|
|
 By Bill Slawski, on March 13th, 2010 I’ve been asking myself how local governments could use their websites to help them govern more effectively and save money. The question led to this post.
Building Bridges in Communities
Reading through one of the local weekly papers in my area I noticed a large public notice announcing a public hearing for the replacement of a bridge leading into a nearby town from one of the major north-to-south roadways that provides a main access point into the center of that town.
The announcement provided a fair amount of details about the bridge project and the meeting, as well as a phone number to find out more and to get a copy of the written plan for the renovation of the bridge. It also included an email address which you could use to send comments about the plan. But something was missing…
What was missing was a web address where readers could see the plan online, download it, and possibly post comments for others to view. If that written plan was placed online, people with an interest in the plan wouldn’t have to call and take up the time of someone sitting at a government desk. There wouldn’t be a need to spend money on postage and copying costs mailing the plan out to people who could otherwise view it online, or have people come into their office to view the plan in person.
Continue reading SEO for Government: What Does Your Local Government Web Site Offer Visitors?
By Bill Slawski, on March 11th, 2010 There’s been some recent news about the possibility of Google working with the Dish Network to bring searches for television programming and YouTube videos to TVs, reported at places like the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ article tells us that besides actual tests of a Google settop box that allows searching for TV programming, that Google has “been talking to a range of other television-service providers and hardware makers, prodding them to use its Android-based technologies to offer a broader range of programming, a more personal experience and ads.”
If Google were to start providing a program guide for televsion and web videos, what would it look like? My suspicion is that it would be more like something we tend to see on the Web than many of the television program guides offered by cable services. And it might bring us tabbed windows on our TVs, like in the following images:
Continue reading Will Google Bring Us Tabbed Windows on TV?
By Bill Slawski, on March 10th, 2010 With more than 3 billion search queries a month, a search engine like Yahoo might be tempted to take a close look at, and analyze the data it receives in its search logs. That data might tell it what people tend to search for at different times of the day, and different days of the year. The search engine may also be able to tell sometimes whether those searches were performed by men or women, by people in different locations, and may look at other information they might have about those searchers.
That analysis, that collection of data, might be helpful in deciding what to show searchers in advertisements, and in other content displayed to people looking for information.
Continue reading A Time and Season for Search: How Data Mining Can Influence Search Advertising
By Bill Slawski, on March 5th, 2010 A misconception about web pages that lingered for a long time on the Web was that most people who visit your web site will enter your site on your home page. Another one is that the meta description you choose for a page will usually be what a search engines shows as the snippet, or summary, for your page in search results.
Search engines have made it a lot easier for a visitor to enter your site at pages other than your home page. And the summary, or description snippet, that those search engines provide about pages listed in search results are more likely to be taken from text on your page that matches the query terms used to find your page, especially if your meta description doesn’t include that text.
You’ve created a web page, carefully chosen a title for that page that carefully describes the contents of that page, and uses a keyword phrase that you hope your audience will use to try to find the page. You created a meta description for the page that is persuasive, engaging, and (you hope) likely to convince visitors to click on the link to your page when they see it in search results.
How likely is it that a search engine will show your page title and your meta description when your page does show up in search results?
Continue reading Why a Search Engine Might Choose Something Other Than Meta Descriptions for Page Summaries in Search Results
By Bill Slawski, on March 1st, 2010 Sometimes when you search at one of the major search engines, you’ll see an extra set of links showing up under one of the listings in those search results. Referred to as either quicklinks or site links, most often those will show up for the listing at the top of the search results like in the following image:
Sometimes, those extra links will also appear for pages listed a little futher down in search results as well. A lot of questions have been raised about how those search engines decide which pages to show as quicklinks or site links, and the reasons why. I’ve written a number of posts about whitepapers and patent filings from the search engines that have provided some clues to answer those questions, and there’s a list of links to those posts at the bottom of this post.
But, another mystery surrounds those quicklinks or site links, which is how search engines might decide upon the text used in those links. I haven’t seen an answer from any of the search engines previously. At least, until now.
Continue reading How a Search Engine Might Choose Text for Quicklinks or Site links
By Bill Slawski, on February 25th, 2010 A new patent filing from Apple may be a sign of changes to the way Apple presents music recommendations at the iTunes store. That change was hinted at last December when Apple acquired the streaming music site, Lala.
The patent application lists Ryan Dixon, Digital Album Content Manager at iTunes, as the inventor, and provides a description of how such a recommendation system might work, along with the possibility of advertising in the streamed content. The patent filing is:
Personalized streaming digital content
Invented by Ryan Graeme Dixon
Assigned to Apple
US Patent Application 20100049862
Published February 25, 2010
Filed August 21, 2008
Abstract
Continue reading Apple Streaming Media Patent Filing Hints at New Approach for iTunes Store
By Bill Slawski, on February 24th, 2010 One of the words that often appears when someone describes how search engines work is relevance. A search engine attempts to show searchers web pages and other results that might be relevant to the words that they used when they perform a search. Yet, there are a number of different ways that you can define relevance.
For instance, Rutger’s professor Tefko Saracevic, who has been studying the concept of relevance for years, explores different thoughts and literature on the topic to describe a number of ways to define relevance in a 2006 paper on Relevance: A Review of the Literature and a Framework for Thinking on the Notion in Information Science. Part II: Nature and Manifestations of Relevance*.
Relevance could be considered a way of finding documents that contain words someone might search for, or documents that are related to concepts involved in those query terms. Relevance could be determined by looking at a relationship between a searcher and the search terms they use, while considering their past browsing and searching history, and possibly the searches of people who might socially related to them, or who share some common interests with them.
Relevance could also be determined by a problem or task that a searcher is faced with when performing a search.
Continue reading How a Search Engine Might Weigh Pages with Relevant Annotations Higher in Search Results
By Bill Slawski, on February 23rd, 2010 Charles Knight, who is now the Search Editor at Nextweb pointed me to a Bloomberg report at BusinessWeek, Google, Yahoo Sued by Xerox Over Search Query Patents.
The patent infringement complaint (PDF – 308k) contains claims that specifically name the following programs as infringing Xerox’s patented technology: Google’s Adsense and Adwords programs, Google Maps, Google Video, and YouTube, as well as Yahoo’s Search Marketing and Publisher Network, Y!Q Contextual Search, and Yahoo Shopping.
The article provided descriptions of the Xerox patents in question, but didn’t identify the patents themselves. While I was able to find one of the two patents from a search at the patent office, the other patent eluded me. I registered with, and signed on to the Federal Government’s PACER (Public Access to Court Electronic Records) system to look at the complaint and find the other patent.
Xerox filed the case in federal court in Wilmington, Delaware on February 19th, and asks the Court for cash damages and an order that would keep Google, Yahoo, and YouTube from continuing to “use” the technology described under the patents in question, without permission.
Continue reading Xerox Brings Patent Infringement Suit Against Google, Yahoo, and YouTube
Page 1 of 11012345»102030...Last »
|
SEOby the Sea
We can help make your web site easier to find, and easier to use.
For professional SEO consulting and internet marketing services, contact Bill Slawski at:
SEO by the Sea, Inc.
84 Washington St
Warrenton,
VA
20186
(1) 540-905-4911
9am - 5pm (EST)
Contact Page
|
Recent Comments