000,000 / for = 8,530,000,000 /
to = 9,180,000,000 / of = 9,220,000,000 / and = 8,920,000,000 /
in = 8,410,000,000 / is = 6,670,000,000 / that = 5,000,000,000 /
it = 4,760,000,000 / he = 959,000,000 / was = 2,170,000,000

Danny found a "new way" to estimate the number of pages indexed at Google : Here it goes from 9,570,000,000 to 11,780,000,000 if you substracts or add some characters in the minus string.

Google Wallet : Another Stone to the Meme

The ex-director of Google France, Franck Poisson, tell us (in french or auto-translate here) Google is finalizing the Google Wallet who will not be only for Adwords, but to search engine users.

The father of Internet Now at Google

Wow, nice move boys !

Search Engine Chinese Market Dispute

A too funny article by the Reg.

Google Stopwords Back to 8 Billions : Index size will go up

Google have brought back the count of 8 billion for the most used stop words. This normally append when a big change in the algorithm have been made.

If you compare those stopwords to the january and march digits, the index seem to double at least.

Google Wallet before Christmas ?

Good chance if we look at this SEW post.

Google Maps add a Katarina layer

If you're looking for "New Orleans" on Google Maps you'll see an new layer called Katrina to see recent satellite picture of the flood city.

Katrina hit hard

Hard to read story by SEO Scoop about the hurricane. Good luck to you and your family.

Yahoo disrespectful practices

Good to see some Yahoo's employes to decry thoses practices !

New Katrina image overlays for Google Earth

Google Earth release 12 new image overlays of Katrina. Those cover a really small part of the coast but give you a good idea of the disaster.

Google : Define goes international

The [define: keyword] operator goes international. At the end of the results you'll see all the language Google have found/guess for some definition of your word.

Hope FEMA read the NOLA Blog

While making some research on French Quarter I found that blog on New Orleans. This morning this was post on it :

Subject: My Hurricane Story -- Elderly couple and babies stranded on St. Roch

Story: As of 9/1 at 8:00 a.m., the Rodriguez family- including an elderly couple and three babies- are stranded on a rooftop at St. Roch and Claiborne. Please send help.

I hope someone at FEMA read it and all the other messages !

Web Developer Extension for Firefox

Another great extension for Firefox who got a huge set of features mainly for developpers but also for SEO/SEM!

MSN Search Feeds now

MSN Search have put two new operators. And they work remarkably well !

Feed: Bring you raw XML or ATOM feed that contain your query terms.
Very impressive results where only Blogline and Findory can compete with it ! Blogpulse and Gigablast give you not so good results and Technorati is too slow to be an useful search tool.
You can combine with the [site:] operator to get all the feeds a site have.

HasFeed: Return any page* that links to an RSS or ATOM feed and returns for your query terms.
*Even if it's not appearing the page, ie an "link href" in the code will bring it : link href="http://site.com/feed.xml" rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="XML Feed of that page"

Google Experiment Ad Sale for Print

My first impression on that move: PPC ads market is shrinking ! Second thought: Click fraud is going up !

SEO Extension for Firefox :Quirk Search Status

One of the most useful extension for Firefox have upgrade to v 1.9 and now offer you NoFollow Links Highlighting and Keywords Density since version 1.6.

Here is the picture of Search Status who appears unobtrusively at the bottom of the browser on the status bar.

This is the Menu picture when you click on the Quirk logo in the status bar.












Here is the Meta Tags windows :





Finally the Keywords Density windows

Katrina and Google Earth

You can have the Katarina Models from NHC Storm Forecast in a layer over Google Earth earth here http://www.paulseabury.com/NHC_Models1.kml.



Via GISuser


Also haved you notice CNN was using Google Earth - a new version have been released yesterday- in some of their TV presentations this morning !
Update: They now clearly label it !

China Search Engine Survey : Baidu first, Google second

China Internet Network Information Center have release a survey on China's search market. Here a snippet :

In particular, Baidu has a 43.9% share in Shanghai compared to 38.2% for Google. In Beijing, Baidu is also the leader with 51.5%, while Google owns only 32.9% of all searches. In Guangzhou, Google has a 28.7% market share while Baidu is the leader with 48%.

That's give 47,8% for Baidu and leave Google with the third (33,26% )of the China search market pie. That's a bit better (+3,5%) for Google compare to last year according to market research firm iResearch Inc in Shanghai.

Google Hurricane and Typhoon Maps

Over 150 years of hurricane and typhoon data and path.

Google targeting specific MSN employee

When Google really want you, they even use Adwords to hire you !
If you make a query with the first and last name of a MSN Senior Researcher specialized in human-computer interaction you will see this :



Via Scobleizer

At 10:30 EDT already 1250 pictures of Katrina on Flickr

Really amazing the new revolution of "instantness" on the Web. The tag Katrina already bring up more than 1,250 picture at 10:30 EDT !

Tags: katrina , hurricane

Hurricane Katrina live

Very informative site implantation on Florida hurricanes with a good interaction with users. Live; news, forum and multiple wheather's data.

Tags: Google maps , florida hurricane , interaction

Skype have reach 150 Million download Mark

Wow ! That's a lot of downloads.

Tags: Skype , download

Skype open's up with an API

May be that's why, Big G release Google talk soooo early !

Tags: skype api , google talk

Google Talk Live

It's there at at first use it seem really basic for an Google product !?!

Tags: Goole talk

Google future IM named Google Talk

Nice name who give us a clue for the new application. This name confirm that the IM will also able us to talk to users and not only chat with them. The Trillian server have be found here.

Like Loren Baker say in his post, I wonder what pizazz Google will add to Google Talk to make us switch from Skype or Yahoo IM ?

Here a pre-alpha version of Google Talk.

Tags: Google Talk , Google IM , Skype

Google IM scheduled for wednesday ?

Seem Google will release a Instant Messenger this wednesday if believe this article of the New York Time :

Google executives say they plan to unveil on Wednesday a "communications tool" that is potentially a clear step beyond the company's search-related business focus.

While executives would not disclose what the new software tool might be, Google has long been expected to introduce an instant messaging service to compete with services offered by America Online, Yahoo and MSN from Microsoft.

To put more weight in the balance here is an alpha screen shot of it who use the Jabber platform. Will Google lauch an application for Mac and PC for the first time ?

Tags: Google IM , Instant Messenger , Jabber

GD2

Google launch Desktop 2 (sic) beta. A lot of new features like a sidebar of your personal info, the inclusion of Gmail, Google News and RSS in the crawling. Also a API for it. Wow !

Tags: Google Desktop 2 , GD2

Blogs goes audio automatically with Talkr

Here is the last post from the Many-to-Many blog. Don't have the the time to read while you doing something ? No problema with the new Talkr service in MP3 for your Ipod or Mp3 player. Talkr is not supporting Atom feed :-(

Tags: talkr , audio blog , podcasting

Ressurection of the Mamma acquisition of Copernic ?

I'm very surprise by this comeback on the Copernic acquisition by Mamma. Specially when you look at their three last results :

• Q4 2004 : -672 000$US
• Q1 2005 : -890 000$US
• Q2 2005 : -2 400 000$US

Tags: mamma , copernic

Google and trademark as a keyword in ads

Here is what the blog of Google say to clarify a few things about the Geico lawsuit case :

Last December, the judge in the case ruled decisively in our favor on the issue of keywords. In her oral ruling, she stated that GEICO had failed to prove that using "GEICO" as a keyword to trigger ads was likely to confuse consumers. Then, earlier this month, she issued a written ruling explaining the reasoning behind the December ruling.

In her written ruling, she stated that GEICO's own evidence "refutes the allegation that the use of the trademark as a keyword, without more, causes a likelihood of confusion." That is a clear signal that Google's policy on trademarks and keywords is lawful.

What has generated the confusion is another part of the ruling, of little significance to Google, that relates to the use of "GEICO" in ad text. Google already has a policy that prohibits advertisers from using someone else's trademark in their ad text when the trademark owner objects. Our policy on that is here.

If I understand this, it's ok to use hidden trademark keywords - to trigger your ad - if the trademark owner don't know or object. But you should never use trademark in the text copy of your ad.

Tags: google , trademark , ad , ads , keyword

Acronym : The worst thing in worldwide communication...

RSS, RSS/XML, ATOM, Live bookmarks, Web Feeds or Dymamic Bookmarks ?

... My post title should also be : Please, leave the geek guys far away for a new technology definition term. Here is why I wrote that post !
It's start with RSS, XML/RSS, and after Atom ! To confuse your mother more and more, RSS has two meanings; Really Simple Syndication and Rich Site Summary. Wow ! Go in a cab and ask your taxi driver to tell you what that mean ?

Now we got two new term to confuse everyone : Live bookmarks and Web Feeds !

The first one is still not so bad because it's use the term "bookmarks" who is now almost a common word for internet users, but in my mind it should be called "dynamic bookmarks". The "feeds" terms doesn't represent a concrete image in my mind.

If the first guy have called the Really Simple Syndication (sic) an "Dynamic Bookmarks", I'm almost sure the more than 9% of the americans know about it !

The same appends all the time with acronyms, when we work with big companies or even worst with government sites. It's full of acronyms who can have a lot of diferents meanings in other state/province of your country and even worst outside it! Thoses acronyms are use in domain names, directories and file names. Don't use them and use two or three words to describe to users the meaning of your URL !

Please stay away from that, if you want to be found on the Web !

Inspired by : Greg, Martin , Bruno and Sylvain

Tags: RSS , RSS/XML , ATOM , Live bookmarks , Web Feeds , Dymamic Bookmarks , Acronyms

FlashEarth

Google Maps and MSN Virtual Earth embed in a Flash apps ! Nice tool to compare the aerial pictures and also give you the possibility to rotate the maps !

Tags: Google Maps , MSN Virtual Earth , FlashEarth

Search engine index size

Funny to see how some study on SE size can used an so bad starting point ! When I read it yesterday, I was surprised by the difference of my own little test ?
Jean Veronis have done an analyze of it and his conclusion are totally oppose !

Tags: index size , Yahoo , Google , index war

GoogleNet

A meme with plausible facts. Not really the Wi-Fi part, but for paying less bandwith fees it's seem logical.

Tags: GoogleNet

Tag's fight with pictures

FlickrFight

Virtual Earth apps start to show up

Again, it is starting with Commercial Real Estate.

Yahoo Index Size : 25 to 35% bigger than Google

That statement make me laugh !
How to find the real size of the index of a search engine ? Don't try, it's impossible !
The best way to figure out is to use a word who will give you less than a thousand results, because you never can see more than a thousand in SERPs.

Let see what we got here with a word with less than 1,000 SERPs:

Bleuetiers (Blueberries plants in french)
Google : First digits on Bleuetiers:

Web	Results 1 - 84 of about 441 for bleuetiers. (0.99 seconds)

441 ? Wow ! Let see what will got really by clicking on :
repeat the search with the omitted results included.

Web	Results 1 - 100 of about 405 for bleuetiers. (0.19 seconds)

405 ? Not bad ! Well, let see the last page of results with a click on the last page here :

Result Page:

1

2

3

4

Next

Oups :

Web	Results 101 - 182 of about 200 for bleuetiers. (0.25 seconds)

Now we got the real number of 182 results

Same exercice with Yahoo

Results 1 - 77 of about 244 for bleuetiers - 0.05 sec. (About this page)

244 results or 77 ? Let see with a click on :
repeat the search with the omitted results included.

Results 1 - 100 of about 925 for bleuetiers - 0.07 sec. (About this page)
Now 925 results ??? A weird glitch here !

Let see with a click on page 10 !

Results Page:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next

Results 201 - 234 of about 234 for bleuetiers - 0.03 sec. (About this page)

234 results is the real digit. That 50 more than Google and with that we can saw that Yahoo have around 25% more results than Google for the first time.

Second try with "st-joseph-de-la-rive" (a small town of Quebec province)

First estimation for Google : 811 results

Real digit for Google : 384 results

Web	Results 301 - 384 of about 809 for "st-joseph-de-la-rive". (0.39 seconds)

First estimation for Yahoo : 6,010 results

Real digit for Yahoo :484 results

Results 401 - 484 of about 1,710 for "st-joseph-de-la-rive" - 0.05 sec. (About this page)

100 more results for Yahoo who give us again about 25% more results.

Third try with "ste-catherine-de-la-jacques-cartier"

First estimation for Google : 3,980 results

Real digit for Google : 387 results

Results 301 - 387 of about 3,970 for "ste-catherine-de-la-jacques-cartier". (0.20 seconds)

First estimation for Yahoo : 5,880 results

Real digit for Yahoo : 556 results

Results 501 - 556 of about 1,490 for "ste-catherine-de-la-jacques-cartier" - 0.58 sec.

Again 169 more pages for Yahoo !

Google Recent Backlashes

The first one is the CNET blacklisted for one year for that article. On one face I approve that decision, because Elinor Mills don't have to put the Schmidt's wife and the location of their house in the article. Schmidt is a public guy who manage the company and the main tool used to gather the personal information for that paper, but not his wife and/or their family neighbourhood. For the other stuff in the paper, Mr. Mills should not be blame for thoses.

The second one is the lawsuit against Google last week. I don't like to see Stern in this, but at fisrt thought I agree that lawsuit. Specially when your add this in the balance !

Less overlap between search engine results

Nice paper on the SERPs on the GYMA (Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask) search engine.

SEW, SES and Clickz to be sold

Wow ! A big move for Jupiter Media who will focus more on JupiterImages. The Search Engine Strategies are included in the deal. Good luck to Danny and Gary.

Tags: SEW , Search Engine Strategies , Jupiter, Clickz

I'm Feeling Thirsty

Droogle.ca is the place!

Google and the RSS patent : Evil way

Nice resume about Google who had filed a patent around RSS advertising. Note that Google add finally an RSS feed to one of it's page site almost two years after this filing !?! Beurk!

Tags: RSS patent , evil , google