Wikia Search launched today and while there has been much criticism, their principals make total sense:

Transparency – Openness in how the systems and algorithms operate, both in the form of open source licenses and open content + APIs.

Community – Everyone is able to contribute in some way (as individuals or entire organizations), strong social and community focus.

Quality – Significantly improve the relevancy and accuracy of search results and the searching experience.

Privacy – Must be protected, do not store or transmit any identifying data.

Google gives “guidelines” on how to make Web sites more SEO friendly, but why not offer complete transparency to their algorithm? The first reaction is because the algorithm is very, very complex and that an open source algorithm could be abused by those that find loopholes. Well it is already being abused by Black Hat SEO practices and that is exactly why it should be socially driven and open source! It is the very reason why open source solutions like Linux and Apache are a success: Open and engaged communities have much more combined knowledge than closed communities can ever have – even more than the smart Google engineers. For now Google is riding the wave that Microsoft did in the nineties, but sooner or later they will come under pressure and will be faced with the decision to open up their algorithm or not.

To me, the four principals of Internet search that Wikia Search has identified defines what Google means by “don’t be evil” and while their alpha release may be disappointing I applaud Wikia for doing this. Just like open source supporters have fought Microsoft, I believe the social computing community will be fighting Google some day. An ungrateful irony.

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!

For the search term “essential portable apps”

Before: Positioned 2nd of about 1,370,000 results

Now: Positioned 2nd of about 1,390,000 results

Result: Position unchanged

For the search term “remove popcorn”

Before: Positioned 3rd of about 1,140,000 results

Now: Positioned 5th of about 1,260,000 results

Result: Position down from 3rd to 5th

For the search term “Top Web Analytics Tools”

Before: Positioned 94th of about 18,100,000 results

Now: Positioned 280th of about 23,400,000 results

Result: Position down from 94th to 280th! Total indexed Web pages increased by about 30%.

Conclusion

My position went down for two of the three search terms. Especially the last one, from 94th to 280th! Not that 94th was any good to start with: ) The number of pages that Google has indexed on the Web has increased for all three search terms – as one would expect – and that may have an effect. It’s possible that my page rankings were affected simply because Google detected that the pages were modified. I’ve heard that old is good when it comes to search engines. If that is true then it’s possible their rankings will improve over time. For now I’ll hope so and I will be checking from time to time how they are doing. Either way I’m sticking with the new title format because it looks better. Blissful ignorance?

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:

• Configuring Outlook 2003
• Configuring Thunderbird 1.5
• Configuring SPF records

Besides Gmail functionality for your domain, Google offers other services like Google Talk and Google Calendar for your domain. Knowing Google, I am certain that they will soon include Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Desktop, Search etc. in the service.

Now, of course, Microsoft offers a similar service called Windows Live Custom Domains. In many ways they are a step ahead, like hosting Web sites for free (called Windows Office Live), however, I recently received and email from them saying that they were coming out of beta and so I’m not sure about the freeness going forward.

The one big issue with all of this, of course, is that Google (and competitors) have me nailed down because they can:

• Read my email;
• Know which sites and pages I visit (Google toolbar);
• Know who comes to my site (Google Analytics);
• Index all my documents (Google Desktop);
• Know what I search for (Google.com); and
• Kind of verify all of the above and do something addtional that I can’t even think of using Adsense and Adwords.

This guy has a great idea on how to handle this problem and if Google really doesn’t want to be evil then they should seriously consider it! It’s like SOX for Privacy (not the Red or the White ones!!)

Makes me want to like Microsoft again!

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.