There are several free search engines that a user can access through the Internet. Before one accesses a search engine it is very important to understand the concept of a search engine. A search engine is a type of Internet program that was created in order to provide users with specific information on a desired subject. An Internet user is able to access any type of information by typing in specific keywords and then clicking the mouse on the search engine box. Thousands of relevant websites will be listed that pertain to the keywords that were used. This is a fast and easy way to search or surf the Internet in a matter of seconds.
If an individual would like to access information on local concerts that individual may want to use a search engine. The most popular search engines, that are free, are Yahoo, MSN, AOL and Google. These are the most commonly used search engines because each one is free, easy to use and provides the most relevant information to Internet users.
An individual only has to access the homepage of one of these search engines in order to find the desired information. Many search engines provide other information as well. AOL for example is a type of free search engine in which users can find any information on the web, can locate images, watch video files, read about news and so much more.
AOL provides users with a free email account and information from A to Z. Users of this search engine can find news on automobiles, health, money and finance, real estate, shopping, sports, movies, music, horoscopes, jobs. Celebrity news, city guide, local news, world-wide news, television, food and home, pictures, games, travel, people and one can access the yellow pages. This is truly an Internet search engine that offers users a little bit of everything.
Many of the free search engines are pretty much the same and offer users with the same types of services. Usually it is the user’s preference that determines what type of free search engine is used. A free search engine is designed to provide any type of information to a user in a short amount of time. This is one of the easiest ways in which to surf the web.
Enjoy the advantages of using a free search engine site. A free search engine provides users with the most up-to-date and relevant information that is available on the Internet.
Many individuals have used a search engine before without even realizing or understanding what a search engine is. A search engine is an Internet based program that has been created by computer programmers to assist individuals in finding all different types of information. A search engine is a research or web surfing tool that puts an individual into contact with websites and other resource information.
An example of an individual using a search engine would be if an individual was researching the topic of a breed of dog. That individual only has to access a search engine such as Yahoo, Google or MSN and type in the name of the breed of dog. Once the keyword or words has been typed in the user then clicks on the search button. In a matter of seconds relevant websites that provide information on that breed of dog are made accessible to the Internet user. There are over eighty million websites on the Internet that provide users with information, products or services. This is an online community in which individuals can conduct business, find out information and community with people around the world.
The most popular search engine that is used is Yahoo. Yahoo is a type of search engine that is easy to use and highly accessible. With the Yahoo search engine an individual can find information on any topic, image, audio file or video file. The Yahoo search engine can be described as an online library. An individual can find blogging websites, Internet forums and online places to leave feedback. This is a huge resource in which any type of information can be found.
In order to access the Yahoo search engine one only has to visit the Yahoo home page. On the Yahoo home page an individual can access free email, their horoscope, personal ads, classified ads, world-wide news, local weather, online dating sites, information sites, the latest audio files, entertainment news and so much more. Yahoo is a wealth of information that can be accessed in seconds. Most Yahoo services are provided to users for free, only some of the more upgraded services, such as business email accounts, cost a small monthly fee.
Yahoo is a fast and easy search engine to access. Find any information that you are looking for. This is one of the most popular search engines for students and web surfers. Enjoy surfing the world wide web with Yahoo.
Barack Obama may have won as the new President of the United States but the clear winner in the 2008 US Elections is no doubt, Republican Vice-Presidential candidate- Gov. Sarah Palin! She came out of nowhere, from this tiny state of Alaska and a few months later emerged to become a household name more famous than most of the seasoned politicians in Washington. More popular even than body builder turned Terminator actor Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was elected Governor of California in 2003.
Her name is known not only in the US but throughtout the world; and not only the offline world but the online world of the internet. She is the number one most searched keyword in the election and to this day remains to be at the top list. Almost all political websites and blogs keen on their SEOs have made sure they have enough Sarah Palin articles to draw people to their sites and appear on Google searches. And why not?
Unfortunately, we wouldn’t really want to be in her position as her popularity stem from mostly negative campaign started by the liberals. She has been the brunt and favorite target of jokes ranging from subtle, harsh and plain mean! She’s been called different names and honestly we don’t get it. Read more
Are there ways to get more DIGGs? It has been noticed that something as simple as the title can make all the difference. Key words like “Apple” and “Geek” are often found in titles for articles with numerous DIGGs. Or playing up to who the readers love and hate can help. For example, it has been discovered that just posting articles that bash George Bush can have incredible success. However, that isn’t enough, and the real truth on how to get more DIGGs is rather interesting. Read more
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.
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!
While professional bloggers and webmasters know a great deal when it comes to the value of duplicate content, we are still seeing a number of websites whereby they promote “my other” blog or “my other” site that shows exactly the same content as the other site. The only difference is the domain name. Our conclusion is that they may be newbies and simply unaware of the effects of their actions. So we come up with this article.
What is duplicate content?
Simply it is text content that is shown elsewhere in the internet- either in your other web pages or other people’s web pages. It is a copy of the same article found in another page in the internet.
More exposure of same content=More Traffic?
When we maintain multiple websites, there is the tendency to cross-promote published articles from within these websites- thinking it would promote the articles more and get added exposure. For most, a simple cut and paste of the entire article does the trick. It stems from the idea that “the more places I put it out there, the more people would see it, so my traffic will increase!” That line of thinking comparably, is like reproducing a book for distribution so more people could get to it.
Unfortunately, that only works in actual products or services for distribution offline. What we do online with our published articles has consequential effects in terms of search engine optimization and rankings. For the unaware, the simple syndication of our articles in feeds and aggregators already qualifies as duplicate content. Same goes as say, maintaining a blog in Blogspot and allowing your Multiply or Facebook account to show the same articles in the respective accounts.
Duplicate content matters to Search engines
Although there is no direct duplicate content penalty, you are making it hard for search engines to rank your individual web pages when it is also available from another source, either the same or nearly the same content. They may be considered duplicate even if they are not fully identical. In this case, search engines will only list or show one version of the content in their search results and you better hope it is your website appearing on the search and not some other sites that syndicated your article without a permanent link back to your original article!
When search engines find duplicate contents, their search algorithm will determine which one is the better article to show in the results. That is only understandable as you don’t want to be typing a keyword and finding four articles with the same exact content found on different web pages. Google and others will filter those articles out and pick the best to show in the result. They would base it on the number and quality of the inbound links connected to the content.
How to avoid Duplicate content
If you must show the same article in your other web pages, choose which one you want Google and others to show in search results. Remember that search engines also see the printer version, mobile version when available on your site on top of your regular content version. Hide the others. How? By Adding a noindex meta tag to your duplicate contents. We showed you how in this previous article:
Require back links from other sources. If you syndicate your articles, make sure the articles point back to your website so search engines know where the content came from. They may like the other content from another site not your own, then your article will not show up in search at all.
Some tips and more explanation on duplicate content from Google may be found on the Webmaster Help center.
What about snippets or quotations?
It’s all right to get a summary or some quotations and lines from your own original article to place it on another site of your own. We stress original article as copying someone else’s article and claiming it your own is a whole different issue- and a serious one at that. That is called plagiarism and original articles are in fact copyrighted and is protected by law. You can not just copy another else’s work. When you do, that is also a duplicate content and it will show.
Make your own original unique content for your websites and avoid getting penalized by Google or by copyright laws.
Here is a tool checker we found to detect duplicate contents from two websites. They give our results in percentage and basically, the lower the percentage- the lower your chances of being penalized by search engines for duplicate content. When checking, you would want a lower percentage result and not higher.
Note: This tool when used will open another browser leading to the host’s website where it can yield the result and interpret it.
“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.”
