Google is known for their free services, open APIs and their “don’t be evil” motto. For most part they aren’t evil, but keeping their search algorithm a secret is just plain evil. Microsoft is known as a closed source software giant with a desktop OS monopoly. What makes Google any different when they have a proprietary search algorithm and they have a Web monopoly? Why don’t they open their search algorithm? The reasons are very similar to why Microsoft has kept their code closed and ironically Google too can become victim of the power of social computing and open source. (more…)

I’m one of those people that think Google is going to become evil this year. The hints that they may start charging for services like Google Apps for your Domain are unfortunate. Anyway, they may not be evil yet, but they make mistakes that you wouldn’t expect from a company so good, e.g. the German Google domain name expiration and this afternoon Adwords and Adsense sites were down. Look at the date error that in the message (more…)

It is said that title tags are one of the most important of the on-page factors for SEO. So I put it to the test. A couple of weeks ago I implemented the SEO Title Tag plugin for Wordpress which updated the HTML titles of my pages to be “more SEO friendly”.

The idea was to give keywords more importance in title tags by placing them first, e.g. a page formerly titled “Da Vinci Planet ›› Blog Archive ›› Essential Portable Apps” is now titled “Essential Portable Apps | Da Vinci Planet“. Google’s search results pages have since updated and are now showing the “SEO friendly” page titles. The results are somewhat surprising! (more…)

Google is very secretive about how their page ranking system works and to be fair it is probably very, very complex and best left a secret. The reason is that they are applying artificial intelligence to correctly weigh pages as if humans were ranking them. However, SEO specialists are providing more and more clarity on how to optimize sites. According to this site there are “over 100 SEO factors” that Google uses to rank pages in the Google search results (SERPs). He created a very detailed and actionable SEO checklist with alleged positives and negatives for Google page ranking factors.

YouTube was hugely popular even before the Google announcement, however, the deal generated a ton of press and media coverage. YouTube and Metacafe attracts users through their AFV-style video clips, but, with the growth of broadband and the addictive audience that these social video sharing websites provide, it looks like Google is the catalyst for making on-line videos and movies mainstream. There still isn’t a standardized on-line video/movie format or protocol, but this type of momentum will certainly help - especially for publishers who are struggling to find a recipe that works. And while off-line publishers and media companies are trying to find a way to monetize on-line video, users are embracing free on-line services like YouTube, Metacafe and Brightcove. For now, the best thing to do is to use these services and learn from them. You can find an interesting comparison of YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe and Soapbox here.

Google Apps for Your Domain is a service that Google offers to individuals, informal groups and small companies that have their own domain name. The main attraction for using this service is for the email hosting. Most registrars and hosting providers offer good email services, but it’s hard to beat Gmail’s functionality, speed and flexibility. So having Gmail as the email service provider for your domain is pretty attractive! I use the service for davinciplanet.com and the more I use it the happier I am with the service.

Users concerned about the flexibility of the service like using email clients (e.g. Outlook & Thunderbird) need not be concerned because Google isn’t evil and they support it. Another concern has been the support of SPF records to prevent spam using your domain, but again, Google isn’t evil and so they support it: (more…)

With all the fuss around Google and how cool they are, it seems few people are paying attention to Microsoft’s answer: Windows Live. Windows Live has a matching solution for almost every one of Google’s services. If you spend a little time looking at it, it’s actually very impressive and makes you really wonder how things will shape up. The interface is clean and sophisticated and it supports Firefox and Opera.

What is Windows Live?

Your online world gets better when everything works simply and effortlessly together. That’s the basic idea behind Windows Live. So the things you care about—your friends, the latest information, your e-mails, powerful search, your PC files, everything—come together in one place. This is a brand new Internet experience designed to put you in control. And this is just the beginning—you’ll see many more new services in the coming months.

Here is a list of some of the services that Windows Live is offering (all still in beta).

live.com
The main site which is basically a search portal and allows customization similar to Google’s personalization.

Windows Live Ideas
Lists most of the initiatives they are working on.

Windows Live Local
Microsoft’s answer to Google Maps. They have a “Road”, “Aerial” and “Bird’s eye” view. Search Engine Guide has an article comparing the services and they prefer Live Local.

Windows Live Favorites
Save your favorites on-line. You can synch your Live Favorites with your IE Favorites and you can share them on-line. Doesn’t seem to try and be a del.icio.us.

Microsoft Office Live
The name implies that it’s an on-line version of MS Office, but it really seems to be more about creating and hosting Web sites. With the basic service you can register a domain name (new domain), create and host the Web site, get 5 email accounts and traffic reports for FREE! Not bad You are required to give your credit card information, but you don’t get charged.

Microsoft Gadgets
Gadgets for Windows Sidebar will run on your desktop or dock into Windows Sidebar, an upcoming feature in Windows Vista alongside other applications. Gadgets for Start.com (a.k.a. Web or Server-based Gadgets) provide a fast, customizable homepage with a clean user interface.
You may, as I have, also wonder what start.com is and what the relation is to live.com. sanaz’s space has a good description, but basically start.com is a testing area for live.com and ideas are tested there first before being implemented on live.com.

live.com blog
A blog maintained by the live.com development team where you can get the latest info on updates.

Webmaster Eyes has a pretty cool SEO tool: You point it at a page and it gives the Google PageRank calculation for each of the links on your page. Try it out: