Google’s Shake Up: A View From the Beginning - Part 2/3Written by Jim Hedger
Continued from page 1 Google is not in business of driving websites out of business. Google exists to make money by providing most relevant listings possible, a goal they are clearly not achieving. As Lee Roberts stated above, Google was built on (and, implicitly can be brought down by), word-of-mouth advertising, a fact that cannot be lost on management at Google. Google is not in extortion business and has in fact, built its reputation on being above reproach in separation of paid advertising (AdWords), and general free listings. I have a difficult time accepting theory that Google is simply trying to increase AdWords revenues, or increase its own perceived value before issuing expected IPO next quarter. In reality, what I think we are seeing is Google trying to reclaim its power when it comes to choosing how it will rank websites. Think about this update as a pendulum. Before update happened, pendulum had swung to one extreme where, with enough hard work, some could make Google do almost anything they wanted it to. Now, with application of Florida Update, Google has pushed pendulum back to other extreme. Eventually, and based on past observation, pendulum will find its way back to middle. As for those of us adversely affected by Florida Update, StepForth's best advice is to continue making minor changes to your site as normal. We do not advise a full reoptimizaton at this point, a task that would not likely produce strong results before end of purchasing season anyway, until SEO sector has an honest handle on what is happening at Google. As a wise and wonderful person recently told me, "... you can't push a rope."

Jim Hedger is the SEO Manager of StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc. Based in Victoria, BC, Canada, StepForth is the result of the consolidation of BraveArt Website Management, Promotion Experts, and Phoenix Creative Works, and has provided professional search engine placement and management services since 1997. http://www.stepforth.com/ Tel - 250-385-1190 Toll Free - 877-385-5526 Fax - 250-385-1198
| | Absolute & Relative Links How Do They Rank?Written by Martin Lemieux
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So it seems safe to say that Google doesn't necessarily rank "absolute/relative" paths differently. Google may recognize fact that neither method is wrong, it only reflects designers preference. There's only 1 type of Absolute and Relative paths that get a bad rank. Web sites that use "tracking url's" or data base urls get a significant reduction in page rank emmediately. The easiest way to notice this in action is to go to www.pogo.com (Online games). You would think that pogo has a great rank but nope, in fact their main page rank is 0/10. This happens because every time google crawls through their url, site is different. So if you care about page rank, keep your url's same as day your site was born! About The Author: Martin Lemieux is leading field online for web design and online advertising. Visit his company right away for many marketing tips & strategies: http://www.smartads.info

The question for this article is whether or not you should use "absolute url's" or "relative url's"? Not only that, this article researches whether or not Google ranks these methods differently.
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