Linking out?

Inbound links have long been established as a way to improve your search results.  However, as this interesting post by SEO Guru Gregor Spowart, highlights – the power of linking OUT of your website or blog can be considerable too!  Here’s the post – enjoy!

As one of the first people to download today’s release of Google Chrome; Google’s new browser, I wanted to be one of the first to review it too.  So, having had an opportunity to thrash it for a few hours – here are my first impressions!

Before I start, you can grab yourself a copy of Google Chrome here!.

Google Chrome – Speed

The first thing you will notice about Google Chrome is the speed of it.  It is fast – I mean REALLY fast! Google Chrome also loads from scratch in less than a second on my machine and I have never seen any browser download a web page faster..

Google Chrome – Page display

These are the very early stages of using Chrome, but thus far – every site I have visited looks pretty much the same as on FF3.  This is in stark contrast to the current beta of Internet Explorer 8; which even in ‘compatibility mode’ renders some pages very poorly..

Google Chrome – Ease of use

Within seconds I was able to find my way around the Google Chrome browser.  It looks pretty basic, which I really like.  You will quickly notice that there’s no dedicated search bar. Instead, you use the address bar and it will automatically do a search using your favourite search engine (you get to choose!)

The settings section is very basic and easy to understand.  There are not that many options, compared with IE and Firefox..

Google Chrome – Nifty tricks

You are going to be hearing a LOT about the Google Chrome’s ‘Incognito mode‘.  It allows you to surf websites without that website appearing in your browser’s history folder.  Also, any new cookies triggered from your incognito mode tab will be deleted when you close it.  When you have a tab open in incognito mode, you get a little picture of a detective in the top left corner – so you can tell at a glance which mode you are in.

You can slide tabs around to arrange them in the right order – and they actually do slide.  It’s a nice effect!

Your bookmarks are automatically imported as soon as you install Google Chrome and your shortcuts will appear in the same order that they appeared in your previous browser – so everything’s where you expect it to be.

When you download a file, there’s a little animation of an arrow that plays – another nice little touch!.

Google Chrome issues

As you would expect from a brand new beta, it’s not perfect!  Here are a few known problems from the Google Chrome help center and one of my own.  You can see the full list of known issues here.

-  Google Calendar – If you create an all day event at the weekend it adds an extra day!
-  Laptops sometimes won’t go to sleep with Google Chrome running!
-  Fixed Width fonts on some sites are tiny on Google Chrome!
-  Fellow WordPress bloggers will find some of the posting tools behaving ‘odd.’.

Overall?

As you can probably tell, I am really impressed.  Google Chrome is fast, easy to use and very polished for a beta release.  I will have to play with it for a few more days to get a REAL feel for it, but my initial impressions are very positive.

Knowing what Google are like, Chrome will probably stay in beta for ages.  It seems very solid and the feedback I have received from friends is that they are finding it equally stable.

The so-called browser wars have taken an interesting turn and I am not sure if this little baby is not going to be the winner.  How crazy is that?  After years of the ‘experts’ telling us that it’s either Internet Explorer or Firefox who will win – there’s a new kid in town who ‘might’ win the war (and far sooner than many imagined!)

I recommend you download yourself a copy and give it a go!.

That’s my first impression of Google Chrome - What do YOU think?

How cool is Cuil?

I REALLY wanted to like Cuil (pronounced cool).  I wanted there to be a serious contender to the Google search engine crown, because the marketplace ALWAYS does better when there’s some competition and at present – Google has a NEAR monopoly.

Giving Cuil some time to settle

Early reviews of Cuil were full of complaints regarding the fact it was either slow or off-line.  In fairness, what did these reviewers expect from the first day of a new search engine?  The amount of pre-launch publicity Cuil attracted, meant it was highly likely that it would not be able to cope with the massive spike in traffic on day one.

So, I decided to give Cuil a while to settle before I put it through it’s paces.  On the plus side, the service was working and very fast too.  On the down-side, the results it returned were (in my opinion) extremely poor.  I would like to think that it will improve in time; after all, these are the very early days.  I shall check it again in a month and see if Cuil is any closer to providing me with a serious alternative to Google.

What have YOUR experiences of Cuil been?  Let me know!

Microsoft’s offer
We now know what Yahoo were offered from Microsoft! In a letter to Microsoft employees yesterday, Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft’s platforms and services division, outlined what Yahoo were offered.

Here’s a direct quote (including some odd punctuation);
“1. Microsoft would have invested $8 billion in Yahoo! at $35/share;
2. Microsoft would have purchased Yahoo!’s search assets for $1 billion, and assumed the operations and R&D expense while returning data back to Yahoo! for use in their advertising business; and
3. Microsoft and Yahoo! would have entered into a long-term search partnership, where Microsoft would have provided favorable economics to Yahoo! search, including a three-year guarantee of higher monetization than Yahoo!’s Panama paid search system currently provides.”

This offer sounds more attractive than the Google deal; Microsoft‘s offer would also have added approximately a quarter of a billion dollars MORE to Yahoo’s operating profits. As I blogged previously, Bill Gates is now going to remain a part of Microsoft’s attempt to ‘build the world’s best search!’

A Google Internet?
I saw a quote this morning that asked; “Are we being led blindly toward a Google-Internet?” This got me thinking, because I have definitely noticed that Google are now finally starting to get some negative publicity.

After years of being regarded as ‘the peoples friend’ it seems many are now suspicious of Google’s growing online dominance.

The Internet is driven and directed by search and Google now ‘all-but own’ the search market. I think it’s easy to see why questions are being asked about the power Google now has – and perhaps more worryingly - the power Google are about to have!

It seems the focus at Microsoft as far back as 2005, was not to develop a better search product than Google - but to pay people to use an awful one. An interesting business model for the world’s richest technology company. With that approach to search engine innovation, it’s really is no surprise that Google still rules the search space!

The reason Google is ‘killing’ Microsoft Live Search in the marketplace, is because of the inferior quality of the Microsoft search results. Many great sites and pages are not even indexed by Microsoft Live Search and of those which are, many have stacks of pages missing – it’s a total mess!

I think the only way this can work for Microsoft, is if people use Google to find what they want to buy, and then try to locate that same deal via Microsoft Live Search, so they get their cash back!

Microsoft, why not just focus on making your own search results more accurate and relevant? You have the money, go and hire the people who can fix your search engine, then make your product better than Google‘s.

It is any wonder that Microsoft and Google are looked at so differently by the public? This week, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer was being pelted with eggs, while the media gathered in the UK to kiss Google’s ass!