Look Out MSN Search, Here Comes Gbrowser

Written by Mark Daoust


It is official,repparttar search engine wars are in full swing. On Tuesday, February 01, 2005 MSN officially rolled out its new search solution to all of its websites, including MSN.com. This comes onrepparttar 128241 heels of growing speculation that Google plans to launch its own browser, possibly in an attempt to attack Microsoft’s greatest strength in Internet Explorer. Is it possible that MSN actually rolled out their search engine to prevent Google from doingrepparttar 128242 same thing they did to Yahoo! withrepparttar 128243 release of Gmail?

Google appears to have been planning a browser for some time. In April of 2004 they purchasedrepparttar 128244 domain gbrowser.com (noticerepparttar 128245 similarity to gmail.com) and recently they lured two ofrepparttar 128246 lead developers onrepparttar 128247 Firefox browser project to joinrepparttar 128248 Google team. When asked what their role would be at Google, both developers were unable to specify what their roles were. Yet with Firefox’s relative success at chipping away Internet Explorer’s stronghold onrepparttar 128249 browser market, Google is certain to take notice ofrepparttar 128250 minds that were able to make a dent inrepparttar 128251 Internet Explorer stronghold.

Google Has a History of Attacking Strengths

The common thought when considering an attack on a competitor is to attack their weaknesses. Google, true to their history of bucking tradition, has a history of doing justrepparttar 128252 opposite. Rather than attacking their potential competitor’s strengths, Google identifies its competitor’s strengths and attacks those strengths directly. This is exactly what they did when they launched Gmail.

Beforerepparttar 128253 launch of Gmail,repparttar 128254 search engine wars were being anticipated byrepparttar 128255 SEO community. Yahoo! had acquired Overture and Inktomi and had announced its plans to abandonrepparttar 128256 Google search results. Similarly, MSN had announced that they too would be leaving Google’s search results and would develop their own internal search technology. Both Yahoo! and MSN posed a real threat to steal a significant portion of Google’s search market. However, atrepparttar 128257 time, Yahoo! proved to berepparttar 128258 more imminent threat as they would go to market with a proven search technology in Inktomi and an established advertising network with Overture.

Yahoo!’s real strength in attacking Google wasrepparttar 128259 draw that their portal had. The tool that offered Yahoo!repparttar 128260 most certain return traffic was Yahoo! Mail. Although Yahoo! has several different tools that bring users back time and time again, nothing was as powerful as their email system. As people came back to Yahoo! to use their e-mail, or other tools for that matter,repparttar 128261 hope was that they would grow to become loyal to Yahoo!’s search results as well.

Google realizedrepparttar 128262 strength of Yahoo! Mail, so they launched Gmail as an offensive on Yahoo!’s greatest strength. Atrepparttar 128263 time Google launched Gmail, they were offering 10 timesrepparttar 128264 amount of space, an obvious attempt to gain press and increaserepparttar 128265 desirability of Gmail.

MSN Search Provides a Bigger Threat

Although MSN Search currently holds a smaller share ofrepparttar 128266 search engine market than Yahoo! or Google, they are actuallyrepparttar 128267 bigger threat to Yahoo!. Yahoo! hadrepparttar 128268 ability to push their search results torepparttar 128269 millions of people who come to their portal to use their tools. If Google is able to provide users withrepparttar 128270 same tools that they find at Yahoo!, users no longer have a reason to visit Yahoo!. However, any computer user who is using Windows most likely will use Internet Explorer, even if it is to eventually download an alternate browser, and we all know that most people are comfortable enough with Internet Explorer to not even look for an alternative.

Because MSN hasrepparttar 128271 constant attention of consumers through Internet Explorer, they have many more channels to push their search results through. Do not be surprised ifrepparttar 128272 next version of Internet Explorer comes with a search bar included as well as more redirects to MSN search results when a bad address is typed inrepparttar 128273 address bar. As long as MSN has such a strong majority ofrepparttar 128274 browser market they will be able to push their search results.

MSN also hasrepparttar 128275 advantage of developing a new search technology. Yahoo! enteredrepparttar 128276 search engine battles using technology that web searches had been using for years in Inktomi. The problem is that users had already used Inktomi search results and had chosen Google instead. Although Yahoo! made changes torepparttar 128277 algorithm that powered Inktomi’s results,repparttar 128278 changes were not significant enough to make a strong distinction from Google’s search results. Whetherrepparttar 128279 MSN results will be of a significantly higher quality than Google is yet to be seen, but by developing a new search technology, MSN hasrepparttar 128280 ability to provide users with significantly different results than Google.

There Should Be More to your SEO Consultant Than Rankings

Written by David Leonhardt, SEO Consultant


There Should Be More to your SEO Consultant Than Rankings By David Leonhardt, SEO Consultant

Perhaps one ofrepparttar biggest misconceptions in SEO is that ranking at Google and Yahoo is all that counts in search engine optimization. Potential clients come to me with a single goal: "Get me a top-ten ranking at Google." Some will also mention MSN, and a few will rhyme off a list of search engines and want to rank well atrepparttar 128240 top 200 of them.

It is time to separate fact from fiction.

Yes, your SEO consultant can get you a top-ten placement at Google. But...

1.Ifrepparttar 128241 placement is for "dirty brown shoes", it probably won't help your shoe store one bit, even if I get yourepparttar 128242 first place ranking. Few people are actually searching for that term.

2.Being number ten might not help much either, depending onrepparttar 128243 term. People searching for "Essential Nectar liquid vitamins", will probably click onrepparttar 128244 first result they see, or at least on one ofrepparttar 128245 "above-the-fold" results that do not require scrolling. Onrepparttar 128246 other hand, someone searching for "liquid vitamins" might check through two pages of results to familiarize herself withrepparttar 128247 options available.

3.If your title tag reads like a cheap list of search terms, it will not be enticing. For instance, if it reads: "vitamins, liquid vitamins, multivitamins, multi-vitamins", you might skip over it in favor ofrepparttar 128248 next result that reads "Liquid vitamins fromrepparttar 128249 Liquid Vitamin Supplements Store".

4.If your description tag is a mess, people will more likely skip over your listing, even if it does rank number one, in favor of one that sounds like what they are looking for. Google and others userepparttar 128250 description tag usually whenrepparttar 128251 term searched for is found in it, so make sure to include your key search terms in a description tag that actually reads well.

I recently responded to a forum question, which went something like this: My site ranks number one for this term at this engine. The term is searched this many times per day, andrepparttar 128252 engine has this percentage marketshare. Can I expect this many visitors?

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