You might have noticed the spooky themed Google landing page today, but did you notice their robots.txt? Thought not !

We are all shaking in our boots! Have a fun halloween and dont eat too many sweets

If you want to work away from your desk or keep track of your SEO projects on the move, this handy little application for the iPhone could be just what your looking for. Developed by infinidigm, the iPhone only application costs $14.99 from itunes and comes with the following features:

• Complete source code listing
• Listing of META keywords
• Listing of META description Read the rest of this entry »

Google are soon to release text message functionality to their popular Gmail client. According to Techcrunch, the application will be integrated into the chat box. By typing a friends number into the chat window, the mail client will automatically allow you to send an SMS to any friend stored in your contact list. Currently this feature is only available to googlers in the US, but expect to see it introduced in the UK very soon!

 
If you are struggling to get your site indexed within Google, you may be missing a Sitemap! The Sitemap Protocol allows you to inform search engines about URLs on your website that are available for crawling by their search “spiders”.

In its simplest form, a Sitemap is an XML file that lists URLs for any given site. The sitemap also enables webmasters to customise additional information about each URL, such as when it was last updated, how often it changes and how important the page is in relation to other URLs within the site. This gives the search engines a better idea of how your site is organised and can therefore crawl and prioritise the pages more effectively. Read the rest of this entry »

Microsoft adCenter has recently released a number of updates to aid you in your paid search campaigns. These include:

• Campaign Management: ability to pause and resume ads and keywords, geo-targeting enhancements, and improved performance reporting on the Ads page.
• Editorial Improvements: faster reviews, dynamic feedback about why ads and keywords were disapproved, and inline notification when dynamic text causes your ads to exceed character limits.
• User Management: if previously you were only able to have one user, now you can create multiple account users.
• Content Ads (U.S. only): get keyword bid suggestions and performance estimates for your content ad.

Read the full Microsoft post for more information.

Unless you have been locked in a cupboard for the last year or so, you may be aware of the ongoing presedential election in America. Democrat Barack Obama has used in-game advertising in his campaign as a way of reaching new potential voters. This poses the question - How will PPC and content network advertising evolve in the coming years? Read the rest of this entry »

If you are familiar with SEO, you will have heard the statement “content is king”. The premise being that search engine algorithms give credit to sites with large volumes of relevant content, that provides a good user experience. Although not proven as such, this concept has been wideley accepted in the SEO community as good practice for any website to aid in strong search engine rankings.

Googler Maile Ohye posts an interesting article outlining the concept of quality content being almost more important that a sites inbound link profile.

“Let’s say I have a site, example.com, that offers users a variety of unique website templates and design tips. One of the strongest ranking factors is my site’s content. Additionally, perhaps my site is also linked from three sources — however, one inbound link is from a spammy site.

As far as Google is concerned, we want only the two quality inbound links to contribute to the PageRank signal in our ranking. “

Read the rest of this entry »

We love lists here.. so much so, we have compiled a list of our top 12 favourite Apps that we can’t live without.

Sure, we can all have individual programmes and hardware that perform these tasks, but these apps are often quicker, easier and more fun to use. That has to be a good thing, right?

NOTE: The following applications are run on Adobe AIR which you will need to download here. You can also browse the other AIR apps here.

Image manipulation tools

Webkuts

Webkuts allows you to take snapshots of a page, or select smaller areas to your liking.

The tool’s interface helps by showing the size of the area selected, allowing the user to choose the image format & quality. Read the rest of this entry »

As a direct result of sending a few misjudged emails himself, Google engineer Jon Perlow has developed a fun application to work alongside Google mail. Designed specifically to prevent mail users sending mails when drunk or tired, the application allows users to set times when the application will come into play (Say 11pm to 4am on a friday and saturday night!)

By presenting the user with a few maths questions to a stopclock, Mail Goggles makes the user prove their sobriety before allowing you to access your inbox. This, im sure will save a few late night embarrassing emails!

According to the official blog, one of the latest advertising strategies for Google comes from their “click-to-buy” links which will soon be commonplace in Youtube videos and other media on the advertising network.

“Click-to-buy links are non-obtrusive retail links, placed on the watch page beneath the video with the other community features. Just as YouTube users can share, favorite, comment on, and respond to videos quickly and easily, now users can click-to-buy products — like songs and video games — related to the content they’re watching on the site. We’re getting started by embedding iTunes and Amazon.com links on videos from companies like EMI Music, and providing Amazon.com product links to the newly-released video game Spore(TM) on videos from Electronic Arts.”

Although this seems like another sneaky way for Google to monetize the hugely popular video site, i see this is a fantastic opportunity for upcoming bands and video producers to receive some hard earned cash for their work.