keyword

A1 Website Analyzer provides users with a way to see how a Web site operates, especially its HTML. Although the program takes a while to compile data, the impressive results are worth it.

This program is not a work of art by any stretch of the imagination thanks to tons of white space and tabs, but the navigation is intuitive. Some of the terminology used will only be familiar to those who have researched computers, so a trip to the Help file is a good idea for novices. The program's functionality was fairly simple, but very slow. Users input … Read more

SAN BRUNO, Calif.--YouTube on Wednesday said it's rolling out a new ad platform called Sponsored Videos.

According to YouTube, which held a press conference at its headquarters, Sponsored Videos lets users promote their videos by bidding on keywords. Here's how it works: First, YouTube users, whether individuals or corporations, decide which of the videos they've uploaded they want to promote through site search. Then they decide which keywords they want to target.

Google, YouTube's parent company, has created automated tools that help users place bids for the keywords in an automated online auction, as well … Read more

Search Cloud is a search engine that uses weighted keywords to determine relevancy in its results. When entering search terms you can change which words or phrases need priority over others by changing their size from one to five. More important keywords appear larger, and will be bolded in the results.

The application runs entirely in Adobe Flash, and while not nearly as fast as Google, is no slouch. I was able to find some highly targeted results with just three or four keywords which ended up being better than Google and Yahoo's in several cases. To open results … Read more

Google has added a significant new feature to the tool that advertisers can use to select the keywords they want to bid for: the ability to see roughly how many people actually search using those terms.

"Now, when you use the Keyword Tool to search for relevant keywords to include in your keyword list, you'll be able to see the approximate number of search queries matching your keywords that were performed on Google and the search network," said Trevor Claiborne of Google's AdWords group in a blog posting Tuesday. (See an image of the tool in … Read more

In a case that spotlights the growing importance of search engines to commerce, NameSafe has sued a competitor, LifeLock, for trademark infringement involving ads placed next to search results.

NameSafe, which like LifeLock sells services designed to protect customers against identity theft, alleged its rival used NameSafe's name in deceptive search ads on Google, Yahoo, and other search engines.

"The ads created by defendant deceptively contain the words 'NameSafe' and 'NameSafe.com' and those marks are often displayed as hyperlinks. Consumers following the hyperlinks are wrongfully and deceptively directed to the defendant's Web site," the suit … Read more

Earlier this week I talked about how a recession may be the best thing for SEO. Let's revisit that bold statement and also how to make the most out of a downturn in the economy using SEO.

There will be firms and people within the industry that will feel the same pains of a recession that everyone else will. I'm certainly not claiming that you can sit back and coast in to success. In fact, the statement is less about SEO firms and practitioners, and more about SEO as a tool.

If you are in-house and have been struggling to get the resources or attention you need to make SEO a priority, then this may help to increase the urgency of SEO. Or if your firm provides SEO services, then you may be able to use the concerns and challenges that will come with a recession to get the attention of the decision makers to illustrate how SEO may be a more cost-effective solution.

A recession or economic downturn will lead consumers and businesses to reduce their spending as their confidence in the economy, their business, jobs, investments and/or retirement weakens. While there may be a subset of the market that "quits buying," what we are really talking about is a reduction in spending. There will still be necessities and essentials that must be purchased. Beyond that, we may expect to see purchase adjustments or a scaling back.

For instance:… Read more

Keywords are a key element in every website and keyword research is at the foundation of SEO. Keywords don't just go into page titles, headings, and the copy of a page, but play a critical role in links, file names, and even the architecture of a site.

When we SEO practitioners think of keyword research, we often think of "full-blown" research projects, pulling and filtering through thousands of keyword phrases. This kind of research can't be understated, but sometimes it's more than we need. There are times when we just need to fine-tune a page, … Read more

OpenDNS is rolling out an addition to its alternative DNS service I covered last September: Its new Shortcuts feature lets you program it to recognize keywords typed into to browser's address bar. For example, "w" could redirect to Webware.com. You can also add simple variables to the keywords, so "st" followed by a ticker ("st ibm") would look up a stock price on your favorite financial site, not just the Google default. Keywords can even fire up applications on a PC and pass parameters to the application.

Sounds clever, and it is, … Read more