Like the Old Google Search better? Okay Here:

Some have voiced their dissatisfaction with the new Google bells and whistles. Things like Instant Google Search and Instant Google Preview have turned some people off. I have a couple of recommendations that you can use if you find these pesky interfaces too much to handle.

Choice number one you can use the encrypted version of Google that will take you back to the old Google search interface. Go to: https://encrypted.google.com/

If you don’t like that recommendation then try choice number two where you can get rid of Google Instant Previews by installing an extension for the Firefox or Chrome browser. Go to: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/90222 If your more interested in eliminating Google Instant Search then you will need to make choice one your new Google home search page.

Hope these fixes help you out. Happy Searching!!

How to Track your Twitter and Socail Media Links

The first time I heard about this hack it was at the Search marketing Expo (SMX - East) in New York City. After learning about bit.ly’s tracking capabilities I was able to go back and see how many people had been clicking on my bit.ly links, very cool. Why I had never heard of this hack before is beyond me.

 For all of us that use social media on a regular basis you can now find out how effective your social media campaign / links are.  The only prerequisite is that you do need to have a link in your post, and that link needs to be a bit.ly link.

 Just in case you didn’t know bit.ly is a URL shortener, and is widely used in social media especially Twitter. With Twitter’s 140 character limit bit.ly will take your URL and shorten it for you.

In order to track your link results all you need to do is add a plus (+) sign to the end of any bit.ly link and you will be taken to a statistics page. You will be able to see how many people clicked on your link. It will tell you what date and time your link was clicked on. It will also provide you with referrer and location information.

For those of us who use social media on a regular basis this is a great hack!

Getting Higher Rankings on Bing

Bing has been a great improvement in search for Microsoft.

Over the past few months I have watched Bing’s results vary differently from Google and at times they have also been very close. It seems that anytime they are close Bing tweaks their algorithm to make them different again. Their algorithms are different so they should show different results.

Following are some things that we believe can help you get better rankings on Bing.

• Onpage optimization factors are important to Bing.
• Blogs with fresh content don’t seem to matter to Bing.
• Pages with around 300 words seem to do well with rankings.
• Bing likes authoritative web sites.
• Anchor text from other sites is very important.
• PR doesn’t appear to hold much if any value.
• Link spamming won’t help you in Bing.
• Backlinks have less value with Bing then Google.
• How fresh content is also doesn’t appear to be as important with Bing.
• Domain name relevance appears to make a difference with Bing.
• Domain age doesn’t appear to be important to Bing.
• Flash sites can rank well with Bing.
  

While some of the mentioned SEO techniques above are helpful for higher Bing rankings it is also helpful to keep a watchful eye on Bing’s results on a daily basis. We have seen trends change over time.

If you have some things that you believe are helpful with Bing please share them with us.

Blekko a New Slashtag Search Engine

A new search engine named Blekko was released today in beta. Blekko is a slashtag search engine you can watch the video below to find out more about how to slash the web with slashtags.

One of the cool things that you can get on Blekko is the seo information. When you do a search and you are presented with the results each search result has an seo link that gives you seo infomation. Click on the seo link to view this information.

We've added Blekko to our search engine app.

About Slashtags

blekko: how to slash the web from blekko on Vimeo.

Blekko Demo



Other links you might like:

Search engine lands seo tools article

Blekko: New Search Engine Lets You “Spin” The Web

Blekko, The “Slashtag” Search Engine, Goes Live

60 Second Problem Solver: What does Blekko mean for SEO?

Google May Rewrite your Title Tags for its Search Engine Results Pages (SERP’s)

Google's John Mueller recently wrote about rewriting title tags in an online discussion. Here is what he said:

"In general, when we run across titles that appear to be sub-optimal, we may choose to rewrite them in the search results. This could happen when the titles are particularly short, shared across large parts of your site or appear to be mostly a collection of keywords.

One thing you can do to help prevent this is to make sure that your titles and descriptions are relevant, unique and compelling, without being 'stuffed' with too much boilerplate text across your site."

Personally I want to be the one to optimize my site and don't want it to be controlled by a search engine.

So the moral to the story is do a good job on your web sites optimization and you won't give the search engines a reason to rewrite your title tags.

• If the website is working currently check it out
• Check the wayback machine archive to see what this domain has done over the years
• Check Alexa for its history and any other information that they may have
• Look and see what pages are indexed by the search engines
• Look at the domain registrar records to see what the domain name has gone through since its existence
• Check that the domain name is not black listed for any spam
  

Realtime Search Applications Unplugged

If you would like to do a web search for some of your favorite social networking or blog posts in realtime then consider checking out Google Realtime and our own Realtime Search App. These search apps don’t give you non-social or non-blog results. The purpose of these apps is to provide you real-time content from a comprehensive set of sources. This way you can find your information more effectively and much quicker.
 
 Bookmark these pages and reference them for all of your social searches!

Google Instant Search Does come with a Price!

 Have you been using Google Instant Search and now some of your favorite features about Google are no longer working? Then you are not alone. Google Instant Search comes with some unpleasant side effects for some.

Below are some common features that you may have used that are not turned on with Google Instant Search:

• Google Suggests no longer shows previously typed searches from Google Web History and it can no longer be disabled.
• With Google Instant Search you can no longer change the number of results displayed.
• The Google fade in animation has been removed.
• The “Search Within Results” function is no longer available.
• Where is my Wonder Wheel – With Google Instant Search this visualization tool has been turned off. You can use it by going to the More Navigation tools in the left Google Navigation Bar.
• The Search Box is no longer displayed at the bottom of the search results pages.
• The Google virtual keyboard is no longer available.

 If you mind that you must have any these features then make sure you are not logged onto Google and go to the encrypted search interface at: https://encrypted.google.com/

  For some background on searching while you type, it is not a new technology it has been around for a number of years. Bing had it programmed a few years ago. What is new though is predictive text. Predictive text is an extremely fast way to show results. It provides predictive analysis with instant results and predicted queries to users all in real time. What makes instant search appealing is speed. With Google announcing that speed is a factor in their algorithm they are now showing you that they value speed in search results also.

 Video on Google Instant Search Enhancements