We saw an article from USA Today that caught our eyes. It was an interview of Google’s Matt Cutts talking about the basics on optimizing one’s site. He didn’t really say things we didn’t know about already nor did he explain extensively on the hows and whats but it is a good read for those just starting to create their own websites.
Did Mozilla make it to the Guiness? We have yet to find out! We, along with the people at Mozilla are still awaiting final reports in their attempt to enter the Book of Guiness World Records for most number of software download in 24 hours. While there is currently no record to beat for that area, Mozilla hopes to be the first.
As it is, they already beat their own record for most downloads on first day release of their software from 1.6 million downloads of Firefox 2 in October 2006 to over 7 million downloads of Firefox 3 in June 2008. In the United States alone, Firefox 3 was downloaded 2.6 million times, with our download and our friends’ included! Germany had over 600,000 and Japan had over 400, 000 downloads.
What was disappointing was the downtime the website had experienced some parts of the day. At noontime, we couldn’t connect at all! We thought we couldn’t download the product because the server was just offline. Mozilla promoted this event big time, we hoped they could have been more prepared for it and expect millions of traffic from all around the globe.
Now comes the software itself. Was it a huge upgrade difference from Firefox 2? We’re getting mixed reactions from friends. Some don’t like the huge back and forward buttons on the toolbar which we think is really user friendly- as you want it big and easy to find! We like the fact that it is already Google integrated but some of our add-ons and extra toolbar aren’t compatible with the new browser yet! We had to disable them for now because we like what we’re getting from the new Firefox 3 so far. As promised, it is faster and really just feels better and secure overall.
The other thing major that’s totally debatable depending on your preference is the address bar itself where you type in the web address. Mozilla calls it the “smart location bar” as it automatically completes addresses for you as you type, then dynamically ranks the results and acts as an inside-the-browser search tool to find previously visited pages. We think it’s really smart! However, others think it’s annoying as the toolbar automatically slide down and cover half the browser page at the same time you are typing and the tool suggests earlier visted sites. Perhaps Firefox already thought of the mix reception of the new toolbar so they have as an add-on the option to return to the Firefox 2 look and feel.
Some people likes change, some people don’t, and some really need time to adjust to changes. We haven’t encountered any bugs yet or crashes. We’re sticking to the toolbar and we’re really digging Firefox 3 overall.
Mark your calendar. Better yet, do the countdown beginning now as we join and support SPREAD FIREFOX in its mission to set a Guinness World Record for the most software download in 24 hours. Kicking off at midnight June 17th 2008, Mozilla launches Firefox 3 to the world.
What are we downloading? It’s the anticipated upgrade to the award-winning Firefox browser.
If you are still stuck with Internet Explorer, now is the perfect time to switch! Please give Firefox a try. You will never be sorry and will probably hate yourself for holding on too long and settling for Internet Explorer when you could have had the best browsing time of your internet life.
We have long been Firefox web browser fan as early as 2005, even when it has glitches then on version 1.5, we hang on and believed in the product. We can’t wait for this Version 3 commencement.
Internet Explorer- NOT!
There’s no question on the huge difference between working on Internet Explorer and Firefox. From easy navigation, topnotch security, tabbed browsing, lots of add-ons, session restore, spell checker, live bookmarking, bookmarking favorites, password manager, availability of themes, built in download manager, and combining a search system that allows users to search from its desired search engine and many more, Firefox just blows away Internet Explorer by a long shot.
It is also an open source so there are always developers left and right busy improving the features for an even better browsing competency. From experience, Firefox has far less crashing statistics than Internet Explorer especially on Windows Vista!
We can’t convince you by just reading. You have to try and become a believer yourself! Join in the mission and download Firefox 3 by clicking on either of the image links posted here. You’ll thank us you did!
Ever since Google introduced sitelinks two years ago, it remains a mystery to this day how one website shows sitelinks and the other none. What do we do to get the coveted sitelinks and why should we care?
First things first, what are sitelinks? Sitelinks is a term coined by Google to refer to the set of links that shows below some sites in the Google search results. It appears below a particular website offering more links to that website instantly without even leaving the Google search page.
In essence, it makes life of the searcher one click faster as they are “meant to help users navigate (a) site… that will save time and allow them to quickly find the information they’re looking for.”
Very well but how do we get them to appear on ours? Unfortunately after 2 years since they started implementing it, only a handful of blog sites has it while most popular company sites seem to be enjoying the added feature.
Google’s Take
Google’s explanation is short and vague: “Our systems analyze the link structure of your site to find shortcuts… If the structure of your site doesn’t allow our algorithms to find good sitelinks, or we don’t think that the sitelinks for your site are relevant for the user’s query, we won’t show them… Sitelinks are completely automated.”
Why should we care? because Google is saying that: “we only show sitelinks for results when we think they’ll be useful to the user.” Ergo, if your site doesn’t carry sitelinks it means that your site isn’t important enough to have them! It means simply that your site doesn’t show any useful links so we will ignore putting them below your site in search pages. Our blog is less than a year old and doesn’t carry sitelinks; of course one day we hope to have that extra bonus from Google! Right now, from our Google webmaster tools links section it says “Google has not generated any sitelinks for your site.” Ouch!
Curious about a particular site we’re secretly following, we typed the keywords “John Chow” and was greatly surprised to find that his website johnchow.com is nowhere on the first 20-30 site results and so we clicked and clicked some more and there it was on the sixth page! Interestingly all the other 60 results shows his name being capitalized upon with johncow.com showing on the very first page at the top with sitelinks and all to boot! How did that happen? Only Google can answer.
Factors affecting sitelinks display
From our random search of keywords, here’s what we found out on those with sitelinks:
1. The site must rank no.1 on that keyword. Amazon, ebay, Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Circuit City, Best Buy, etc. all have sitelinks and they’re no.1 on the result.
Our main keywords “Blogs That Follow” show us at no. 2 in search but even the no.1 doesn’t have sitelinks on its result.
2. Keywords with one or two words and rank no.1 on it seem to show sitelinks more than those with 3 or more keywords. “Yahoo!,” “Yahoo Directory,” “web awards,” “tshirt design,” “Pandora radio” have sitelinks. Keywords “make money online,” “Blogs that Follow,” “Do Follow Directory,” don’t.
3. Only websites with huge traffic (maybe based roughly on PageRank, Page views, backlinks, authority, etc.) will display sitelinks.
4. Age of site will be a factor as well. The older your site is, the more credibility you have on the web. We think two year old sites and below will not get sitelinks. Then again, it may be case to case depending on how much a website gets for traffic in its first 24 months being online.
5. The number of indexed pages counts! and the more popular that page is, the more likely it will appear as part of a sitelink. Our best bet is that links appearing on our navigation menu either as pages or pure links to articles, are the most likely to appear as sitelinks.
Bottomline
We all want that credibility and branding that associates with sitelinks. From an ordinary searcher or reader’s standpoint, the site with sitelinks appear more “trusting” than the ones without it.
While sitelinks have been discussed and explained time and again since it first appeared on Google search, there is still no way to decipher for sure what goes on with Google system analytics responsible for discriminating one site over another in displaying sitelinks. We can only follow the 5 guidelines we came up with and continue blogging and hope for the best!
site!
“Our systems analyze the link structure of your site to find shortcuts… If the structure of your site doesn’t allow our algorithms to find good sitelinks, or we don’t think that the sitelinks for your site are relevant for the user’s query, we won’t show them… Sitelinks are completely automated.”
