Or get some seo advice grrr … So I decide to upgrade my IE8 to version 2, note I call it IE8 and not  Internet explorer 8, so off I go to http://www.live.com actually you are going to see my searching habits when in consumer mode and not SEO mode :)

1) open IE8 beta with Live toolbar installed

2) search in toolbar for ie8 version 2

3)  look at first page results :

4) shake head… ( I still have my relevancy T-shirt .. hoping to wear for SMX London 

5) search Google in live toolbar ( lets the live team know I was unhappy grrr )

6) search google for  :

7) download IE8 Version 2 beta for Number 1 position in Google shakes head again ( hat tip to Google for been Relevant )

8) starts reading emails and open Firefox to start SEO Browsing

DaveN

I was recently In London with my family (it’s was my son Miles 8th Birthday) so we went to Hamleys and I met and old Big Brother contestant Carol ( my Wife Becky has a funny story about this ).. ok so far NO issues, but my Son has a show n tell, on what they did over the summer, this is going to be in front of the Class and they get a PC and Big Screen so that all the pupils get to see…

So the 6 million dollar question is, should I let him Google it live, you see I had a falling out with the school over the fact that they wouldn’t use Live.com because “the jury’s still out on that one” ……
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=carol+big+brother

I think maybe this will change their mind !

DaveN

Do you worry about search engines not being able to crawl your site properly ? Does your site have a penalty ? Who’s linking to your site and are there any patterns in linkage occurring to the competitors website?

Well, the answer could be here:

Webmaster Tools

Much excitement has come from the Live Search Webmaster team in the last week as it prepared for the first major update to its webmaster tools since last November. The update includes many new features that will allow webmasters to glean more information about how Live Search is crawling and indexing sites. Available data on crawls and indexing will be much increased via the “crawl issues” feature set.

Microsoft is keen on securing its relationship with web publishers, so keen in fact the information webmaster live provides is bound to point you in the right direction in improving your website traffic.

Major factors that could seriously effect Live seeing your website are covered: 404 - not found errors, Blocked by Rep where URLS are listed that Live search has found but are being blocked from indexing. (robots.txt) Webmaster Center will report on URLS which are too long and should be shortened to avoid infinite loops in crawling. Content types can be monitored too, making sure that website pages are valid and in-turn can be indexed appropriately.

My personal favourite of the webmaster center update is how extensive the Back-link Data information is . Information about back-links is always welcome to the SEO. Reports are now easily generated on links to a website with the addition of filtering functionality where back-links can easily be seen from specific domains or sub-domains. Ideal for checking out competitors links too!

TLD back-link listing is equally extensive enabling checks on linkage received which is particularly useful with website localisation now very much in focus. The data set that webmaster center delivers is more than manageable with advanced export functions to excel and filtering that will avoid getting lost in the data itself when your doing offline analysis. This will make analysis of a website much easier with the added bonus of functionality to quickly filter results from two sub-domains or two sub folders. Such custom data can then easily be shared.

This is pretty damn Awesome, I have only been playing on it for a little while now but Live Mesh “I’m lovin it”,

The syncing of Laptops, Work PC’s and Home Computers, is soooo easy, at present it’s just me and Dan that are playing with it in the office, but I can see me wanting more and more staff on this.

My Favourite part of this is the News : I can quickly see what’s happening in my Folders and Dan or myself can leave comments about what changed.

You can see that from the screen shot below that I Added a new folder and then renamed the folder Bnet1.

I did this from my computer in the office using a normal browser, all I needed was my Live login and I’m on My Live desktop.

I then connected to my Laptop at home, grabbed a CSV and synchronized it to the Mesh,

I then went back to my desk

,

Clicked the Bnet1 and Synchronised, Now if Dan was sharing Bnet1 he would have got that file too, now who ever edits that file the cloud will keep track, so if Dan deletes some sites from that csv dump, he can leave a quick note so I know what’s going on :)

at Present I only have a few devices connected but thats going to expand soon:

DaveN

If you missed it, it on BBC Iplayer here

I love the get the Old team together, and how they worked in the early days.

then Today :

Ther’s a great bit with Sir Alan Sugar.. classic..

Dave

Disruptive Technology

Disruptive technology is a term which I first heard at a Microsoft event,which in turn made me dig a little deeper, basically it describes a new technology that unexpectedly knocks out an established technology.

The more I thought about it a few things hit home. Take VCR’s when I was a kid these were the latest gadget the 1 thing you couldn’t live without, roll forward and we now have SKY+ (TIVO). This weekend I took my old VHS video collection to the skip that had been taking up valuable storage space, then I sorted out my TV cabinet. I guess i could just live with SKY, an Onkyo Amp and a PS3 ( I have xbox360 elite and a Nintendo Wii as well), but no VHS or DVD recorder, I just don’t need them.. but with BBC iplayer, SKY Player movie rental site etc and a High end Microsoft Vista PC I could end up with a PC and an ONKYO amp.

But then my kids point out that I can get everything that I need on my laptop and Shure headphones or even on my Mobile Phone and that’s the crux here, Google has Android, which a possible disruptive technology. But I still think that Microsoft has a major edge here, just like Vista is the OS for Business and Home Users, and lets face facts here Microsoft learns fast, all the things that we asked for in adchamps 2007 were delivered in adchamps 2008. Then we have Live Cashback, now this is a Disruptive Technology and Google will have to look deep if LIVE cashback takes off, then you have Xbox would you use Live.com to get Xbox points, which you could download the latest Films or Games etc, lets face facts Microsoft has a lot more in its arsenal I reckon we will start to see the big guns come out to play this year

DaveN

I really want to see the plus side of this as an advertiser but I can’t, other than that I can have the clients cancel their Yahoo accounts and just let Google serve the ads at a greater cost of course, well that’s how  Yahoo is going to make more money isn’t it ?

The way I read it is: That Yahoo will make an extra $250 million to $450 million in operating cash flow during the first 12 months, now it’s not by extra traffic, it’s by advertisers paying more per click and what if an advertiser like me has worked out that the CPA is different on different web properties, that Gmail, Youtube and ASK return poor results, where as Yahoo, Live and Google search don’t, at adChamps last Friday ( awesome it was, by the way ) Mary Berk spoke about quality, the way that I see it is that as a search engine you have 2 bites at that cherry, organic and paid, now I am not going to say that any of the 3  have organic fixed down to high quailty, but I believe that Live.com is getting more relevant in the Paid Ads in the US over Google.

So why is Live getting better ?  The noise in my head goes something like this, “just remember, they don’t need the money! “, and it’s true Microsoft as a company can keep testing and getting it right until they feel that the time is right to make money out of the project, I asked a few months ago why adcenter was not advertising on anything like XRank , the answer was simple, a smile and ” because we don’t have too ;) “, think Xbox are they making money on that yet ?

So, on Friday, I heard all the right things on where live and adcenter are going, I did get a feeling more “what a shame for Yahoo”, than “Fuck you Google”, I feel Microsoft wants to build a competitor to adwords, with the Google and Yahoo non merger, we lose another option to adwords.

Reference- Microsoft live default search engine deal with HP

Is setting up a default search engine on new PCs the best way to attract more people to it? Perhaps there maybe the thoughts if its rammed down your throat you are more likely to be defiant and use an alternative. Would it be better to have a policy for users to select their preferred browser search engine when setting up the new pc, or perhaps the option to test out each for a trial period and give feedback of what people liked etc.

Consumers love freedom of choice…

Microsoft have taken the first step in showing us their direction with the innovative use of media and technology, meet Microsoft Advertising. This business to business brand incorporates not only technology solutions but an entire extended media feature set. Demographic information has always been a weighty advantage in the Microsoft pocket and this advertising umbrella could well catch the eyes of those looking for an all- in- one solution. Mel Carson Microsoft endorses the advertising brand too. ( Well, ok I guess he would, wouldn’t he)

With industry partners Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) the brand looks solid, add to this the new multinational sales team offering a single point of contact and advertisers will feel supported. Windows Live Search is gaining momentum with more users trusting the results it provides.

What will Yahoo be worth at the end of all the deals being put on the table by such as Microsoft? Now talks are of a non full buyout from Microsoft who are still pondering the deal. Stockholder values are being maximised it what we are being told, be we have to ask what other motives are driving Yahoo.

We asked this before, but what what will Google do ? It seems both Microsoft and Google are looking at internet advertising collaboration with Yahoo…