Submit your Website

In order to increase link popularity and search engine awareness of your site, it is important to submit your site to different directories. There are many directories, some general, others specific and your site has to “fit in”.

Why should you submit your site to directories?
Directories are not search engines. Unlike search engines, directories manually check each and every site that is submitted to them. The human factor is important to make sure that real web sites only are published in the directory and that all these web sites comply with the rules that the directory has set.

Search engines use directories as sources for web sites because the data within a directory is, due to the human factor, of the highest quality.

The single most important directory is the Open Directory Project. This directory has over 7 million web sites filed and is one of the sources for many search engines (Google being the biggest.) Besides the Open Directory Project, there are many directories that you can submit your site to. Below this article you will find a list of directories that you can use.

Do NOT submit your site to thousands of search engines!
Many people believe that, in order to maintain (high) rankings, they have to submit their site to all search engines over and over again. This is absolutely not true. You need to submit your site only once to a search engine and even if you don’t your web site will probably be found through the directories. Once a search engine has found your site, it will keep it in its index and re-crawl the site every now and then until you take your site of line or disallow it through the robots.txt file on your server.

Google
Yahoo: First go to the category you want to submit to and then click on "suggest a site".

Teoma: Click on "Submit your site"
Overture

Don't forget to get links from other web sites as well. With the link popularity from the directories you´re not done yet. The more links that point at your web site, the more popular your site is for the search engines and the higher your rankings.

The Importance of the Page Title - By Indian SEO.

The title tag is one of the more important tags in a page. The title gives information about the contents of the page and the search engines use it in a great deal to determine relevance to a search query.

The title is important for the search engines to rank high and it tells your visitors what the page is about. Let’s first look at which rules to follow when writing a title for a page:


Use about 60 to 70 characters
Make sure your keywords are in the title
Make it attractive

The title is meant to show up in the bar at the top of the window. So the length is important. If it is too long, only the first part will be visible. Higher resolution screen can show more characters but first of all, not everybody has a high resolution screen and second: Search engines won’t show more than the first 60 to 70 characters in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). Making them much longer just doesn’t have any purpose. You can leave them shorter of course, depending on the content of the page.

For good rankings in the search engines it is wise to include the phrase(s) that you want to rank high on. There are many opinions on the necessity of repeating keywords in the title, but I would advise not to repeat it more than once. Of course it depends a lot as well on the phrase it self. 2 short words can be repeated, while a phrase of 3 long words is difficult to repeat. First thing to ask your self is if the title makes sense to the visitor. If it does, you’re doing fine.

The last rule is probably the most important rule. Make the title as attractive as it can be. There is a property of a title that is often forgotten and that is its click through rate.

Click Through Rate? Isn’t that something that applies to PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising and similar things? Yes it is, but it also applies to the titles of your pages. Suppose your page shows up in the SERPs on average 100 times per day, and as a result you get 1 visitor per day. Then the click through rate of the title is 1 %. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could get that up to 25% or 50% or even more perhaps?

In the SERPs, the title is the face of your page. It needs to be attractive enough and stand out between the other 9 titles. So take a look at the SERP you want to rank high in and look at those titles. While designing the titles for your pages, compare them with the other titles in the SERPs. Make your titles stand out and receive even more visitors. SEO is about more than just high rankings.

Making the Title Attractive

So how do we do make the title attractive? There are a couple of things that are important to know.


The title needs to "stand out" between the other 9 titles in the SERP
The title should address the action the searcher has in mind (while still being related to the search phrase) Address the searcher personally

Title stands out

The Goal here is to make your title be the first thing people look at. In order to know how to make the title stand out, you need to do a search for your main keyword phrase for that page.


Are most titles long? -> Make your title short
Are most titles short? -> Make your title long
Use a short start phrase (the main keyword phrase) followed by a “ – “ Etc.

There are so many SERPs, it is difficult to set a simple set of rules. But one thing you can do is to copy all titles into a word document (just the titles, not the snippets) so you can look at them line after line. Does any title stand out? Add your own title to it, and look at it again. Ask other people to look at that list and ask them to tell you which title draws their attention. This may be something you don’t do in 5 minutes, but it may very well be worth the time spent.

Title addresses the action the search has in mind

This one is very important. After attracting peoples attention, the title needs to address the action they have in mind. A few examples:


Widget Paint – Your widgets look better with Widget Paint
2 Widgets – Connecting 2 Widgets
Widget manufacturers – Widget reviews Etc.

Title addresses the searcher personally

Also important. An action that a searcher has in mind is often personal. This does not mean every action has a personal goal, but still it is often possible to be personal, using words like "you" and "your".


A title doesn’t have to follow all things above, often 1 or 2 is enough! It depends of course very much on the subject. Some subjects are easier than others. Do follow your instincts, they’re often the best guide, if you just would allow them and listen to them.

Search Engine Optimization & Marketing from SEO India

Search Engine Optimization helps home businesses

By Peter Faber

The relative unknown business of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is growing now that so many people are trying to create new income sources online. Home based businesses, generally selling through a web site, find that it is not at all as easy as it may seem and many fail to ever make any money. Those who find a good SEO company see their chances of success increase.
Search Engine Optimization or SEO as it is generally named, helps web masters to increase the number of visitors to their web site. They optimize a web site in order to have it positioned in the top 10 of a search engine result page.

“The logic is simple,” says Peter Faber of www.seo-works.com: “A web site that ranks in the top 10 for its important keyword phrases, receives many visitors per day, a web site that doesn’t rank high, struggles to make money.”

According to Mike Pass of www.increaseranking.com SEO is an essential part of any home business: “With the search engines being one of primary sources of targeted traffic on the internet, search engine optimization should be an essential part of any home based internet marketing strategy. A knowledgeable search engine optimizer can be your best source of a positive ROI.” (Return On Investment)

Good SEO firms and consultants know that just high rankings isn’t enough to be successful on the internet and will often advise web masters to improve their web sites as a total, and to go for more than just for the good positions in the search engines. Leann Pass of www.leannsdesigns.com explains: “Targeted traffic that doesn't convert to sales is worthless. Website design can literally make or break a sale. Visual appeal and ease of navigation are necessities. Present a poorly designed site and your targeted traffic will become your competitor's customer.”

There are many SEO firms and consultants that practice unethical SEO. Methods that are against the Terms Of Service (TOS) of most of the major search engines like Google are not appreciated because they reduce the quality of the results of a search engine. Something that is very important for every search engine.Google's TOS for instance, shows that unethical SEO practices are not allowed. Their systems try to identify web sites that do make use of unethical practices and punishment in the form of lower positions or even being banned are a risk that every web master takes with these practices.

Ethical SEO takes a bit more time but can give great ROI.

Source:www.seo-works.com

The Basics of Search Engine Optimization - Some FAQs

By Glenn Murray

Editorial Note: SEO-News will not be published next week but will re-commence the first week of January, 2006.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a foreign field to a lot of people. Rarely does a day go by when I don't get asked a few questions on the subject. So I've decided to post this FAQ article in the hopes that it will help people understand the basics, and make them a little more comfortable with the whole domain.

Q: Why are Search Engines Important To Me?

A: 85% of all website traffic is driven by search engines. The only online activity more popular than search is email. 79.2% of US users don't go to page 2 of search results. 42% of users click on the no.1 result. For the under-40 age-group, the Internet will become the most used media in the next 2-3 years.

Q: How Do Search Engines Decide on Their Rankings?

A: IMPORTANT: You cannot pay a search engine in return for a high ranking in the natural results. You can only get a high ranking if your content is seen as relevant by the search engines. Search engines identify relevant content for their search results by sending out 'spiders' or 'robots' which 'crawl' (analyze) your site and 'index' (record) its details. Complex algorithms are then employed to determine whether your site is useful and should be included in the search engine's search results.

Q: Can't I Just Pay for a High Ranking?

A: No. The biggest concern for search engine companies like Google and Yahoo is finding content that will bring them more traffic (and thus more advertising revenue). In other words, their results must be relevant. Relevant results makes for a good search engine; irrelevant results makes for a short-lived search engine.

Most search engines these days return two types of results whenever you click Search:

Natural/Organic - The 'real' search results. The results that most users are looking for and which take up most of the window. For most searches, the search engine displays a long list of links to sites with content which is related to the word you searched for. These results are ranked according to how relevant and important they are.

Paid - Pure advertising. This is how the search engines make their money. Advertisers pay the search engines to display their ad whenever someone searches for a word which is related to their product or service. These ads look similar to the natural search results, but are normally labeled "Sponsored Links", and normally take up a smaller portion of the window.

Q: How Do I Get a High Ranking?

A: There are four main steps:

Step 1 - Use the right words on your website.
Step 2 - Get lots of relevant sites to link to yours.
Step 3 - Use the right words in those links.
Step 4 - Have lots of content on your site & add more regularly.

Q: What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

A: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of creating a website which is search engine-friendly. This means:

• Using the right words in your copy.
• Using the right words in your HTML code.
• Structuring your site properly.
• designing your site properly.

For more information on these 4 elements, download our free SEO Secrets eBook .

Many people use SEO to also describe the other ingredient in a high ranking, 'Link Popularity'.

Q: What is Link Popularity?

A: Think of the search engines as a big election. All the websites in the world are candidates. The links to your website are votes. The more votes (links) a candidate (website) has, the more important it is, and the higher its ranking. Link popularity is all about how many links you have, and how you can get more.

Links to your site tell the search engines how important your site is. They assume that if it's important enough for a lot of other sites to link to, it's important enough for them to display at the top of the rankings. Links are the single most important factor in ranking. Generally speaking, the more links you have to your site from other sites, the better your ranking.

Q: Are Some Links Better Than Others?

A: Yes! The ideal kind of links are those that:

• come from relevant sites (sites which use the same keywords);
• come from important sites (have a high ranking);
• include your keyword as part of the visible link text
• include varying link text (not the same link text each time); and
• come from a page that links to few other sites.

When a search engine sees a link which satisfies most or all of these conditions, it says, "Hey, this site must be credible and important, because others in the same industry are pointing to it."

Q: How Do I Get Lots of Links Back to My Site?

A: There are many possible ways to generate links. Some are dubious (like auto-generation software, and sites set up by webmasters simply to host links to their other sites) and I won't be discussing them here. Others, like those discussed below, are legitimate.

• Add your site to DMOZ & Yahoo Directories (and other free directories)
• Check where your competitors' links are coming from
• Article PR - Write and submit articles for Internet publication
• Swap links
• Partner websites
• Pay for links

For more information on these methods, download our free SEO Secrets eBook.

Q: What Do You Think is the Best Way to Get Lots of links?

A: Article PR. Write helpful articles and let other webmasters publish them for free in exchange for a link in the byline. With article PR, you don't have to pay for the link, you determine the content of the page containing the link, you determine the link text, and the link is more or less permanent. A single article can be reprinted hundreds of times, and each time is another link back to your site!

For more information, read How to Top Google with Article PR or visit ArticlePR.com.

Q: How Do I Write a Good Article PR Piece?

A: See - How to Top Google with Article PR.

Q: How Do I Get a High Ranking Using Free Reprint Content?

A: See - Get a top 10 ranking without paying a cent.

Q: How Long Does It Take to Get a High Search Engine Ranking?

A: A long time! It's impossible to say how much time you'll need to spend generating links, but you can be sure it'll be a while no matter which method of link generation you use. You just have to keep at it until you have achieved a high ranking. Even then, you'll still need to dedicate some ongoing time to the task, otherwise your ranking will drop.

Q: What is the Google Sandbox, and is It Real?

A: The Google Sandbox theory suggests that whenever Google detects a new website, it withholds its rightful ranking for a period while it determines whether your site is a genuine, credible, long term site. It does this to discourage the creation of SPAM websites (sites which serve no useful purpose other than to boost the ranking of some other site).

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence supporting the theory, but there is also a lot discounting it. No one has categorically proven its existence.

Q: What is the Google Dampening Link Filter, and is It Real?

A: The Google Dampening Link Filter theory suggests that if Google detects a sudden increase (i.e. many hundreds or thousands) in the number of links back to your site, it may sandbox them for a period (or in fact penalize you by lowering your ranking or blacklisting your site altogether).

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence supporting the theory, but there is also a lot discounting it. No one has categorically proven its existence.

Q: What SEO companies Should I be Wary of?

A: Be wary of SEO companies that promise or guarantee results in a given timeframe, especially if they won't expand on their methods for generating links back to your site.

Q: What Tools Can You Recommend?

A: There are many very useful tools to help with your SEO. The following are just selection. All tools are free unless otherwise indicated.

* Backlink checker
* Backlinks by IP address
* Link Popularity Tool
* Number of links required to rank
* Google Alert
* Google Sitemaps
* Google Sitemap Generator
* Google Toolbar
* Indexed Pages
* Keyword Analysis (Nichebot)
* Keyword Analysis (Overture)
* Keyword Analysis (WordTracker - Paid)
* Keyword Difficulty
* Keyword Identifier
* Keyword Density Measurement (Simple)
* Keyword Density Measurement (Complex)
* Plagiarized Copy Search
* Traffic Rank
* Search Engine Rank
* SEO Report
* Top 10 sites for a keyword by no. of backlinks and age
* Top 10 sites for a keyword
* Spider Simulator

Q: I'm Confused About All the Terms Used in SEO, Can You Help?

A: See our - SEO Glossary.

Q: What is Keyword Analysis?

A: The first thing you need to do when you begin chasing a good search engine ranking is decide which words you want to rank well for. This is called performing a keyword analysis. Keyword analysis involves a bit of research and a good knowledge of your business and the benefits you offer your customers.

For more information, download our free SEO Secrets eBook.

Q: Do I need to submit my site to the search engines?

A: Theoretically, no. But I wouldn't risk not doing it - especially as it's free. As soon as you register your domain name, submit
it to Google! Even if you haven't built your site, or thought about your content, submit your domain name to Google. In fact, even if you haven't fully articulated your business plan and marketing plan, submit your domain name to Google.

For more information, download our free SEO Secrets eBook.

Q: Should I submit my site to the search engines more than once?

A: No need. Although some of the search engines allow you to do this, there's really no need.

Q: What are directories and should I submit my site to them?

A: Directories are websites (or web pages) which simply list lots of websites and give a quick description of the website. Some are free and some require you to pay for a listing. Free directories are useful because you get a free link. However, the links aren't worth that much. Paid directories can be good if they're relevant, but they can cost a lot in the long term, so choose wisely.

One essential directory for any website is the DMOZ Open Directory Project.

About The Author

Glenn Murray is an SEO copywriter and article submission specialist. He is a director of article PR company Article PR and also of copywriting studio Divine Write.

Source:www.seo-news.com

Google launches online free classifieds

IN A MOVE THAT POTENTIALLY threatens online classified providers like eBay and Craig list, Google Wednesday announced the release of Google Base, a service that allows users to post free classified listings.

"Google Base enables content owners to easily make their information searchable online. Anyone, from large companies to website owners and individuals, can use it to submit their content in the form of data items," Bindu Reddy, a Google product manager, wrote on the company blog.

The service isn't limited to classified listings. Rather, it allows users to post any sort of information--recipes, course curricula, people profiles, reference articles, and reviews are all mentioned on the company blog as possible database entries.

But Google Base likely will have the biggest impact on classified listings, said industry experts. "It certainly is a shot right at those guys," said Jupiter Research Analyst Gary Stein, referring to online classified services like eBay and Craigslist. He added that some users might want to post information just for the sake of sharing it, but that for most users, "the primary reason you'll want to put it up there is to sell it."

Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rashtchy predicted that most people trying to sell items on Google Base will be small, local merchants--the Craigslist crowd, rather than the eBay retailers. "Craigslist was a great idea because it allowed people to find things locally, and it succeeded because it was a very simple platform to use," he said. "What Craigslist doesn't have--and will be its limitation--is a robust search capability," he said, adding that it's difficult to find information in Craigslist sites for large cities like New York and San Francisco.

But search is what Google does, Rashtchy said, and that will help it compete. "That's really where Google Base comes in," he said. "With much more sophisticated search, it can pinpoint the product you want."

Plus, if Google goes into the classifieds business, it could easily bundle the sale of AdWords--the company's essential source of revenue--to the listings. "That's the one killer thing that could happen," said Stein. "Put a little box on the bottom and say 'would you like to bid on an AdWord?' ... That's an interesting play they could make, and they would open up a new potential source for advertisers on AdWords."

New SEO Tools Announce by Dipsie

SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING FIRM DIPSIE, Inc., today will release Dcloak, a product designed to optimize Web sites by helping search engines index "hidden" content on the sites.

"We're looking to solve the problem of exposing Web sites that weren't exposed to Yahoo! and Google in the past," said Dipsie CEO Jason Wiener. "Dcloak beta allows Web site publishers who don't currently have the ability... to now render out the pages that they have published on their site, and have the ability to have the best practices and search engine grading techniques to make sure those pages go to the top of search engine results."

Wiener said search engine crawlers often have trouble indexing pages that have flash animation or JavaScript coding. Dcloak automatically renders those pages in HTML, so that the bots can more easily crawl them--then publishes the pages to the Web.

When users find the "cloaked" pages using a search engine, they're directed to a landing page that states it has been re-rendered by Dcloak; that page contains a link to the original page, with all of the non-HTML elements intact.

In addition to the main function, Dcloak also provides a pair of services for paid search advertising. In addition to rendering pages into easily indexable versions, it can also suggest possible keywords for paid search campaigns. The bot also can visit competitors' Web sites to analyze their pages, and suggest keywords that the competitors might bid on.

Dcloak will begin in the market as a public beta, meaning that anyone who wants to try the product can do so for free, said Wiener. Starting in the first quarter of 2006, Dipsie will end the beta and begin to charge for the product.

Keyword research is the most important in internet marketing.

Optimize wrong keywords and You’ll likely never see results. A well planned website ranking strategy identifies your most valuable search terms. Keyword analysis actually begins before the promotion process, before even an Internet web site promotion transaction is completed. Keyword selection is the base.

Keyword Research that identifies new opportunities to leverage.

Keywords or “search words” are the terms or combinations of terms customers enter when shopping for products and services using search engines and directories such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. Keyword analysis and research enables us to pinpoint the most popular keyword phrases used by your target market. Knowing which keyword phrases to use is the foundation of successful website promotion through optimization or pay-per-click campaigns and is vital to your online success.

Content-Based Ranking

SEO has changed drastically over the past few years. 10 years ago you could get your website ranked on the first page of Yahoo! simply by optimizing your meta tags, nowadays meta tags count for nothing. Is it possible that something we regard just as highly today, such as anchor text, might also count for nothing in 10 years time?

In this article I will explore a few of the possible methods that search engines might use in the future, based on website content and using visitor patterns to your website to assess your
website’s usefulness.

Monitoring The Number Of People Viewing The Websites

A shop is similar to a website in many respects; it must attract visitors to browse it’s products, it must provide customers with information about the products it sells, and it must retain customers to make them come back. So, how can we determine how popular a particular shop is? The two main factors are: -

- The number of shoppers that walk through the doors.
- How many people are in the shop at any given time.

The same concepts that determine how popular a shop is can also be applied to a website. You’ll notice that monitoring how many people walk through the shop doors, and how many people are in the shop at the same time are the best ways of determining how popular a particular shop is, so it seems only logical that the same practice could be applied to a website.

Using the Google toolbar it could be possible to track how many times a website is visited and how many people are viewing that website at any given time, giving a good indication of how popular that website is.

Monitoring The Number of Returning Visitors

If a person returns to a website time and time again then there must be a reason for it: the website is providing useful up-to-date information that keeps them coming back. This is obviously a quality that all websites would like, and one that should be synonymous with a
popular website. Again, it seems only logical that this is, or could be used as a ranking factor. Again, the google toolbar could be used to keep track of which websites you visit, and how many times you return to that website.

Monitoring the Length of Visit

If a website is providing lots of useful, unique information then chances are you’ll spend quite a lot of time browsing the site and looking at or reading what information it has. The longer you spend on a particular website, the more popular and useful it could be deemed to be.

More Content-Based Weighting

My previous three suggestions have all been based around one central concept: content. It’s the content of the website that will hold the browser’s attention that keeps them logged onto your site so that at any one time you could have thousands of visitors, it’s content that makes them return to your website time-and-time again, and it’s content that make the visitors stay on your web site for an extended period of time.

Let’s assume you search for “stock market crash 1929”, and you have the choice between two websites, you click on the first website which has only one paragraph on the stock market crash. Feeling you need more information you try the second website. The second website provides reams of information, including stock graphs, information on what lead to the crash, what happened after the crash, and how it recovered. Now, which website would provide the best information for the searchers? You guessed it, the second one, so wouldn’t it make sense that the website that I spend more time viewing would be given a better search engine ranking for the term “stock market crash 1929”? After all, search engines want to serve websites that provide the best solution for what they are searching for.

Overview

The trouble with these suggestions is there is no way of proving that adding more content to your website will actually improve your search engine rankings. But one thing can definitely be said, if you provide more useful
content for your visitors then not only will they keep returning to your website, but also word of mouth will spread about the quality of the information on your site, so as a result your website will naturally begin to climb the search engine results through the increase in links to your website. So even if you don’t get a direct increase in search engine results, you will definitely benefit from the indirect results.

Do Not Drop Your Web Site Off the Search Engine Cliff

If you've been feeling like Tom Cruise climbing up the side of some remote jagged mountain in the blazing hot sun and concerned you're facing "mission impossible", chances are you own a web site.

Adding to the intense thrill of web site ownership are keyword comparisons and bidding for good keyword positions in search engines. You might hire a search engine optimization specialist who can track elusive algorithm clues and is unfazed by page rank drama. Your programmers and designers insist they get along. The marketing department actually believes deadlines are met. The new bank account is waiting for fresh revenue. And oh yes, it's assumed someone will come looking for your web site and wants to use it.

You did build it for them, right?

For every search result, there is the possibility that:

a. The engine will display a description that makes sense. Or not.

b. The page the search engine refers to does what the description said it would do and is about what the search engine said it would cover. Or not.

Your SEO/SEM, if you hired a good one, helped you write your title tag statement and Meta page description and structured it so it makes sense in SERPs (search engine results pages).

Your Usability professional, if you hired one, evaluated the page to make sure it would meet customer expectations and convince visitors there are other hot pages inside the web site to look at too. Without call to action prompts, well displayed, logically labeled navigation links and credible content, the chance of someone remaining on that page is pretty slim.

Says Gordon Hotchkiss, President and CEO of Enquiro Search Solutions , Inc., in a recent Search Day article written by Shari Thurow, called Creating Compelling Search Engine Ads and Landing Pages, "Once searchers arrive on your landing pages, you have 13.2 seconds to convince visitors that they are on the right site." Impossible Mission ?
Had enough of web page abandonment? Are those cost per click fees putting you further in credit card debt and not producing any bang for your buck? Which part of "understand your web site visitor" didn't make it to the drawing board?
I know this is hard. You're not a mind reader. Unless you have access to costly studies and data about who to build your web site for and their computer usage habits, chances are you simply wanted a web site and hoped people would find it and use it. By incorporating the skills and expertise of an SEO/SEM along with a user centered design specialist, you will not be wastefully tossing your web site off the search engine cliff. Rather, your adoring fans will clamor up the cliff to get to it.

Sometimes a web designer is also trained in these fields or is partnered with people who are. This is something to consider when shopping around for web site assistance.

Here are some things to keep in mind when studying your web site. You can also ask your team to consider these points.
1. What happens after your site reaches top rank? It's lonely up there, if nobody notices your page or understands the page description. How effective is high rank? Do people really click on "sponsored" pages vs. natural results?

2. Pay attention to inside "landing" pages. Optimize them for easy indexing and point visitors to your homepage, sale products or free stuff.

3. Be wise about what you invest. Every cost per click must be productive. If not, a usability web site review can locate roadblocks.

4. It's about the user experience. Really. It's a common habit for web site owners to create the site for themselves based on what they like and want. When you receive a complaint, consider it a favor. Yes, some people are mean and critical. But, enhancements are improvements that sometimes benefit a lot of people, and you too, in the long run.

5. Don't settle for minimum effort. One of your goals is to reach potential customers and readers. Your optimized pages reach people looking for them. Your user centered pages reach people wanting to use them and will refer them to friends.
6. Your competition does it better. Not by packing hidden keywords and buying links, but by carefully targeting keywords, providing cleverly written content and delivering user centered design.

7. Think sustainability. If you plan on your web site being around for a while, make this a checkpoint for every future decision related to your site. If someone has an idea that won't impact the long-term sustainability of the site, the site may disappear out of sheer user boredom. And search do engines notice.

8. Understanding your visitors and customers allows for more creative keyword combinations. Put a feedback form on your web site. Ask them how they found your web site. Ask them what keywords they used. Ask them why they came or what they wanted to find. Ask them if they found what they were looking for and if not, provide room for comments so they can explain what happened. This information is a gold mine for you.

9. Never mislead your visitors. Be accurate with what you say a site or page is about. Search results relevancy establishes trust from the start.

10. The elegance of action. The act of landing on a relevant, accurate, persuasive, interesting page leads to the fluid, unencumbered desire to know more and click deeper. Aim for this.

Do not drop your web site over the search engine cliff without considering the usability effect. Design it to be productive and user centered. This will pay off in many ways. Remember your original requirements and goals and trace back every dollar you spend to meeting them. Marketing efforts are strengthened when you make your visitors feel welcome, informed and productive once they arrive at your web site.

Source : trafficology.com - By: Kimberly Krause Berg

Top 3 Reasons why Content is Still King

from: Excess Voice

Back in the late nineties, the phrase 'Content is King' was repeated and repeated and repeated by site owners and marketers alike. The belief was that the more content you had, the greater the number of visitors you would attract. Of course, the content had to be well written, relevant and easy to find. Many sites built very successful businesses as a result.

And then something happened.

Big money from venture capitalists burst onto the scene. Suddenly nobody was talking about content. (Where's the big investment return on 'content'?) Instead the attention went to businesses that came up with some kind of unique technology solution'.
Then the dotcom bubble burst.

And here we are.

Is content still important? I think so. People don't talk about it as earnestly as they once did, but I think that original thinking was very sound.

Here are three reasons why you should be creating more content on your site:
1. It increases conversion rates by keeping prospects on your site.
When prospective customers arrive at your site, they like to 'dig deep'. They look for all the information they can find before they feel confident enough to commit to that purchase. Whether you are selling banking, subscriptions, noodles or digitals cameras, people want to know what they are buying.

If you don't give them all the information they need, they'll find someone else who does. Perhaps they'll try epinions.com, consumerguide.com or mouthshut.com. Or maybe they'll just do a search on Google.
The point is, if they can't find the information they want on your site, they'll try somewhere else. And as soon as they leave your site, the chance of their returning is fairly slim.

And that's very bad news for your conversion rates.

2. It differentiates you from your competitors

What differentiates your noodle site from every other noodle site? Most businesses have a number of direct competitors and all too often there is very little to truly differentiate your products or services from theirs. You may have some marginal distinctions, new offers or price deals. But at the end of the day, a noodle is a noodle.

So how do you differentiate your site? You do it with content. You make your site an absolute magnet for anyone who is serious about cooking pasta. You provide the best recipes, you deliver the best advice, you seek out the most interesting and useful facts about noodles.

When you do that, your products may not be that different from anyone else's, but your site is. It has become different because it becomes known for being the number one resource for cooking great pasta.

3. Content is great for search engines and inbounds links

Here's something we already know. The search engines love content, especially when it is substantial, updated and relevant.

So do your homework and make sure your content pages have SEO-friendly titles, headlines and body text.

In addition to being attractive to search engines, great content also attracts inbound links. The better the information, the more the number of sites that will want to link to you.

In conclusion...Creating great content for your site, and newsletters, is still a very smart thing to do. It's good for your customers, good for your conversion rates, perfect for search engines and does a great job of separating your site from your competition.

Protect Your Brand With SEO Research

Feature article By Paul J. Bruemmer, TrademarkSEO.com

In today's competitive environment, many advertisers resort to using competitor trademark names as keywords in paid-search advertising. These trademark names appear in the search engine results pages for Google, Yahoo! and affiliates and partners when you buy Google AdWords or Overture Precision Match sponsored listings. Therefore, it's possible for your competitors to drive substantial traffic to their web sites by virtue of your trademark name, using your reputation to attract visitors.

A fine example of this is the sticky situation with Google AdWords. In an Internetnews.com article titled "Google Adwords Under Further Trademark Scrutiny," Google was quoted thusly:

"As stated in our Terms and Conditions, advertisers are responsible for the keywords and ad text that they choose to use. We encourage trademark owners to resolve their disputes directly with our advertisers, particularly because the advertisers may have similar advertisements on other sites."

I can certainly understand Google's position. Can you imagine what would happen if it were forced to
reverse its policy allowing advertisers to buy keywords containing trademark terms belonging to others? This would severely impact Google's revenue, and no doubt would require exhaustive efforts on their part to prevent such activities from occurring.

It's interesting to note that originally, Google AdWords did not sell trademarked keywords. However, it currently sells trademarked keywords in the U.S. and Canada (but not internationally) with the proviso that the trademark name can't be used in the ad copy itself.

The Best Defense is an Offense

Is there any way to protect yourself from competitors raiding your trademark? One way is to hire an SEO vendor to help identify your competitors and then research their search engine advertising activities. Your legal department can subsequently use the SEO research data to protect your trademark and reputation. This step will prove invaluable toward defending your future and ongoing business.

Most often, it will be the smaller, "wannabe" companies riding on your coat tails by using your trademark terms as keywords in their advertising. These companies will generally avoid the threat of legal action upon receipt of a cease and desist letter. Not only are you protecting your name and reputation, you are crushing the competitors that you don't want representing your firm.

Building Your Marketing Network

Another benefit of mining this competitor data is to assist those whom you do want to benefit from using your trademark name. For instance, you may have affiliates, resellers, and a number of associates with whom you can negotiate on a recurring basis. These are the folks you trust with your trademark and reputation -- your friends and family marketing network. There's something in it for you when they profit from your success.

Knowing who is using your trademark in keyword search advertising or in the body text of their web site has a directly positive effect on managing your brand, your trademark, and your reputation. Make sure your SEO vendor covers this critical marketing aspect for your online success.

A Word of Caution

It goes without saying that you don't want to use trademark names other than your own in keyword phrases. Profiting from the use of another company's trademark or brand without relevance or permission is unacceptable and could even result in legal action against you.

Reviewing the above information on trademark term research while interviewing SEO vendors will help
you to identify those vendors who provide added value to your search engine marketing and optimization campaign. ----

Paul J. Bruemmer is founder of trademarkSEO. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including ClickZ, MarketingProfs, Marketing Today, WebProNews, SitePoint, SEO Today, SEO Consultants, MarcommWise, Pandia, B2B Interactive and Search Engine Guide. TrademarkSEO is a search engine optimization firm based in Santa Ynez Valley, California and serves clients nationwide. His company provided search submission services to over 10,000 websites, including many of the most prominent names in American business.

Measuring Importance:Usability Strategy Ranks High With Search Engines

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By Jim Hedger (c) 2005, StepForth News Editor,
StepForth Placement Inc.

Usability is already a critical component of successful online ventures but with the advent of Google Analytics and the implementation of the Jagger algo update, user-activities and behaviours are going to play an influencing role in search engine rankings. How people act when they visit a website or document is being measured and accounted for, even for sites without Google Analytics tracking codes in the <head> section of the document source-code.

Google is concerned with how people find information and what they do when they access a document found in the Google index. Which document in a site they tend to land on, how long users spend on that document and how much, if any, time does a user spend exploring information in a domain, are all pertinent to how Google perceives the relevance of documents listed in the index. As long-term online marketers know, this is where usability comes into the picture.

Usability, as defined by Kim Kraus Berg is, "... the ability to successfully, comfortably and confidently learn or complete a task. For the web site designer or application developer, it's the mechanics of designing and building a web site or Internet-based application so that it can be understood and easy to accomplish any task."

According to local (Victoria-based) website marketing expert, Michael Linehan, a focus on site usability is simply common sense marketing. Leading visitors towards goal-orientated outcomes makes as much sense for a functioning website as it does for a functional building and, to follow through on the analogy, it all starts with a smart architect.

Michael knows his stuff, so much so Step Forth considers him to be one of our marketing and site usability gurus. If our assumptions about user-behaviors and the post-Jagger Google SERPs are correct, Michael's talents will play an important role in our overall SEO techniques.

"It's all about marketing," Michael explains (exclaims is probably a better word, ML is pretty passionate about this stuff), "and marketing is all about envisioning an effective strategy." While most people involved in business understand the concept, surprisingly few actually take the time to implement and follow a marketing strategy in relation to their websites.

"Website owners have to prioritize their messages and make their websites easier to use. It's a matter of measuring the importance of different parts of their marketing strategy and their websites."

Michael suggests that over 95% of companies he has worked with use opportunistic marketing tactics with separate strategies being employed out of sync with each other. A simple example would be the Yellow Pages ad that does not mention the website URL or a printed brochure that does not include an email address in the contact information. A more complex example can be found by looking at most business websites.

"When a business owner gets a website for their business, they often expect the designer to know how to market their new website." said Michael. "That's just ludicrous. Website designers already have a difficult and mentally demanding job. Expecting them to be proficient marketers is like expecting your architect to act as your real estate agent."

Michael deconstructs websites, pulling them apart to find or add the little things specific to a business website designers often can't customize for. His work could be described as user-outcome optimization.

He has a good point. Search engine marketing is becoming much more complicated. The web is rapidly adopting a more professional attitude as it grows into the global mainstream marketplace. As this maturing takes place, two factors should drive website owners and webmasters towards a more professional view of their online marketing strategies.

The first factor is the increased analytic abilities of the major search engines. As previously mentioned, Google is taking stock of a number of user-sensitive factors surrounding documents in its index. In March 2005, Google filed a patent titled, Information retrieval based on historical data. The patent application outlines the historic record Google keeps on every document and file in its index. One of the items mentioned covers user behaviors touching on the following points:

• how much time an average user spends examining a document,
• the entry and exit paths of users,
• if users store reference to the document in bookmarks,
• how users access the document (via search engine, typing URL, link from other document, or bookmarks),
• an evaluation of search traffic driven by Google and related keywords the
document was found under

Each of those points should lead webmasters to think about how visitors use their site. Website marketing is not necessarily about search engine placements. It is about using your website as a marketing tool. In the context of website marketing, usability is about moving visitors from the entry point to the goal line and off again to another compellingly relevant website experience.

The second factor is the evolving needs of website users and their increased analytic abilities. The Web is almost second nature to most of its users. People are experienced in the environment and, at least in the case of work-related web use, know what they want. As it stands today, there are a lot of websites that no longer live up to user expectations because those expectations have moved beyond the design of those websites.

Usability is a component in smart and informed website marketing simply because it implies making the website experience simpler and clearer for visitors. Strategically moving a site visitor from the entry point to the information or sales point (goal lines) is common sense. It is also providing the visitors exactly what they want.

Google placing more weight on user behaviors makes sense. User behavior is a logical Extension of the democratic concept of Page Rank in that the users' collective judgment is incorporated into that of the webmasters who coded incoming links. Webmasters of sites supporting AdWords advertising are already super-charged, stoked about Google providing detailed data that can help drive traffic.

All good marketing strategies are goal orientated and center around a clear vision. As time goes on, it can get pretty complicated, especially when clarity and ease of use are the ultimate design goal. Objective planning might involve rethinking the design of your website but moving into the near future, rethinking the design of your website might just become essential.

About The Author

Jim Hedger is a writer, speaker and search engine marketing expert based in Victoria BC. Jim writes and edits full-time for Step Forth and is also an editor for the Internet Search Engine Database. He has worked as an SEO for over 5 years and welcomes the opportunity to share his experience through interviews, articles and speaking engagements. He can be reached at jimhedger@stepforth.com.

Top 10 Benefits to creating Blogs

I have been a blogger since January 2004 but only began to take it seriously this year. My blogging journey began when I stumbled upon a company owned by Google named Blogger.com that offered free tools to build a website.

In fact Blogger provides you with free several templates which you can customize in addition to a domain name hosted on their server. You can host your blog on your domain if you like to. Here are some benefits I found while blogging:


1) Easy to manage. A blog can be set up by even a novice in no time. All you have to do is post and publish. Blogging can get as simple as that or even more complex.

2) Easy to update. Blogs can be updated weekly or daily instead of sometimes monthly for a static website. Even adding a few paragraphs a day can be done in no time and can be beneficial to your search rankings.

3) Get spidered quickly. Search engine spiders crawl blogs with greater frequency than static WebPages. I have had WebPages that took over eight months to be indexed in Google where as Yahoo sometimes index my blogs in weeks sometimes days.

4) If you write articles then you can post all of them on your blog in addition to free reprint content that is widely available everywhere. The more content you have the better.

5) You can get your website indexed quicker. An article or a piece of news about your website with an optimize anchor link will send the spiders your way in no time.

6) Sell advertising space. If you have a popular blog then you can create a revenue stream by selling ad space. Blogads is one of several places where you can sell your ad space to major companies.

7) Similar to offering ad space, you can add Adsense to your blog to monetize your content. What I love about Blogger is that once you plug in the Adsense code into your main template, a new page is created and Adsense is automatically displayed when you make a post.

8) Review your affiliate products. If you have a blog that is in a niche then you can find affiliate programs for that niche and do reviews of them for a commission. Every time someone purchases the product or service through your link you make money.

9) It is still early to catch on. Blogs and RSS feeds are used by the minority of internet users which makes it excellent for you to start blogging right now. Less than 10% of the Americans which is the biggest online market use this emerging trend.

10) Can be syndicated. An easy way for your readers to stay in touch with updates is to add your blog to their My Yahoo and My MSN. They can see the latest information and how long ago it was added.

11) Yes a bonus! Savvy marketers know that if you add your blogs to My Yahoo you can have it indexed in no time by Yahoo. You can use these two websites to inform blog directories that

you have updated your content.

a) http://WWW.Ping-o-matic.com

b) http://WWW.Rssfeedpromoter.com



So with all those benefits in mind there is no reason you should not start your own blog. So when do you decide to go blogging?

Which Guarantees Really Matter in SEO

When researching search engine optimization (SEO) companies, it is tempting to choose any company willing to offer guaranteed SEO services. It is human nature—people love a guarantee.

This holds especially true for purchases where the buyer is purchasing something outside of his or her area of comfort. When companies first consider pursuing SEO as a potential marketing channel, particularly when there is an ongoing cost involved, they get a sense of comfort from purchasing "guaranteed SEO." Unfortunately, with many SEO companies, this confidence in the guarantee is ill placed.

A lot of questionable SEO companies offer what I like to refer to as a "leprechaun repellent" guarantee. In other words, it's a guarantee that is easily attainable—if you purchase such services and are not subsequently harassed by a pesky leprechaun, the guarantee has been met. How can you complain?

The truth is that SEO companies do not control the major search engines, and any firm that claims to have a "special relationship" that gives it sway over the natural search engine results is simply counting on your ignorance. Fortunately, this does not mean that guaranteed SEO is impossible, especially when the guarantee has to do with aggregate results and the methods used to achieve them.

What follows is a partial list of some of the more popular types of guaranteed SEO out there—some of them roughly as useful as leprechaun repellent, and some of them actually meaningful.

Questionable Guarantees

The 'Leprechaun Repellent' Key Phrases Guarantee

Many SEO companies boast that they will achieve a certain number of top rankings in the organic results of major search engines. This type of guaranteed SEO can be tempting, especially to those who are investigating SEO companies for the first time. After all, high rankings are what it's all about, right? Isn't that the goal?

The answer is an emphatic "No." Quality SEO companies will point out that the real goal is to bring high quality traffic to your site. It's quite simple to guarantee top positions if you choose noncompetitive or obscure phrases—for example, "leprechaun repellent."

Want proof? Enter "leprechaun repellent" into your favorite search engine. You will almost certainly find this article dominating the results (caveat—if you are reading this article immediately after its release, the search engines may not have indexed it yet. Wait a week and try again.).

It is extremely easy for SEO companies to achieve high search engine positions for phrases that nobody uses. Such rankings might impress your friends and neighbors, but they won't send you quality traffic. They likely won't send you any traffic at all.

It's important to note that the phrase "leprechaun repellent" is used only for demonstrative purposes. Many unpopular phrases may not sound absurd. There are surely countless phrases that sound extremely relevant to your business that are never typed into search engines. Good SEO companies will avoid such phrases. "Leprechaun repellent" practitioners will embrace them—it allows them to attain their worthless guarantees.

There is also another aspect of this type of guaranteed SEO in which SEO companies will guarantee you first place positions on unspecified search engines for more competitive phrases. Unfortunately, this type of guaranteed SEO often involves obscure engines that have very little market share and are not sophisticated enough to quickly eliminate Web pages that use spam tactics. In a few documented cases, the guarantees involved search engines that the SEO companies actually owned and operated!

There are really only three major search engines at present—Google, Yahoo and MSN. There are a handful of minor engines that are also worth mentioning, including Ask Jeeves and AOL Search. Any guaranteed SEO should involve prominent engines, not obscure ones.

The 'Company Name' Guarantee

There is also a common guarantee that shady SEO companies will use that guarantees that a company will show up for a search on its company name. This, much like the "leprechaun repellent" flavor of guaranteed SEO, offers no real value.

Sure, if your company name is "Acme," it may actually be competitive. But chances are that if your Web site does not already show up near the top of the search engine results for a search on your company name, there is an easily fixed technical glitch that will resolve the issue. Quality SEO companies will address this area immediately.

Moreover, ranking highly for your company name, while obviously desirable, provides only a tiny fraction of the potential value of search engine marketing. The real benefit for most companies is that search engine marketing attracts potential buyers who are not already familiar with the company name. Unless your company is a household name, it is unlikely that having your company name figure prominently in the results is going to have a huge impact on your business.

The Pay-per-Click Guarantee

Some SEO companies will offer guaranteed SEO services that promise top positions for certain key phrases on popular engines, but they are counting on dealing with prospects who do not understand the difference between natural search engine results and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

With PPC, it is very easy to guarantee a number-one result, but this result will appear in the "paid" or "sponsored" results of the engine. Say, for example, that your company installs custom swimming pools. While a competitive phrase like "custom pools" might be difficult to achieve in organic results, the SEO company is not concerned with organic results. All it has to do is outbid the current highest bidder (using your money, of course), and your site will show up as number one in the "sponsored" results.

Studies have indicated that sponsored results are held in a lower regard than natural results by savvy Web searchers who recognize them as advertising. Also, as soon as you stop paying, your ranking disappears.

The 'Submit Your Site to 50,000 Search Engines' Guarantee

There are many variations on this offer, primarily involving the number of engines promised. Regardless of the number, this is probably the most pervasive and persistent type of "guaranteed SEO," and it is basically a scam that preys on ignorance.

Companies that believe that they have high quality Web sites are predisposed to believe that the only thing holding them back from search engine success is that the search engines do not yet know that their sites exist. However, search engines measure quality in a much different way from a Web site owner. A properly optimized site does not need to be submitted to search engines at all. (I refer to actual "spider-based" search engines such as Yahoo, Google, and MSN, not human-edited directories such as Business.com, the Yahoo Directory, and the Open Directory Project). Engines prefer to find sites on their own.

This "solution" offers no real value, except of course to the SEO companies offering the service. Also, as previously mentioned, there are not 50,000 search engines—or at least 50,000 search engines worth worrying about.

Do SEO companies that offer this service meet this guarantee? Certainly—they use automated programs to do the submissions. Is this type of guaranteed SEO worthwhile? Not for search engine positions, but it may keep leprechauns at bay.

Meaningful Guarantees

Given the preponderance of "guaranteed SEO" that is meaningless, the seemingly Wild West nature of the industry and the reality that SEO companies do not control the results of any major engine, it may seem that guaranteed SEO can never be a worthwhile endeavor. However, that is not the case.

If you note the abovementioned examples, they are primarily involved in specifics—top positions, a certain number of submissions, a certain number of engines. However, good SEO companies, understanding that they have no control over individual results, should be confident enough in the results of their work in aggregate and in the safety of the methodologies that they use to offer guaranteed SEO that lives up to its promise.

The Targeted Traffic Guarantee

SEO companies dedicated to showing value to their clients will take a baseline reading of current search engine traffic at the outset of a campaign. While, as previously mentioned, SEO companies do not hold sway over search engine results, they should at least be confident enough in their overall skills to promise that their clients will see an increase in targeted search engine traffic based on popular phrases relevant to the business.

If the firm offering this type of guaranteed SEO charges on a monthly basis, any month of the engagement where traffic for targeted phrases does not exceed the baseline should not be charged. After all, you are paying on a monthly basis to protect and improve your positions. While major algorithm shifts that make results on individual results unstable can and do happen, they rarely happen on all engines at once. You should feel confident that the firm you are paying has a very vested interest in making sure it adapts to the changing nature of search engine algorithms, and few things inspire such confidence as knowing that it will not get paid otherwise.
If your prospective firm is unwilling to guarantee that it will send increased traffic to your Web site from targeted phrases, every month, it may be time to look elsewhere.

The 'White Hat' Guarantee

SEO companies are commonly broken up into two camps—"white hats" (practitioners who remain solidly within the search engines' stated terms of service) and "black hats" (practitioners who work to unravel the latest search engine algorithms and base their optimization techniques largely on technology, regardless of an engine's terms of service). Both approaches are legitimate—in that there is nothing illegal about exploiting a technical loophole for results.

However, black hat SEO companies put their clients at risk of penalization, including outright banishment from the major engines. Getting back in can be a long process, and sometimes it is not possible at all. If you are concerned about potential penalization, get a guarantee from your firm that it adheres to the stated terms of service of all major search engines. If you can (and this is rare), get a guarantee that your site will not be penalized through any action of the SEO firm.

This is harder for a company to offer, since the major engines frequently update their terms of service, and techniques that are acceptable today can be deemed unacceptable tomorrow. However, a confident firm that always errs on the side of caution when optimizing client Web sites will offer this type of guaranteed SEO services, since it will not use techniques that have a potential for penalization in the future.

Abusing the Metaphor (Beating a Dead Leprechaun)

Guarantees have been around for at least as long as leprechauns have been hoarding breakfast cereal and starring in bad horror films. So have guarantees that are essentially meaningless but sound respectable. A good guarantee should not only appeal to the base emotion of a potential purchaser but also afford some real protection that the purchase he or she is making will provide meaningful results. Many of the most popular types of guaranteed SEO do not, and that's a shame. The industry already has a questionable reputation due to "leprechaun repellent" practitioners—make sure you don't go chasing their rainbow. After all, it's your pot of gold they are after.

Source:www.MarketingProfs.com

Webmasterworld.com stop spider crawling

Brett Tabke drops the nuclear bomb of banning all spiders from WebmasterWorld. He explains here that heavy rogue spidering is the reason behind the move. Members worry in the thread that as pages drop out of search engines, it will become difficult to impossible to find anything at WebmasterWorld, which self-admittedly lacks good site search.

Brett figures he's got 60 days until pages drop from places like Google to get an alternative search solution in place. That seems optimistic to me. WebmasterWorld is a prominent site and should get getting revisited on a sub-daily basis. If search engines are hitting that robots.txt ban repeatedly, they ought to be dropping those pages in short order, or they aren't very good search engines. I mean, can you imagine the irony of Google and Yahoo getting pilloried on WebmasterWorld for taking so long to drop pages after they were told to do so after the ban was put into place?

A separate issue is the potential loss of search traffic. We have had the odd site from time-to-time declare that it might ban Google or Microsoft because of opposition to those companies, and we've certainly had companies ban all spiders for other reasons. But in one bold move, WebmasterWorld suddenly is about to become a big giant test case about what happens to a site if it cuts itself off from the oxygen of search results -- an incredible irony when so many come to the site looking specifically on how to gain more search traffic.

Realistically, any established site should be able to ride out having no search traffic at all. WebmasterWorld has plenty of people who will seek it out directly, plus referral links from other sites will keep traffic going and perhaps even growing. But search has been estimated to drive anywhere between 7 to 13 percent of new visitors to a web site, visitors who after they arrive continue to come back. I wouldn't want to roll the dice against losing them.

It'll be interesting to see if WebmasterWorld really sticks with this ban or seeks other ways of getting its content into the major search engine without spidering, such as via Google Base or Yahoo's paid inclusion programs, for example.

Source : http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/051121-105154

Google launches online free classifieds

IN A MOVE THAT POTENTIALLY threatens online classified providers like eBay and Craigslist, Google Wednesday announced the release of Google Base, a service that allows users to post free classified listings.

"Google Base enables content owners to easily make their information searchable online. Anyone, from large companies to website owners and individuals, can use it to submit their content in the form of data items," Bindu Reddy, a Google product manager, wrote on the company blog.

The service isn't limited to classified listings. Rather, it allows users to post any sort of information--recipes, course curricula, people profiles, reference articles, and reviews are all mentioned on the company blog as possible database entries.

But Google Base likely will have the biggest impact on classified listings, said industry experts. "It certainly is a shot right at those guys," said Jupiter Research Analyst Gary Stein, referring to online classified services like eBay and Craigslist. He added that some users might want to post information just for the sake of sharing it, but that for most users, "the primary reason you'll want to put it up there is to sell it."

Piper Jaffray analyst Safa Rashtchy predicted that most people trying to sell items on Google Base will be small, local merchants--the Craigslist crowd, rather than the eBay retailers. "Craigslist was a great idea because it allowed people to find things locally, and it succeeded because it was a very simple platform to use," he said. "What Craigslist doesn't have--and will be its limitation--is a robust search capability," he said, adding that it's difficult to find information in Craigslist sites for large cities like New York and San Francisco

But search is what Google does, Rashtchy said, and that will help it compete. "That's really where Google Base comes in," he said. "With much more sophisticated search, it can pinpoint the product you want."

Plus, if Google goes into the classifieds business, it could easily bundle the sale of AdWords--the company's essential source of revenue--to the listings. "That's the one killer thing that could happen," said Stein. "Put a little box on the bottom and say 'would you like to bid on an AdWord?' ... That's an interesting play they could make, and they would open up a new potential source for advertisers on AdWords