Marketers' Musings

Understanding Google Base and GData - The RSS Blog

2006-07-21T12:25:00.000-07:00

Understanding Google Base and GData - The RSS Blog: "David Janes of Blogmatrix has written a great series of tutorials on using Google Base and GData. I've met David a few times and he possesses one of the best understands of syndication formats and technologies. Subscribed.
# Understanding the Google Base data model

* Basic Data Types
* Attribute Types
* Information Types (records)
* GData
* Business Locations

# Google Base as a Semantic Web language

* Reuse Attribute Definitions
* More Attributes
* Simple Structure
* Partial Merge with GData
* Inter-record linking
* Better ways to populate Google Base
* (all posts about improving Google Base)

http://blogmatrix.semantic.blogmatrix.com/google%20base/"

MySpace Update Threatens YouTube, RockYou and Hundreds More? - Mashable*

2006-07-21T11:55:00.000-07:00

MySpace Update Threatens YouTube, RockYou and Hundreds More? - Mashable*: "It seems that after the latest MySpace hack at the weekend, the company is asking all users to upgrade to Flash 9. In fact, anyone who wishes to view content on MySpace Video will be forced to update. But this new version creates a problem for those who are feeding the MySpace beast - Flash 9 gives site owners the option to disable links to external sites, and MySpace has chosen to do this. In a related move, they’ve also tightened up the restrictions around posting Flash embeds in comments: users now have to approve the widgets left by other members, and the default is to disallow them."

Website Services Magazine

2006-07-19T19:00:00.000-07:00

Website Services Magazine: "Article PR - You Need It
posted Monday, July 03, 2006 9:45 AM by PetePrestipino
You know you need backlinks for good SEO. And you know you need the attention and respect of others to move your business forward in a positive direction, right? Of course you do, but article marketing and generating the elusive 'PR' we as website owners, marketers and webmasters are in pursuit of is challenging and, yes, time consuming to say the least. But it's important so let's put down our sad little violins and get to submitting articles where it really matters.

In order for Article PR to be effective you must understand not only the process of writing and submitting articles, but the best practice of it as well.

Of course you should have a list of influential bloggers (which you could find at Technorati or even Google Blogsearch), but there are also lots of sites that accept articles from those seeking greater attention for their products and services. Often when your submitted article is published, you get a link to your site and (said with fingers crossed) a boost to your ranking. The reason the practice of submitting articles to directories is so popular is because there is an opportunity to include your link. In the best case scenario, the site being submitted to will let you use anchor text when linking to your site.

Here are a few sites which, in addition to including a resource box, let writers embed links with anchor text within the content submitted:

Go Articles, Article Alley, Article Depot, Article Codex, Article Connection, Article Devil, Easy Articles, Featured Articles, Gemini Publishing, Health Writing, Kno What, One Articles, Uniterra Article Archive, Womens Articles

If you had 10 people for link development

2006-06-19T15:56:00.000-07:00

If you had 10 people for link development: "found some very good food for thought here.

on the link development, I would recomend thinking about linking within a marketing thoughtset. not a google algo set.

there are services to get listed in 100 directories and it costs all of 10 USD. That is fairly indicative of there value. no traffic will be generated. just a junk link.

since i am no tech wiz, i tend to emphasize the marketing angle. i cann´t black hat even if i wonted to! So just add value, both in content and links. Call webmasters and create long term PERSONAL relationships with them. I know some guys and gals that have over 20 real content sites. get 10 relationships going and you got yourself 200 websites to link to and gets linked from. Easy.

Personal relationships will dominate in this internet marketing world as it does in the real world (i have always hated that diferenciation). Professional content developers will always be creaong new sites or more contenet. There is the gold mine. Spend a month calling around the world. It will be worth it.

I am working on getting an international network of personal contacts. I build a site on green widgets you an orange. I find a good link, but better for organge widgets, i pass it on to my orange widget contact. He,she will do the same for me.

Personal business relationships are based on trust and mutual gain"

This is an interesting post and I think it effectively portrays the way we should look at like building and internet Marketing in general. Even though it is technical it still needs to be personal.

Tracking Pages Indexed by the SEs

2006-01-24T16:00:00.000-07:00

Alright, so there's been some confusion here about how to query the SEs to learn how many pages of your website they have in their index. Here's a breakdown from the SEs themselves:

Google	If you include [site:] in your query, Google will restrict the results to those websites in the given domain. For instance, [help site:www.google.com] will find pages about help within www.google.com. [help site:com] will find pages about help within .com urls. Note there can be no space between the "site:" and the domain.
Yahoo	use to find all documents within a particular domain and all it's subdomains. Example: site:yahoo.com
MSN	Returns web pages that belong to the specified site. To focus on two or more domains, use a logical OR and group the domains. Do not add a space after the colon (:). You can use site search for web domains, top level domains, and directories that are not more than two levels deep.

Uptimebot.com uses different query strings to get it's "indexed" pages. These aren't as accurate as simply using "site:sitename.com" in each engine. The variations that can be seen in index numbers between the www.site.com version and the plain site.com version is something that needs to be addressed with your webmaster.

Mike Grehan Interviews Apostolos Gerasoulis and Jim Lanzone

2005-02-24T16:50:00.000-07:00

Mike Grehan Interviews Apostolos Gerasoulis and Jim Lanzone

"'In conversation with...' Jim Lanzone & Apostolos Gerasoulis of Ask Jeeves/Teoma"

...

"There are two main link-based algorithms which have been developed in the web research community. Many know of PageRank at Google, as it has been so visible there. The other is HITS (Hyperlink Induced Topic Search) an algorithm developed by foremost computer scientist Jon Kleinberg."

...

a non scientific paper on the subject of the two algorithms and what set the Kleinberg algorithm apart: http://www.search-engine-book.co.uk/LinkEquityExplained.pdf

...

"I was very surprised when Jim told me that 80% of all searches are non commercial! I said: 'At Jeeves?' He said: 'on the web!'"

...

I think this interview and a page that I stumbled across today of a list of Yahoo and Google employees that have blogs have given me a strong desire to stop relying so heavily on reader posts in forums for the bulk of my information. Sure, there I can understand the issues, but listening for profound statements about SEO from the people who create the rules perhaps is a step in the right direction.

My next move will be to find or assemble a list of expert blogs where I can hear the latest issues from the sources.

Google Employee Blogs

Yahoo Employee Blogs

What is The Google Sandbox Effect

2005-02-23T16:16:00.000-07:00

What is The Google Sandbox Effect: "What Is The Google Sandbox Effect?"

Seems like this "Sandbox Effect" has been observed for some time now. Then why am I just now learning about it?! I've been a firm believer that if you do things right and don't try to trick the search engines you'd be rewarded appropriately, i.e. good rankings.

So here's some questions that I need to have answered:

1. Does Google "sandbox" websites or just their new links?

I could see them figuring out that there are a stupid silly number of people exchanging irrelavant links for the purpose of ranking higher. In which case they'd probably keep an eye these "link pages" and hold off on giving them good rankings for a while.

2. Does the "sandbox effect" refer to a site's pagerank or a site's rankings? Cuz, there's a difference, and it's important.

"People have noticed a 0 page rank when first signing up and receiving a bolstering 7 page ranking after 4 months. Why the delay?"

My thought would be that the sandbox effect refers to a site's pagerank, not the page's ranking. And there's a difference. Site's have been known to show up in the top 10 without stellar pageranks, that's no secret. And there has definitely been buzz and documented examples of people's pagerank experiencing stagnant times, especially within the last year.

3. If indeed the sandbox is used for sites with new domains and it's effects are placed on the site's rankings, are there then ethical methods of speeding up the process of ranking well in the SERPs?

We bought 2 new domain names (croquet related) on President's day (Feb 21, 2005), directed them to our DNS yesterday and they should resolve later today or tomorrow.

Completely new to Google #2
Sit back and watch as we do what we do!

The challenge is on! You tell me that it can't be done and I say, "watch me!"

The 10 Minute RSS Primer Getting Up To Speed with Bloglines

2005-02-22T16:16:00.000-07:00

The 10 Minute RSS Primer Getting Up To Speed with Bloglines: "The 10 Minute RSS Primer - Getting Up To Speed With Bloglines"

Really, if you're not up to par on RSS, please read this article and learn about it. Blogs are here to stay. Don't run from them. Embrace them.

Make Money off Your Blog (washingtonpost.com)

2005-02-10T18:23:00.000-07:00

Make Money off Your Blog (washingtonpost.com): Heck, these are good ideas for a normal website. Have at it. It's what they call selling the backend...or something like that.

Affiliate Meta Refreshes Steal Search Engine Rankings.

2005-02-02T11:13:00.000-07:00

Problem: Affiliates using a meta-refresh tag to redirect to your site is taged by Google as duplicate content and lists their site in the SERPs replacing your company's.

Solution 1: "Its a very complex problem with a very easy solution.

www . example.com/index.php?=affiliateID has same content as www . example.com but in the SERPs www . example.com/index.php?=affiliateID ranks higher.

Solution: Now use a redirect page such as partner.php so your affiliate link will be www . example.com/partner.php?=affiliateID

And most important insert these in the meta of partner.php

None of your affiliates will get free clicks from google or anyother SE. Difficult part is the affiliates should update the links quickly enough. IMHO give them the updated links and deactive the current links i.e. Here are the new links pls update / no commision will be paid on old links :-) "

Google Tells Us that PageRank is for Entertainment Purposes Only

2004-12-03T17:54:00.000-07:00

Google Tells Us that PageRank is for Entertainment Purposes Only:

You can read the ensuing debate on the validity of this statement, but I'll tell you here what I think is going on.

If you remember back about a month ago when MSN released their new search engine in Beta mode. They boasted their new indexed pages numbered just below Google's 4 billion. What Google did not let out until a couple days before the release of MSN Beta Search, and frankly too late for MSN to do anything about it, was that they had been indexing like crazy and now Google's home page reports over 8 billion web pages indexed!

Google has been very strategic about its every move when they caught wiff of MSN's new Search Engine they planned to build right into Windows explorer, a move which would give Google a hit to the kneecaps. Google also challened MSN by issuing email services that gave nearly unlimited storage space of 1GB. Both Yahoo and MSN were forced to step up their efforts and up their free webmail's storage space, a move that MSN finally got around to only days ago for my account.

Marketing Wisdom for 2004

2004-11-22T21:01:00.000-07:00

Marketing Wisdom for 2004: 99 Marketers & Agencies Share Real-Life Tips by The Readers of MarketingSherpa.

MarketingSherpa is a great case-study based juicy newsletter. Give it a try! It's trusted by a lot of online marketers.

Welcome Web Syndication

2004-11-11T16:21:00.000-07:00

Monday, July 26, 2004

RSS Howtos/Articles: Again, from Harvard we have a nice list of "do it yourself" articles on publishing RSS feeds. They also include a sidebar of RSS News that Keeps you posted on the latest in RSS feeds. Great!
posted by King Arthur @ 11:17 AM 0 comments

RSS 2.0 Specification: The Berkman Center at Harvard University details the history of RSS versions as well as gives explaination on the elements of this "dialect of XML".
posted by King Arthur @ 11:14 AM 0 comments

Syndicating Your Web Site's Content with RSS
4GuysFromRolla.com - Syndicating Your Web Site's Content with RSS: Here's the nitty-gritty of how to create an RSS feed. There are some good links if you want to go into more detail as well.
posted by King Arthur @ 11:10 AM 0 comments

XML.com: What is RSS?: Get a good brief overview on RSS. Beware those attempting to understand RSS versions by number alone. Development on RSS has come from different sources and this should be noted. While Netscape originally passed the torch to UserLand Software a thrid party came in a developed alternate versions of RSS that diverged form UserLand's original vision.
posted by King Arthur @ 10:59 AM 0 comments

Search Engine Friendly

2004-11-11T16:16:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Yahoo! Guidelines on Spam
Yahoo! Help -: "What are your guidelines on spam?" Again and again SEO firms attempt to "trick" the search engines into raising their clients' rankings to increase their sales. Sure there's a need for this, however Yahoo! and other search engine giants continue to change their algorythms to eliminate bogus websites from their listings.One point that Yahoo! tries to make again and again in their guidelines is to create page for humans, not for search engines. Tricks like duplicating your website with different urls, redirecting your visitors to other places, and using extensive linking to inflate rankings are becoming more and more under attack by the search engines.Find legitimate ways to increase rankings and sales.
posted by King Arthur at 1:11 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

Google Ranking Factors List. When you talk about optimizing your website following as close as you can to some of the most common practices is best.
posted by King Arthur at 10:59 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Don't rely too much on paid search advertising
Search Engine Results VS PPC: "Too many on-line marketers are overlooking natural search engine optimisation...""...across the top four search engines - Google, Yahoo!, MSN and AOL, which hold over 90% of the market share - more than 60% of users chose a natural search result over a paid search advertisement as most relevant to a sample query."This means that Internet promotion is never over until you have good search engine rankings.
posted by King Arthur at 8:32 AM 0 comments

Thursday, May 13, 2004

How Often Should I Submit My Site To The Search Engines?: Again, the answer seems to be now that search engines are more advanced it's not necessary to be submitting your site once a month or everytime you make changes to it. Trust in the power of the web. You'll be okay."So the answer to your question is, it depends. If you're talking about Google, don't submit your website at all. Just do a few link exchanges with quality sites that are already ranked well with Google and let Googlebot 'find' your site automatically.If you're talking about Inktomi, Altavista, and some of the others, using their 'Express Submission' services can speed things up considerably, but it isn't really necessary.And remember, once your site is indexed in the search engines, re-submitting it will simply be a waste of time and/or money."
posted by King Arthur at 3:33 PM 0 comments

Q&A: Resubmitting to the Search Engines
Submitting/Resubmitting to the Search Engines: "How often do I need to submit my site to a search engine?" Well, Jennifer Laycock from About.com does a great job of dispelling some myths that linger around from the days of less advanced search engines.She points out that though submission is very much overrated these days simple tactics like getting listed in human-edited directories sudh as DMOZ, Yahoo!, JoeAnt, and GoGuides will give engines a good place to find you when they get around to indexing your page.
posted by King Arthur at 3:05 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Introduction

Hey there! And welcome to Search Engine Friendly. This section of our blog is to let you in on the well known foundational elements of preparing or changing your site so that the search engines find and index them well. It's also a place where experimental ideas or little tweaks can be found. We'll try to let you in on which tactics are which.

We also promote responsible site optimization, so all the little cheats that you may have heard of before like including hidden text or stacking your meta tags with keywords are frowned upon here. If you've practiced any of these methods before we understand that people can change and invite you to do so if you already haven't.

Site optimization is about communicating better. Communicating better with your customers, visitors and the search engines. Make your content relevant to them and everyone will be happy.

Let us know your feelings by commenting and check out our profiles if you'd like to contact us personally. Happy optimizing, or if you're in the UK, optimising!
posted by King Arthur at 9:31 AM 0 comments

Last of the Link Hounds

2004-11-11T16:11:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Technology -- Dropping 'Google-bombs'
Dropping 'Google-bombs': "Savvy political pranksters are increasingly 'Google-bombing' the opposition..."Here's a great article on the power of not only obtainining links to your website, but links that link to your site with the keywords that you wish to rank high on.
posted by King Arthur at 10:50 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, June 01, 2004

Importance of Directories
Look for directories that you can link to that are relevant to your area. A site to search for these different directories is: http://www.beaucoup.com/index.html

Good luck.
posted by Alex at 2:38 PM 0 comments

Some basics on Link exchanges
Here is an article on some of the basics of link exchanges. http://www.ericward.com/articles/primer.htmlHope you enjoy.
posted by Alex at 10:33 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

How to check back links on different Search engines
To view back links on the following search engines:
MSN: linkdomain:www.yoursite.com
Yahoo: link:http://www.domain.com
Google: link:URL (where URL is the URL to your domain, or sub-folder)

I hope this is helpful.
posted by Alex at 1:54 PM 0 comments

Posts from the Genie

2004-11-11T16:05:00.000-07:00

Friday, July 23, 2004

Advertisers Look Elsewhere as SE Ad Space Dries Up: "'In the long term, we'll hit a wall where a lot of the search buys that make sense today won't make sense anymore because prices will have risen so high,' Mr. Cassar said. 'So for the search engines to grow their revenues, they'll have to increase supply.'"Perhaps there's some merit here. But as long as we see value in PPC advertising we do it. However, there has to be other types of promotional efforts in the works, newer ways to get traffic to our sites. Personally I think there are as many ways as there are people in the world to generate traffic. True, some are less effective such as link farms, FFAs and guest books, but there are a so many creative ways to generate traffic that PPC avenues a drying up should NEVER stop us from getting traffic to our sites. That's what this business is all about...innovation...creativity and video games at lunch.
posted by King Arthur at 12:06 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

MSN users are far more likely to click on a paid advertising ad than...
(Source: out-law.com - legal news and business guides)

"MSN users are far more likely to click on a paid search ad than users of Google, Yahoo! and AOL.More than 60% of Yahoo! users and over 72% of Google users clicked on a natural search result when looking for the most relevant listing for their query; yet over 71% of MSN users identified a paid search advertisement listing as being the most qualified result returned for their query."This is important to consider in your PPC/SEO mix. Your pay-per-click will get more exposure in MSN if you use Overture, who supplies MSN with its paid advertising results. For more info on search engine relationships please see http://www.bruceclay.com.
posted by King Arthur at 8:53 AM 0 comments

Thursday, June 10, 2004

Online Media Placement & Management Services: 4/10 "In order to have a successful PPC campaign, traffic tracking from campaign source to conversion is essential. To achieve this, 'landing pages' for each campaign may be built that to record web site visits AND if a conversion is made - a sale, request for information, etc" RIO tracking is essential. If you don't know what keywords are converting and how much it costs to convert each visitor then you're walking the rim of a steep cliff without a harness and in the dark.
posted by King Arthur at 10:54 AM 0 comments

Pay-Per-Click Advertising: "Success tips for pay-per-click advertising campaigns" 4/10.Ben Chapi goes over the basics of a good PPC campaign. He mentions, as others to that often time the best strategy isn't duking it out with the bigboys on the most popular keywords, but rather gathering lots of traffic from less popular, but still targeted keywords.
posted by King Arthur at 10:50 AM 0 comments

Monday, May 17, 2004

Subtle PPC Differences Can Boost ROI
posted by King Arthur at 10:52 AM 0 comments

Business Plan Templates

2004-11-10T15:26:00.000-07:00

Business Plan Templates from Planigent Business Plan Professionals

MSN Search -- More Useful Everyday

2004-07-01T14:20:00.000-07:00

MSN Search -- More Useful Everyday: MSN releases a preview version of their new search technology. They've been making large strides to compete with Google and Yahoo. I'm not sure of their algorythms or the factors that play into how they search. If anyone has any insight into this please share!

Yahoo! Search Results for dna testing

2004-06-29T13:41:00.000-07:00

Yahoo now offers a Search Term Suggestion Tool (STST) to help you broaden your keyword selection search. Though it offers no indication on how many people are searching under each term each month as does Overture's STST, it still gives users a way to say something in a little different way and hopefully find what they are looking for.

Here's an example of a search and at the top there's a section called "Related" that offers suggestions.

Yahoo! Search Results for dna testing

Other Search Term Suggestion Services:

Overture's Search Term Suggestion Tool: This can be adjusted to find individual country results by going to: Overture International and looking in their Advertiser Center.

Google AdWords Keyword Suggestions

All The Web results for dna testing

AltaVista results for dna testing

Word Tracker

Each one of these keyword suggestion tools return slightly different results and gather their information from slightly different demographics and locations. Choose the one that's appropriate for you.

MSN Hotmail Takes on Google with 250 MB of Email Storage

2004-06-24T13:02:00.000-07:00

MSN Hotmail Takes on Google with 250 MB of Email Storage: Ahh yes. Rightly bellows Alex, "Oh, the power of Google!" Truly there is much at work here behind Google's announcement of it's 1GB of email storage. Yahoo jumped up screaming, "hey, Email! That's what WE do!" and extended to its account users 100 MB of space. Long gone are the times of trying to up-sell 2MB web mail users. Thank you Google

Yahoo to test its New Homepage - PakTribune

2004-06-15T08:34:00.000-07:00

Yahoo to test its New Homepage - PakTribune: "Yahoo has begun quietly testing a makeover of its home page, as evidenced by trial mock-ups seen by some Web users over the past few weeks when they accessed the portal."

Yahoo! is stepping up to Google's announcement of it's 1GB storage space for it's Gmail users. They've announced that they'll give 100 MBs to their Yahoo! Mail users sometime this summer.

Yahoo! also recently revamped their Messenger Service to include the popular LAUNCHcast internet Radio and a Y! Search field at the bottom of it, something that's a new innovation when it comes to Instant Messaging.

They not too long ago also added a product search on their engine, a feature that mimics Google's product search Froogle. Yahoo's toolbar has for several months now included a "WebRank" that is an obvious knockoff of Google's PageRank, however, it acts more like Alexa's toolbar ranking in that it determines the ranking by aggregating Yahoo toolbar users' browsing patterns.

With these changes and others, Yahoo and Google are begining to look more like each other and are pounding out the way we interact with the web. A little competition here is very exciting...I'm liking the improvements on both sides.

Yahoo also rolled out today a new mail interface that matches its Messenger and that allows 10MB of email transfer and 100MB of storage. Thank goodness! I have been over my limit for several months. Kind of Yahoo! not to close that account. Kind of them to increase my storage to 100MB. Thanks Yahoo!

WebmasterWorld News and Discussion for the Independent Web Professional

2004-05-13T17:02:00.000-07:00

WebmasterWorld News and Discussion for the Independent Web Professional

I have this forum set as my homepage. Great news and discussions on things that are most important to a webmaster...or anyone doing anything online for that matter. Many times when I "Google" something I need help with I find my way to a discussion going on here at WebMasterWorld. While all of them do not directly solve my problem, many of them do and those that don't often send me to another website that does.

You can join the Supporters Forum or just broswe the open discussions. I often find that the juiciest posts that I want to read are restricted only to supporters. You're choice. I heard, not sure though, that the Supporters Forum discussions eventually trickle down into the regular discussions.

Happy posting!

Google's PageRank Explained

2004-05-10T22:03:00.000-07:00

Google's PageRank Explained: What is PageRank? Well come here for an overview and look for more articles that help out on this topic.

Search Engine Results Chart

2004-05-10T21:43:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Results Chart Danny Sulivan does it again! Here he shows several charts in addition to the well know Bruce Clay Search Engine Relationship chart. Check it out!

RSS Aggregators

2004-05-08T21:53:00.000-07:00

Aggregators that run on your PC are pieces of software you can download from a website and quickly and easily install. There are literally a few dozen different aggregators but here are some of the ones we're familiar with and you can easily download and try:

SharpReader RSS Aggregator: "SharpReader is an RSS Aggregator for Windows, created by Luke Hutteman."

nntp//rss: Bridging the worlds of NNTP clients and RSS feeds, nntp//rss is an application that will enable you to use your existing favorite NNTP newsreader to read your information channels.

NewsGator is a "news aggregator" that runs in Microsoft Outlook. It allows you to subscribe to various syndicated news feeds (such as weblogs, news sites, etc.) and have news from these sites be delivered right into your Outlook folders. There are thousands of sites which syndicate their content in RSS format, and many more being added every day. You can even read NNTP newsgroups with NewsGator.

RSS Bandit: a .NET RSS desktop feed aggregator.

Vox Lite allows you to keep up-to-date with all your favourite sources of information that support the RSS protocol.

BottomFeeder is a news aggregator client (RSS and Atom) written in VisualWorks Smalltalk. BottomFeeder runs on x86 Linux (also FreeBSD), PowerPC linux, Sparc Linux, Windows (98/ME/NT/2000/XP), Mac OS8/9, Mac OS X, AIX, SGI Irix, Compaq UNIX, HP-UX, and Solaris.

FeedDemon makes RSS newsfeeds as easy to access as your email.

NewsMonster is a news, weblog, and RSS aggregator that runs directly in your web browser. NewsMonster offers a superior web experience and outstanding integration with existing websites and weblogs that support RSS. Even sites that don't support RSS can work with NewsMonster.

Radio UserLand is a unique and powerful web publishing and weblog tool that is used and praised by many of the world's most accomplished web authors. With advanced features such as an integrated news aggregator, Radio enables users to do far more than is possible with the hosted-only weblog products offered by others.

In general PC based aggregators have a cleaner, more elegant interface and offer more features than web based aggregators. They also store your feeds locally so if you're traveling you have an archive of things to read. Web based aggregators require a connection at all times.

If you purchase an aggregator make sure it can import and export OPML -- a standard for sharing the feeds to which you subscribe. Without this you might be locked into a software package. Yes the Feedster aggregator imports and exports opml.

News Aggregators: All About Delivery

2004-05-08T21:36:00.000-07:00

News Aggregators: All About Delivery: "Just has you have a browser for the web, there are browsers for RSS. These browsers are called News Aggregators or 'Aggies' because what they do is aggregate, i.e. gather and present new information.

Summary to date:
RSS is a way for you to have new information sent to you automatically. The reader has complete control and can turn off any feed at any time. This means there is never spam.

Within an RSS feed there are multiple chunks of information called posts.

An orange XML / RSS ( )button or a text link like 'Syndicate' lets you get a site's feed.

A News Aggregator lets you view your collection of RSS feeds."

Its All About those Little Orange Buttons...

2004-05-08T21:23:00.000-07:00

Its All About those Little Orange Buttons...: "
Any website, weblog or even any ecommerce site can provide information to you as an RSS feed. Even Amazon is publishing RSS feeds now, as are the New York Times, Yahoo News, Harvard, Microsoft and millions of others.

When a site has an RSS feed or feeds available you might see something like one of these:

Syndicate This Site (XML)

(RSS)

What these text labels and icons mean is 'This site has an RSS feed and here's the URL'. And if you see one of these then you can subscribe to that site and have its content delivered to you.

Not sure if a site has an RSS feed? Click here to use our FeedFinder which automatically discovers RSS feeds for a site.

Sites don't always label RSS feeds consistently so sometimes you have to really look for them."

What Is RSS ?

2004-05-08T21:19:00.000-07:00

What Is RSS ?

RSS or 'Really Simple Syndication' is an Internet standard just like HTML (i.e. the web) -- with one key difference -- delivery. When you use the web, you're constantly browsing, searching ... seeking information.

With RSS new information -- information that you select and information you can turn off at any time -- is automatically delivered directly to you. This information is called a Feed since it feeds direct to you. An RSS feed is sometimes indicated by [an]orange [XML] icon...

Within an RSS feed there can be text, links pictures and more just as you find on the web. The different 'chunks' of information within an RSS feed are called posts.

Analogy: Think of RSS as 'Tivo for the Web'."

Amazon.com Takes Aim at Google

2004-03-23T13:50:00.000-07:00

Amazon.com Takes Aim at Google

Amazon.com joins the assault on Google with their e-commerse search "A9". Other strong forces include Microsoft's "Longhorn" project and Yahoo's acquasition of Pay Per Click giant Overture.

The Bulletin > News > Stories > All eyes on Google :

2004-03-23T13:39:00.000-07:00

The Bulletin > News > Stories > All eyes on Google :

Microsoft chrushed its competition before, now gathering its resources to try it again, this time in the search field.

Microsoft's MSN plans new search engine in July

2004-03-23T13:08:00.000-07:00

Microsoft's MSN plans new search engine in July

Microsoft will not back down. Google's giving them a run for their money.

local6.com - Technology - Man 'Googles' Himself, Sues for Libel

2004-03-23T08:52:00.000-07:00

local6.com - Technology - Man 'Googles' Himself, Sues for Libel

"He said PageRank "scans the source, but in doing so, it's not a literal transmission. A literal transmission would be fine."

Girardi wants a court order to prevent Google from using PageRank. He said members of a class action could include anyone also allegedly libeled by the search engine."

What's this guy thinking? You don't sue a search engine for indexing offensive things....