Resource for Checking Your SEO Content Readability

There was an interesting idea in the post I stumbled across last week that the readability level may affect your rankings because… from a logical standpoint, having reading level as a ranking factor among the search engines just makes sense. It’s a good way to match the right content with the right audience. I never did any testing to confirm that, nor was readability check ever part of my SEO process but it does make sense. So in case you ever need to find out how readable your content is, let me offer you a one-stop overview of readability level checkers and comparison tools. Readability Level

Google Makes its Clean Search Portal Cleaner

While the Microsoft folks are peppering the Bing portal with all the bling-blings to make search enticing and attractive to users, Google is doing the opposite way. Google just launched a new cleaner and simpler interface to its already simple and clean search portal. So if you check out Google.com right now, what will greet you is the all familiar clean page but now with only four elements initially – the Google logo, search box, “Google Search” and “I’m Feeling Lucky” buttons. You can immediately type in your search term and click on the appropriate button and Google gives you the search results or if you miss the the other elements of the previous Google search portal, you simply move the mouse and everything will go back to how it was before. Pretty sleek, although I’m not really sure whether the change is necessary at all. I could understand the need to be different from the rest of the major search engines but the changes are rather useless in terms of search capability. But then, what else could Google do to improve its search engine anyway? Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Google Makes its Clean Search Portal

Weekly Search & Social Coverage: 11/24/09

Welcome ot another edition of ‘ 7 Days of Search and Social ‘ – I hope you are well and getting well into another week in the trenches. Last week was a particularily busy one in the blogosphere which made it even harder to try and keep the list managable. Even in the world of patents it was a busy one. I sure hope you have your reading caps on because this edition is a HUGE one. As such we’re also not going to have a ‘lead story’ as there is so much to cover and nothing really stood out as the ‘big story’ for me… Anyway, let’s get on with it shall we? Talk of the

A Look into Reverse Image Search Tools

I’ve been already looking at various advanced image search engines as well as listing tools that allow to search for similar images . This post is about a bit different type of image search: Reverse image search refers to the search type where you don’t need keywords at all ; instead you just need to provide a base image for the search engine to find more images like that one . This is not a very popular type of search engines because it is new and not really well-known. Reverse image search tool The algorithm (seems to be) based on TinEye Exact match Byo Color similarity Gazopa Color and shape similarity TinEye a reverse image search that also has a handy FireFox addon is best for searching exactly matching images : those that look identical to the base one but are available in different resolution and from different sources. It can be a great tool for finding stolen and / or un-attributed images: Byo image search seems to be based on color palette similarity primarily but does include theme based algorithm: Gazopa (quite a new tool that launched last month) allows to upload a base image from your computer or even draw one yourself. The similarity is based on color and shape match which works amazingly great but can still be sometimes quite confusing. Look how a broccoli is perceived as a tree: Can you think of any cases when those tools can be particularly useful? Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . A Look into Reverse Image Search

Affiliate Marketing And The Internet

by Ron Cripps Affiliate marketing is an increasingly popular way to promote businesses on the internet. An affiliate is rewarded for each visitor or subscriber found through their efforts. Essentially, this is the modern adaptation to the finder’s fee. No commissions are paid to the affiliate unless there is a result such as a sale, making this a great option to online marketing online for the vendor. With the many advancements in software development it is now practical for many e-commerce sites to have their own affiliate platforms to manage their army of affiliates. There is also the option for vendors to use third party services such as Clickbank, Commission Junction or Shareasale as just a few examples to manage the affiliates and track their traffic and sales. This service usually entails paying a percentage of the sale to the third party for any sales made by the vendors site. Affiliate marketing has been the vehicle of success for many companies and the increase in revenue is usually 15-20% of a vendor’s online revenue. There is also the added benefit for the vendor of having many affiliate marketers linking to their websites talking about their products and services in forums and logs which is actually the best form of advertising they can get and it all comes to them for free. Affiliate marketing is usually only one level but as of late you can find some programs such as PPC Web Spy that allow different levels taking on the form of the network marketing vehicle.There are numerous affiliate marketing strategies available that can be offered by online merchants. A number of of the scenarios include your own software, online shopping carts that have affiliate functions, hosted services, and third-party affiliate networks such as Clickbank, Commission Junction or Shareasale . As the conception grows, a lot of merchants opt to change their terms and conditions to prohibit the affiliates from spamming or cookie stuffing and numerous other “Black Hat Marketing” practices. Previously, affiliates would often resort to spamming techniques sent through email.These not only irritated consumers, but it clogged the Internet with computer-generated mail. Many affiliates are now on board and create large volumes of generated web pages that are devoted to keywords and keyword phrases. This permitted the search engines to target their sites for the very keywords and products they were selling. After a number of months and many thousands of generated websites this also started to fill the internet with what is called junk sites and was later known as “Black Hat” tactics however… In February of 2006 Google had seen enough and released what was called the “Big Daddy” algorithm update which was designed to combat these generated spam sites. This update permitted Google to take out a large amount of duplicated content from the master search index. As a result of this Google update affiliate marketers had to become more proactive by ensuring their content was updated regularly and as unique as possible to hold a good listing in the search engines. Affiliate marketing is responsible for creating a lot of new businesses from corner to corner of the globe and is expected to evolve greatly. It offers an affiliate the chance to hitch on to a company that is already well established in the online world, and it becomes a win-win situation for everybody involved. The hopeful affiliate still has to realize that the adventure has to be taken seriously. While the merchant can offer training in the way of articles, emails, banners and even youtube video promotions as well as some timely advice, promoting the website or business/ service is left up to the affiliate, and this means understanding the policy of engagement. About the Author: Before commencing your Affiliate Marketing Campaign, Make sure you check out Affiliate X Files for all the best and up to date tutorials on promoting your products and avoid the pitfalls that cause many Affiliates to fail. Get our free affiliate marketing course while your there.

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Affiliate Marketing And The Internet

Search Engines Battle for Users via Free WiFi

The order of business for the three major search engines this coming Holiday Season is none other than  - Free Wi-Fi Internet access.  Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have recently announced their respective strategies in providing free Internet access in various places. For both Yahoo and Google, it’s a totally free Wi-Fi Internet access while Microsoft will be offering it with a catch. Yahoo will be providing free WiFi in Times Square starting tomorrow and will last until next year. This is part of Yahoo’s campaign to be at the center of people’s online lives. Google on the other hand earlier announced that it will be offering free WiFi Internet access on every flights of Virgin America during entire holiday season.  Interestingly, Google’s promo also starts tomorrow. Now, here’s a rather wicked deal – Microsoft is also offering free WiFi Internet access at participating hot spots designated by both Microsoft and its partner in this endeavor, JiWire mobile advertising company. The deal is, the free WiFi access will be granted in exchange for one web search, using Bing.  Obviously, this is part of Microsoft’s continued marketing campaign for Bing. According to MediaPost report, that one search is part of Microsoft’s awareness campaign for Bing. So which has the better deal?  Google’s offer  seem fair enough while Microsoft is wickedly conceptualized although it might work somehow.  But the best deal is of course Yahoo’s one-year free WiFi Internet access at Times Square. Would have been better if other places were included also. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Search Engines Battle for Users via Free

SEJ Tools: The Advanced SEO Toolkit

Search and Social team is happy to announce the launch of advanced SEO toolkit allowing you to do multiple SEO tasks from one handy dashboard! SEJ tools offer plenty of options allowing to build and promote multiple projects. It covers various tasks from content creation to link building and keyword position monitoring so that you didn’t ever need to leave anywhere. Most of the tools are currently powered by Raven SEO tools but we are adding new resources and tools which are exclusive for SEJ readers. Please share your thoughts and feature requests in the comments! Research Any URL or Domain Page