Silobreaker: A News Search Engine All Its Own

December 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The Internet can be an overwhelming place when you’re searching for news. With every news outlet—newspapers, television stations, and large news organizations alike—running its own web site in addition to sending their articles to the masses through RSS feeds and social networking web sites, finding exactly what you need can be confusing. Many people want their news in one place, and while RSS feeds offer this convenience, they can be hard to understand and configure sometimes.

Silobreaker is a news search engine, but calling it that doesn’t really give justice to the site. It’s much more than just a simple search engine and offers a rich user experience. Some of the things you’ll experience include the following:

• As you type in the search box, suggestions pop up. Use them or don’t, it’s completely up to you.
• Searches produce basic facts and people with links to articles or biographies (if you’re searching for a person).
• YouTube videos on important new stories and people (constantly changes and updates).
• A list of top stories that is regularly updated over the course of the day for as long as the story remains popular. If you roll your cursor over the story, a box containing links to biographies of people involved in the story will appear.
• When you read a story, a row will appear toward the bottom of the screen that displays related stories.
• A section full of quotes related to your search or a specific story (depending on what you’re reading).
• Links to more content that is broken down into sections such as blogs, reports, audio, and video among others.

While Silobreaker is a paid news search engine, they offer a 30-day free trial. If you’re looking for something easy to get you the news you want, give it a try. You’ll find what you’re looking for.

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Using Your Search Engine to Download Programs

December 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment
LeapFish Search Engine Screenshot
Image via Wikipedia

The best search engines help you find things that are relevant to your interests and business goals. People use search engines multiple times per day to find things that they need, to shop, to research topics or to do their homework. You may even have a favorite search engine that you use all of the time because it gives you exactly what you’re looking for in a format that appeals to you.

Many of the search engines that are quite popular will give search results containing extra information that appeals to an even larger segment of the online population. Many users turn to search engines to download programs or to find links to good software that they need to do their jobs more effectively. While this may not sound like something that you thought search engines could do, these functions are very important reasons that search engines are so effective and popular.

One smart strategy in using search engines is to save searches when the results appeal to you. That way, you don’t have to go back to the search engines each time and launch a new search. You are essentially customizing the search for your tastes and preferences so that you don’t have to go back time after time and “build” it all over again.

Maximize your use of your Internet options and let those searches work for you. Share your findings in chat rooms and also find out what other people are doing to make searches easier. When you download programs that work well, share that information with your social network groups as well. Trading that information back and forth can be a rewarding feeling and a great resource. Search engines become more valuable to users as they learn how to use all the features and tools that the engines offer.

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Social Networking for Thoughts and Interests

December 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Another new social networking site has launched for networking fiends. It’s called Koowie (http://www.koowie.com) and connects users through results from a search engine. While it may sound like just another social networking web site, Koowie sets itself apart from the others based on how it allows users to connect with each other.

Users can post thoughts and interests (called “Koos”) and allows them to search for “conversations” about those same topics. The search is done through a search engine-type of interface and produces results quickly. Users are also allowed to read and comment on any discussions they find interesting. While Koowie functions much like Facebook and MySpace in terms of allowing offering great social connections, it differs greatly in one way: It gives users the opportunity to post thoughts on everything from buying and selling goods to the servicing of those goods.

Peter Shen, owner and creator of the web site, has made the site into a collection of products and services, as well as general ideas about the topics that users deem to be important.

The site also offers a point system for users. A certain number of points are awarded for each action, the highest value being 100 points for joining the site. Based on the total sum of your profile points, you can (and will) become what is known as a “Koowie Pioneer.” You can even see where you rank in the constantly updating list of “Pioneers.”

Membership has grown steadily on a daily basis since the web site’s launch and new features are being added on a fairly consistent basis, based on feedback from users. Recently added features include the abilities to add geolocation tags to posts, add pictures, videos, and links to new and existing discussions, as well as the ability to send an entire discussion to someone via email, whether the recipient is a member of Koowie or not.

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aKeKee.com Offers Pet Lovers a New Search Experience

December 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

If you’ve been looking for that perfect pet—dog, cat, or beyond—your search just got a lot easier (and much less frustrating). On December 11th, aKeKee.com, a search engine for pet listings, went live in a beta phase. The site is the first vertical search engine for pets, meaning it gathers its results from other popular pet listing web sites such as Petfinder.com and AdoptAPet.com.

This new power search engine comes six years after the same type of search engine was developed for the travel and job industries, and offers users the convenience of searching for a pet across the United States. Searches can range from cats and dogs to horses, snakes, and even alpacas. The best part? Your search results are displayed within milliseconds. The site’s philosophy involves keeping things simple and offering the best user experience possible.

The idea and design came from founder Dawn Wilson (who also founded the web site OliverAlert.com, a site for lost and found pets) and was developed by Rob Faraj, who took on the project because of an interest in search engines, as well as the challenge that Wilson’s project offered. The two decided on a vertical search engine because of the ease of use, security, and the opportunity for users to subscribe to email email alerts about certain pets or categories of pets.

According to Wilson, the site was founded as an easy-to-use resource for pet lovers. Inspiration for aKeKee.com (as well as OliverAlert.com, founded just over a year ago) came from the love for her own two dogs. Wilsons aim is to make it as easy as possible for people to find the pet that is right for them.

As the search engine moves through its beta stage, aKeKee.com will grow its database and will eventually be available for users to search for pets worldwide.

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How To Use Search Engines Better? Use Keyword Research Tools For Help

November 26, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Do you find it very difficult to use search engines properly to identify the website or resource that you want to find? Do you feel embarrassed when others are in a position to quickly locate information on the internet while you get stranded all the time?

You probably are not using the right key words when searching for stuff online. What steps can you take to avoid these embarrassing problems? How can you make better use of search engines?

Just log on to any online tool that helps you identify related key words to the topic of search. For example, if you are searching about a specific product, you can enter the name of the product and find out various other key words that the servers all over the world are using along with the keyword in question.

Once you have a list of related key words in your hand, you can easily expand your search and modify the mistakes that you are making. If you want to find out more about a web site that sells the product, it is advisable to use the words like discounts, great deals, fantastic offers and other such words that are normally associated with online sales.

You can either rely on your own intuition to identify the right key words or you can make use of the internet for this task. What makes the process completely safe is that the web site will simply provide details of what others are doing online.

Hence, you shall be using a tried and tested resource to improve your search capabilities. The next time you feel that search engines are far too complicated and that you want to completely skip the internet, adopt this approach to identify the right key words so that the problem is solved without any difficulty.

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SEO Is Good But SEO And Good Service Is Better

November 18, 2010 By Leave a Comment

It can be very tempting to measure the success of your search engine optimization strategies by the position of your web site in search engine results. If you rank at the top spot, then it is obvious that you will receive a lot of traffic. This means that your search engine optimization strategy has worked, right? Not necessarily.

A lot depends on the specific key word for which your search engine ranking is accessed. If you haven’t done your keyword research properly and if you have covered the right set of key words, then a top rank in search engine results will not only result in more traffic but in more traffic of qualified customers.

On the other hand, if your website ranks high for a completely unrelated keyword, then it is obvious that you will receive a lot of traffic but very little would be converted into sales and hard cash.

Does this mean that combining smarter keyword research with good SEO strategies will be sufficient to earn lots of money? Remember, the function of SEO is to bring customers to your website. The function of any advertisement in a newspaper or on the television is to attract customers to your store. You will have to provide a fantastic and excellent shopping experience to not just win their business but to create customer loyalty and good will.

This means that focusing on SEO alone and providing very poor customer satisfaction is only going to hamper your chances of earning profits. You may receive a lot of traffic and a healthy percentage may even get converted into sales. However, lack of good will and reputation will obviously work against you.

It is just a question of time before customers stop visiting a web site despite it being ranked high in search engine results. Hence, mere SEO and keyword research is not enough to make your website successful.

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Usability SEO – A Very Good Combination To Make Your Website More Popular

November 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Usability should rank as your top priority when carrying out search engine optimization activities on your website. Usability is that subjective concept which cannot be measured by any parameter. Yet, it is something that makes a huge difference to the popularity of your website. How to find out whether your website is usable or not?

Well, this is no different than trying to find out why a painting is beautiful or why a piece of music sounds so good. It is easier to find and understand a bad painting and bad music. In the same way, it is easier to understand how a website is badly designed as far as usability is concerned rather than defining good usability.

Many designers pretend that they are the user and design the website accordingly. However, this approach is flawed and leads to frequent search engine optimization problems. This is because the average user does not understand the technical aspects. Despite best efforts, the designer and the technician in the individual overlaps the identity of the average user.

Some designers also try to adapt the website for the average individual surfing on the web. Well, the average user of a website that offers electronic devices for sale will not be the same as an average user of a website design for selling second hand clothes online. Hence, the idea of an average user of the website, despite its attractiveness, is very difficult to master.

This is the reason why search engine optimization remains incomplete despite best technical knowledge. Usability is something that evolves over the years. It requires proper understanding of your customer base and habits. It also requires a sharp sense of anticipation.

Recession is ongoing and festivals season is approaching. Will your customers prefer discount deals on the front page or would they like to see expensive stuff that helps them forget their money problems? These questions must be answered as a part of usability during SEO.

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Respect Your Users – Make User Feedback An Essential Part Of Your SEO Strategy

November 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Usability is very important if you want your search engine optimization strategies to work well for you. Usability can be called the icing on the cake that will complete and enhance the user experience.

Many persons are comfortable with search engine optimization because it involves many technical aspects. However, usability happens to focus on human psychology and people can be very uncomfortable dealing with this aspect of web designing.

Why don’t you ask the users to do the job for you? Of course, if you simply contact random people on the internet and expect them to help you out, you are obviously going to fail.

You can set up a basic version of your website and you can place it online and invite all users to access the same. You can specify on the website that usability trials are ongoing and you would appreciate any feedback relating to the various ways and means of improving the website.

Of course, large number of persons would visit your website but walk away without leaving any feedback. However, even one of two comments can help you determine whether you are doing a good job or not.

You can make use of data and information to check the regularity with which people keep on returning to your website. If your website receives a high traffic despite it being in the trial stage, you can be confident that you have done a good job. On the other hand, if you don’t find users returning, you can easily understand that your search engine optimization strategy will fail because your website is not high on usability.

Hence, make it a point to have a user feedback form on your website at all times. Again, do not hide this feedback form somewhere deep inside the website. Rather, you should prominently request feedback and emphasize that you place a lot of importance on what the users have to say.

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SEO – It Cannot Help You Avoid Consequences Of Bad Web Design

November 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment

If you want your website to be ranked high by search engines, you will have to focus not just on proper optimization but also on proper set up of the website. Search engine optimization performs the task of attracting visitors to your website. However, its role ends when visitors enter the site.

From that point onwards, it is the irresponsibility of your web design team to impress potential customers. Needless to say, search engine optimizations should cover these aspects as well. If there are broken links in your website, it is obviously going to reflect poorly on your design capacity.

No search engine will be interested in rating your website high when it is not been designed properly. The end result will be that your website will be ranked low despite your best efforts to improve using optimization techniques.

Broken link happens to be the most obvious reason why your website would rank low in search engine results. The layout of the website also matters a lot. Of course, whether your layout is easy to use or not is a subjective issue.

However, there are certain basic points that each and every web designer should keep in mind to ensure proper search engine optimization. The layout of the site should flow in a logical manner.

If you introduce the product to your customer and then move on to numerous other products before giving the option of buying the same, it is obvious that the visitor would move on to some other website.

The proper arrangement of the pages can be understood from the manner in which the Meta tags are prepared. The idea is to treat the website just as you would treat a store. The checkout counter is normally placed near the exit so that the task of paying the cash and moving out is done without any difficulty. The same logic should be applied to your website as well.

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SEO – Retain Control Over Site’s Content To Avoid Loss Of Goodwill And Reputation

November 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Handing the task of search engine optimization of your website to a professional makes sense if you do not know anything about the task. However, you cannot hand over the task of preparing content for search engine optimization and marketing to some other third party.

This is because you happen to know your products and services better than anybody else. You are the best authority on the vision, policy and ultimate goal of your organization. If you are offering a product, you know it from scratch. Needless to say, you will have to be heavily involved in preparation of content.

This leads to a very piquant situation where the person who knows most about the product or service has to work with the person who can describe it best. Just because you are good at making the product does not make you good at describing it.

Chances are high that you will provide a lot of technical information that is virtually unreadable. In such a scenario, you will need to coordinate with writers and editors to make sure that the content is not just informative but also interesting to read.

Most websites falter at this point. Either the webmaster focuses on content provided by self and ends up losing on usability and reader interest or permits third parties to prepare the content as they wish and loses on information and credibility. You cannot afford to be negligent because you will end up with a bad reputation for the mistakes committed by your writer.

Expecting a freelance writer situated halfway across the globe to bother about implications of loss of goodwill for your website is asking for a lot. Hence, you will have to stay in the loop when the content is being prepared even if you are not otherwise involved in search engine optimization.

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