Search Engine Optimization

Archive for - January, 2009

Halifax Search Engine Optimization Marketing Services

SEO Expert (SEO Internet Marketing Inc) is Canadian search engine optimization company who offers SEO services in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Services include first page placement on Google for multiple targeted keywords related to your industry. You can search keywords yourself using keyword research tools below or let us handle the issue.

Keyword Research Tools

Halifax SEO Services

Halifax SEO services include clean coding, landing page development, linking and copy writing. Each stage is supplemental to one another and together you can achieve best rankings on search results in Halifax, Nova Scotia and other provinces.

Clean Coding - this stage encompasses cleaning your pages of code errors that prevent search engine bots from properly spidering and indexing your website. Clean coding is done in compliance with WC3 standards, usually 4.0 strict HTML.

Landing Page Development - landing page is a page visitors see when they click on search result. Each landing page is optimized for particular keywords and serves as the entry door to your website. Our Halifax SEO services allow landing pages as separate domains or as a separate website.

Copy writing - this stage is a simple as it can get. Our writers write articles with targeted keywords throughout the body in order to appear relevant to search engine.

Linking - this is the engine that gets Halifax SEO rankings. Google and other search engine view links votes, this the more links your site has - the higher it will rank.

Our SEO Rankings

As a solid proof of success track record and performance, check our rankings:

www.searchengineoptimizationcompany.ca

Comments Back to Top Back to Homepage

Blog Post Separator

Obama Inherits George Bush Legacy on Yahoo for “Miserable Failure”

Newly appointed US president Barrack Obama is getting a lot on his hands. A war in Iraq and Afghanistan. A collapsed financial system with millions of lost homes, jobs and dreams. Millions of angry people with zero faith in the system. Though not his creation, he is getting the fire for all Bush’s mistmatches.

If you search for “miserable failure” on Yahoo.com, G.W.Bush shows at #1 spot, followed by Obama.

Google Bomb and Obama Rankings Explained

The reason Obama ranks #2 for “miserable failure” is due to an old prank pulled on Bush back in 2003. Here’s the story.

In order to understand why official government website ranks for that phrase, we need to know basics of how search engines operate. Both Google and Yahoo look at links as votes for the website. Search engines also look at the anchor text of links, and use it as an indicator of relevancy. If 10 websites link to another site with anchor text “failure”, then search engines will show it on search results for that key phrase. Those are the basics of search engine optimization.

In 2003 SEO’s were not happy with Bush’s march to Iraq so they had some fun with links. They pointed a bunch of links to washington.gov with anchor text miserable failure and as a result mr Bush ranked #1 for “miserable failure” in few weeks. Major news outlets such as BCC picked up the story.

Google diffused this issue, but it still works on Yahoo.

Now that Obama is in the office and links are still in tact, he comes up for the phrase, even though it was meant for Bush. Let’s hope that Yahoo corrects this or / Obama serves past this legacy.

Comments Back to Top Back to Homepage

Blog Post Separator

Microsoft Lays off $5000 Employees

Microsoft Lays off $5000 Employees

Economic hardships are getting to the best of companies. Microsoft announced it will layoff 5000 people, 1400 immediately and rest over the course of 18 months. The departments that will get hit are: research & development, marketing, sales, finance, legal, human resources and IT.

Despite layoffs (or with help of layoffs) Microsoft was able to perform for shareholders making a whooping $16.63 billion in revenues in the second quarter which ended on Dec. 31, 2008. The increase is 2% in comparison to the same period last year. The net income is $4.17 billion, while Google is at $1.2 billion.

Google has been laying off employees as well, which include external contractors, part time workers and some of the internal workforce.

Microsoft and Online

Microsoft experienced losses in its online sector, however search advertising grew 7% according to an associated SEC filing. In terms of market share Microsoft is still in single digits holding 8.3% according to December report by Comscore.

Yahoo - Microsoft deal is still on the table and will most likely occur as Microsoft require Yahoo to effectively compete with Google.

Comments Back to Top Back to Homepage

Blog Post Separator

Google 2008 Earnings (profits), beating Wallstreet Estimates and more on Clearwire Deal

On January 22 Google announced earnings at $4.2 billion net revenue, while Wallstreet estimates were for $4.12 billion.

However, the good news comes with a caveat. Net income saw a sharp decline, year-over-year. The fourth quarter of 2007 saw a net income of $1.2 billion while Q4 2008 saw “just” $382 million. - Search Engine Watch

Fourth quarter losses are due to Google’s investments in AOL for $726 million, and $355 million in Clearwire. Google and AOL have been partners for a while, but Clearwire is the new broadband initiative by Sprint, Clearwire, Google and Intel.

Google and Clearwire

Clearwire is a wireless broadband company which delivers internet through the 2.5-2.6 GHz spectrum in the U.S. and 3.5 GHz in Europe. On May 7 Sprint and Clearwire Entered into a definitive agreement to combine their wireless broadband businesses. Sprint ended up at 51% stake, with 27% for original shareholders and rest split up between Google, Intel and other strategic investors.

For $355 million dollar Google will partner up with Clearwire internet development team for development of applications and advertising services. Google will also be the default search provider in all Clearwire services and applications.

On top of Clearwire Google is in partnership with Sun Microsystems, AOL, Mozilla, News Corp and others. It has received a scrutiny for “buying” traffic from internet giants, however, this is a regular business practice used by Yahoo, Microsoft and other internet companies.

Comments Back to Top Back to Homepage

Blog Post Separator

Ask.com Plans to use Super Verticals to Compete With Google

Ask.com — saying it plans to compete against the likes of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft — has announced a new “Super Verticals” strategy to take on its much larger rivals. These are specialized search engines that provide direct answers to factual questions. First off the mark? A NASCAR search engine. And yes, Ask also becomes the official search engine of NASCAR. - Search Engine Land

According to the article Ask.com plans to launch multiple super vertical search engines

Google is a super vertical in one box

Ask’s strategy is to attract search users with highly relevant, but specialized search engines. When searchers need to do a search outside of the topic, they will need to navigate to the main Ask.com box.

If we look at Google, whether its a NASCAR search or general search, it offers answers to any questions, regardless of verticals. In a sense it’s a super vertical search engine for all the topics in the world in one place. There’s no need to go to Google “NASCAR” section when you want to search for it, nor there’s a need to go elsewhere when you’re researching a school project. It’s all there, in one place, in one box.

Google also made a move from it’s verticals into one box such as Books, Maps, Shopping and other verticals naming it unversal search.

On the other hand, Ask.com plans to use verticals mainly for traffic, and hopefully for customer acquisition. Later it can do the same thing Google did - blend all verticals into “Universal Search”

Comments Back to Top Back to Homepage

Blog Post Separator

Microsoft and Yahoo are in the talks again

Yahoo just named new CEO, Carol Bartz and it seems Yahoo’s chairman Roy Bostock is already talking to Steve Balmer (Microsoft CEO) about Yahoo-Microsoft merger. Valleywag reports:

On my way down the elevator, I was stopped on the 5th floor and in walk Roy Bostock and Steve Ballmer. Kind hellos were exchanged. As we entered the lobby they both walked out and seemingly proceeded to lunch together.

The article goes to speculate on the foolish Boystock moves such as naming Jerry Yang CEO, and avoiding the merger, criticizing Bostock’s moves. Author also mentions that AOL people were present at the meeting, making Yahoo + AOL then Microsoft - a possibility.

Yahoo + AOL + Microsoft

Strategically speaking, Microsoft needs Yahoo like a blind man needs a walking dog to get around the city. The dog in this case, can use the blind man for food, but it can just as well make it alone. Though Yahoo’s market share is in decline, it can still be a good competitor to Google, something that can’t be said about Microsoft at the moment.

Is it possible Microsoft execs are plotting to swallow 2 fish in one bite (AOL and Yahoo)? The combined market share would be around 25% (AOL ~4% and Yahoo ~20% in US). They will have to think of a move to make Yahoo get AOL and then buy the two, the question is how? In my opinion it would be through negotiations, favors and some bribes, though I can be wrong.

Comments Back to Top Back to Homepage

Blog Post Separator

Worldwide Search Engine Market Share

In this article we review Global Search Report released by Multilingual Search and detail search share distribution in US, UK, China, Japan, Israel, Russia, Italy, South Korea, Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Iceland, Slovakia, Neitherlands, Ukraine. We also answer the question, how much is 1% search engine market share is worth? (with a link to the post that has detailed calculations).

US Search Engine Market Share

Google holds ~60% search engine market share in US. Combined with AOL, which is outsourced to Google, that number raises to by ~4% to 64%. Google also the supplies search to Amazon, Myspace, Craiglist and Netscape.

Yahoo is at approximately 20% with distribution deals to T-Mobile USA and T-Mobile Europe.

Microsoft is at around ~9%, followed by Ask.com 4.0% and AOL at 4.0%.

source

This search engine share distribution has been consistent (with exception of few points) for approximately a year. Google tends to win 0.1% – 0.2% points every month, while Yahoo and Microsoft fluctuate up and down. The fastest search engine market share change we can expect is Combination of Yahoo+AOL or something involving Microsoft.

UK Search Engine Market Share

In the UK Google dominates with 74% Google.co.uk usage and 14% Google.com usage, combine to a total of 88%. Yahoo is at modest 3% same as Ask.com at 3% followed by Live at 2%.

source

China Search Engine Market Share

China is becoming largest country in the world in terms of internet users. With approximately 1.3 billion people and 210 million internet users its projected China will surpass US in the next several years. Chinese internet operates as a separate entity monitored by the government firewall. Blogs, emails, news and other data is tracked r and if government spots criticism people are quickly arrested, detained or executed, depending on severity of the criticism. Search engines operating in China have to comply to Chinese laws and release any user data upon request.

Baidu is Chinese search leader with 55%, followed by Google at 21% and Yahoo and 7.2%.

Japan Search Market Share

According to Mokoto Hunt all Japanese search reports only talk about number of visitors and page views, with no data for search volumes. For this reason she claims, Yahoo Japan always comes as the #1 leader. Google in Japan supplies search to top 10 Japanese sites and it’s search volume may be in fact higher than Yahoo.

Here’s the accepted Japanese search market share distribution

  • Yahoo Japan
  • Google Japan
  • MSN Japan

There are 2 main PPC platforms in Japan, Overture and Adwords.

Israel Search Engine Market Share

Google has near search monopoly in Israel, just as in UK. It holds 80%, followed by Walla.co.il at 11%, MSN at 5%, Nana.co.il 2% and Tapuz.co.il 2%. Google is also Israeli leader in PPC market, controlling 83%, followed by Walla.co.il at 4%, merlin.co.il at 4% and other smaller PPC networks sharing rest of the pie chart.

Detailed searcg engine market share report:  Global Search Report

Comments Back to Top Back to Homepage

Blog Post Separator