Microsoft+Yahoo > Google

Last week Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo! for $44.6 billion in cash and stock. This represents a 50% premium for shareholders, and indicates Microsoft's anxiety to beat Google. In my view, it also represents a tacit admission from Microsoft that Windows Live, MSN, etc., are all failing to win market share. As the Nielsen Online report indicates, Google is still comfortably controlling the market, and that's in spite of the fact that MSN/Windows Live are default home pages are virgin Vista/Internet Explorer installations.
This is a big play, even by Microsoft's standards, and is a sure indicator that Microsoft recognises that search is the key battlefield for this decade. Search is the big driver for all online marketing and content. Microsoft's increased muscle in this market, will paradoxically increase customer choice, and hinder Google's hegemony.

From an agency point of view, the biggest problem we face with Yahoo and Windows Live is poor programmatic interfacing. I'm hopefully Microsoft will throw similar resource at a decent API for Windows Live and Yahoo!. If you they couple the API with better incentives for intermediaries, large scale advertisers will have a realistic alternative to Google.

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Sitemap

What are Sitemaps?
Sitemaps are an easy way for webmasters to inform search engines about pages on their sites that are available for crawling. In its simplest form, a Sitemap is an XML file that lists URLs for a site along with additional metadata about each URL (when it was last updated, how often it usually changes, and how important it is, relative to other URLs in the site) so that search engines can more intelligently crawl the site.
Web crawlers usually discover pages from links within the site and from other sites. Sitemaps supplement this data to allow crawlers that support Sitemaps to pick up all URLs in the Sitemap and learn about those URLs using the associated metadata. Using the Sitemap protocol does not guarantee that web pages are included in search engines, but provides hints for web crawlers to do a better job of crawling your site.
Sitemap 0.90 is offered under the terms of the Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License and has wide adoption, including support from Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft
A Sitemap does not affect the actual ranking of your pages. However, if it helps get more of your site crawled (by notifying us of URLs we didn't previously didn't know about, and/or by helping us prioritize the URLs on your site), that can lead to increased presence and visibility of your site in our index

Sitemap File Format
Most Popular sitemap format is XML and it is supported by most of all type of Search Engine even google too pushing people to use XML format Sitemap
The XML Sitemap must:

1. Begin with an opening tag and end with a closing tag.
2. Specify the namespace (protocol standard) within the tag.
3. Include a entry for each URL, as a parent XML tag.
4. Include a child entry for each parent tag.

All other tags are optional. Support for these optional tags may vary among search engines. Refer to each search engine's documentation for details.

Other Sitemap formats
The Sitemap protocol enables you to provide details about your pages to search engines, and we encourage its use since you can provide additional information about site pages beyond just the URLs. However, in addition to the XML protocol, we support RSS feeds and text files, which provide more limited information.
Syndication feed
You can provide an RSS (Real Simple Syndication) 2.0 or Atom 0.3 or 1.0 feed. Generally, you would use this format only if your site already has a syndication feed. Note that this method may not let search engines know about all the URLs in your site, since the feed may only provide information on recent URLs, although search engines can still use that information to find out about other pages on your site during their normal crawling processes by following links inside pages in the feed. Make sure that the feed is located in the highest-level directory you want search engines to crawl. Search engines extract the information from the feed as follows:

1. <'link'>field - indicates the URL
2. Mdified date field (the field for RSS feeds and the date for Atom feeds) - indicates when each URL was last modified. Use of the modified date field is optional.
   

Text file
You can provide a simple text file that contains one URL per line. The text file must follow these guidelines:

1. The text file must have one URL per line. The URLs cannot contain embedded new lines.
2. You must fully specify URLs, including the http.
3. Each text file can contain a maximum of 50,000 URLs. If you site includes more than 50,000 URLs, you can separate the list into multiple text files and add each one separately.
4. The text file must use UTF-8 encoding. You can specify this when you save the file (for instance, in Notepad, this is listed in the Encoding menu of the Save As dialog box).
5. The text file should contain no information other than the list of URLs.
6. The text file should contain no header or footer information.
7. You can name the text file anything you wish.

You should upload the text file to the highest-level directory you want search engines to crawl and make sure that you don't list URLs in the text file that are located in a higher-level directory.

Sitemap Location
The location of a Sitemap file determines the set of URLs that can be included in that Sitemap. A Sitemap file located at http://example.com/catalog/sitemap.xml can include any URLs starting with http://example.com/catalog/ but can not include URLs starting with http://example.com/images/.
If you have the permission to change http://example.org/path/sitemap.xml, it is assumed that you also have permission to provide information for URLs with the prefix http://example.org/path/. Examples of URLs considered valid in http://example.com/catalog/sitemap.xml include:
http://example.com/catalog/show?item=23
http://example.com/catalog/show?item=233&user=3453
URLs not considered valid in http://example.com/catalog/sitemap.xml include:
http://example.com/image/show?item=23
http://example.com/image/show?item=233&user=3453
https://example.com/catalog/page1.php
Note that this means that all URLs listed in the Sitemap must use the same protocol (http, in this example) and reside on the same host as the Sitemap. For instance, if the Sitemap is located at http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml, it can't include URLs from http://subdomain.example.com.
URLs that are not considered valid are dropped from further consideration. It is strongly recommended that you place your Sitemap at the root directory of your web server. For example, if your web server is at example.com, then your Sitemap index file would be at http://example.com/sitemap.xml. In certain cases, you may need to produce different Sitemaps for different paths (e.g., if security permissions in your organization compartmentalize write access to different directories).
If you submit a Sitemap using a path with a port number, you must include that port number as part of the path in each URL listed in the Sitemap file. For instance, if your Sitemap is located at http://www.example.com:100/sitemap.xml, then each URL listed in the Sitemap must begin with http://www.example.com:100.

Validating Sitemap
The following XML schemas define the elements and attributes that can appear in your Sitemap file. You can download this schema from the links below:
For Sitemaps: http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9/sitemap.xsd
For Sitemap index files: http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9/siteindex.xsd
There are a number of tools available to help you validate the structure of your Sitemap based on this schema. You can find a list of XML-related tools at each of the following locations:

http://www.w3.org/XML/Schema#Tools
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2000/12/13/schematools.html
Some other good sites for validating your sitemap are
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

Submitting Sitemap
Once you have created the Sitemap file and placed it on your webserver, you need to inform the search engines that support this protocol of its location. You can do this by:
· submitting it to them via the search engine's submission interface
· specifying the location in your site's robots.txt file
· sending an HTTP request
The search engines can then retrieve your Sitemap and make the URLs available to their crawlers.
Submitting your Sitemap via the search engine's submission interface
To submit your Sitemap directly to a search engine, which will enable you to receive status information and any processing errors, refer to each search engine's documentation.
Specifying the Sitemap location in your robots.txt file
You can specify the location of the Sitemap using a robots.txt file. To do this, simply add the following line:
Sitemap:
The should be the complete URL to the Sitemap, such as: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml
This directive is independent of the user-agent line, so it doesn't matter where you place it in your file. If you have a Sitemap index file, you can include the location of just that file. You don't need to list each individual Sitemap listed in the index file.
Submitting your Sitemap via an HTTP request
To submit your Sitemap using an HTTP request (replace with the URL provided by the search engine), iIssue your request to the following URL:
/ping?sitemap=sitemap_url
For example, if your Sitemap is located at http://www.example.com/sitemap.gz, your URL will become:
/ping?sitemap=http://www.example.com/sitemap.gz
URL encode everything after the /ping?sitemap=:
/ping?sitemap=http://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.gz
You can issue the HTTP request using wget, curl, or another mechanism of your choosing. A successful request will return an HTTP 200 response code; if you receive a different response, you should resubmit your request. The HTTP 200 response code only indicates that the search engine has received your Sitemap, not that the Sitemap itself or the URLs contained in it were valid. An easy way to do this is to set up an automated job to generate and submit Sitemaps on a regular basis.
Note: If you are providing a Sitemap index file, you only need to issue one HTTP request that includes the location of the Sitemap index file; you do not need to issue individual requests for each Sitemap listed in the index.

Excluding Content
The Sitemaps protocol enables you to let search engines know what content you would like indexed. To tell search engines the content you don't want indexed, use a robots.txt file or robots meta tag

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Antivirus reviews 2008 (part 2)
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Taking the search engine point of view: why you want whatever the search engines want.

Let’s take a second and try and look at the internet from the search engines point of view. Why do the search engines provide us with this invaluable service of allowing us to search the internet? The answer, not surprisingly, is money. The more users that a search engine has, the more potential they have to make money. But how, and what does this have to do with search engine optimization?
The answer to the first question is simple enough, ads? Search engines make money by showing ads along side their search results. For instance, imagine that you did a search on Google for free cell phones. You would arrive at a page that looks like this:

On the left hand side of the screen there are what is known as the organic search results. These are the websites which Google thinks are the most relevant site for the term free cell phone (note: everything which we are about to say about Google also applies to the other major search engines: Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.com). Furthermore, Google does not take money for showing these results. They are displayed based on Google’s algorithm (a mathematical formula which Google uses to determine how to rank sites for any given search term). On the right hand side of the page are different results which also show up for the term free cell phone. These are ads, or more exactly Google AdWords ads, and the owner of that ad pays Google every time someone clicks on their ad (the amount varies according to various factors).
What is worth noting is that Google’s entire business plan revolves around people clicking on these ads. As such, the more people who use Google’s search engine, the more money Google will make (as more people will see Google’s ads with a certain percentage of those people clicking on them). Thus Google has a vested interested in providing the highest quality search engine that they possibly can (as do the other major search engines), for that is what drives people to their site. And the key ingredient to a quality search engine is relevance! After all, people are only interested in a search engine insomuch as it helps them find the results that they are looking for. And since that is what Google’s customers want, that is what Google wants. And since that is what Google wants, that is also what we want.
Here comes the answer to our second question. When we say that Google ranks the search results according to relevancy what we really mean is that Google has developed various criteria and methods for determining what is the most relevant site for any given search. What this means for us is that if we can discern what those criteria and/or methods are (Google doesn’t reveal them) then we can build our site accordingly for the terms that we want to rank well for. Put simply, Google sets the ranking rules. If we want to rank well then we best learn what those rules are and follow them. This, in a nutshell, is all that search engine optimization is about.
As simple as that may sound it’s actually a bit harder to do in real life. Particularly since the search engines are constantly trying to improve the results that they return. What that means is that the criteria and methods that the search engines use to rank sites are constantly changing. So not only is it important to know how it is that the search engines rank sites today, but it is equally important to get as clear a sense as possible as to how they plan to rank sites tomorrow. That way you can always be prepared (or at least try to be prepared) for whatever changes come tomorrow. Thus ensuring that your high rankings are as stable as can be.
Our first order, therefore, when it comes to optimizing our sites for the search engines is to understand as best as possible the criteria and methods that the search engines use to determine their search results. As such, that is the topic of the next tutorial.

Previous tutorial: What is search engine optimization?

Read Other Articles :How to optimize your site : SEO process ,Basic link terminology ,Taking the search engine point of view: why you wa... ,What is search engine optimization (aka SEO)? ,The best keyword research tools available ,Antivirus reviews 2008 (part 1) ,Strange Google Crawler ,Creating Statspack job

Antivirus reviews 2008 (part 1)

Intro Linux users are lucky: there aren't really many viruses that target them. Even Mac folks don't have to lose sleep over virus attacks too often. But life for us Windows people is different. Much of our digital worries hover about the possibility that a single malicious program could turn the world upside down.To make sure I'm insured for the next digital doomsday, over the past few weeks I've checked out all the major brands of antivirus software, including free antivirus software (all latest versions till date). My poor PC had to go through a horrible degree of abomination, but in the end my finds were sure worth it. First of all, you should know that
this isn't a data-centric report. I neither have the intention nor the resources to come up with that kind of thing (you can check out Download.com, About.com, Consumer Search, PC Magazine and PC World for stats; amazingly, the test results differ across these reviews even when they're using the same parameters. Also, google to look up a particular antivirus version review).
what I've come up with is a plain-talk user account. However, I've tested (read 'applied') different home user versions of standalone antivirus software on my PC under the same conditions (courtesy of Acronis TrueImage; OS: Windows XP).
all prices mentioned are in US$ and generally include a 1-year virus definitions subscription.All the major reviews this year seem to be bent on hailing BitDefender or Kaspersky. You should know that each year it's different; a few years back the tussle was between Norton and McAfee, and after that PC-Cillin and Kaspersky broke in. There always seems to be a general drift towards celebrating a particular antivirus brand. But trust me: they're almost always wrong. Or they do all their testing on alien PCs (no pun intended).

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BitDefender

check Product Page BitDefender product page TOP

This year's champ won many hearts with its price tag: a one year subscription for 3 users (yes, that wasn't a typo) costs only $23.96. BitDefender is a vastly improved product in its current incarnation (the current version is 2008), although version 9 (the last one I used) was good too. BitDefender did a good job cleaning up my PC; it looks sleek these days, and scan speed seems to have slightly improved. However, my chief complaint against BitDefender is it eats up a lot of your RAM. And a hell lot: in fact, if you're using an older machine you might even think your PC has crashed for good (I tested it on a 2.0 -something GHz Celeron, and it's going to curse me for the rest of its days).
Summary: good detection rate, great price tag, improved interface; slow scan speed, RAM hog.

Price: $23.96 (for 3 users)
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Kaspersky

Check Product Page Kaspersky Labs product page TOP
I've used Kaspersky since its infancy, and the thing I like about it is the way it updates its database. Kaspersky responds to security threats fast, and scans all Internet traffic in real time to block viruses before they are saved to disk. Kaspersky isn't impenetrable, as its fans (including myself) used to believe. But then again that faith stems from the fact that it's so good at catching viruses -- if not the best. It scans well and fast (unless you're using the highest settings), and one might argue that the relatively high $59.95 price tag for a single user license is worth it.The interface is better than before, but could be better; it seems to eat up more RAM than its previous versions. The problem with Kaspersky is an almost silly one: its update mechanism often fails, leaving you in minutes of sluggish online experience; worse, it will then keep nagging you even if your virus database is only a few days old, making the situation seem much worse than it really is (many users, especially people who use dial-up, rely completely on weekly, bi-weekly or even monthly virus definitions downloads). The situation really gets on your nerves when you discover that Kaspersky is downloading all the files it needs, but somehow can't update its database. While you can adjust the way Kaspersky updates, it's worth pointing out that the auto-update is perhaps its prime feature. You get the idea. The latest version is 7.0.

Summary: good detection rate, quick to respond to virus outbreaks; update mechanism acts weird at times, eats more RAM than previous versions, interface could be better.

Price: $59.95 (1 user)
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ZoneAlarm Antivirus

Check Point product page (antivirus) (security suite) TOP

ZoneAlarm is perhaps best known as a great firewall, but these days the company (Check Point) has started offering an antivirus as well. It's essentially a variant of Kaspersky (version 6.0?), but it's not as good. It scanned really, really slowly; it doesn't have enough options for scans; it fared poorly in cleaning up registry entries generated by malware; it came up with false alerts (an area where other antivirus programs have improved greatly); and I really can't trust Check Point on effective user support or disaster management, because they're into firewalls, not antivirus software (and, the antivirus they made sucks). The only reason I'm discussing ZoneAlarm Antivirus at all is it's part of the ZoneAlarm Internet Security Suite (v7.1) -- and the bundle comes pretty cheap at $49.95.

Summary: good detection rate, not heavy on the wallet (as part of the ZA Security Suite); slow scan speed, can't clean up leftover registry entries, lacks scanning options, Vista support issues.

Price: $29.95 (1 user); $49.95 for ZA Security Suite (1 user)

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Panda

Check Product Page Panda Software product pageTOP

I liked the looks of Panda Antivirus: any antivirus software that's called 'panda' deserves praise :D Panda Antivirus (v 2008) installs quickly, and its real-time scanner is good and even underrated. But the good part stops there. Panda doesn't seem to respond to new threats quickly enough, and once installed, your PC takes an annoying while to boot (not to mention the panda head icon that appears on the bottom-right corner of your screen and gets on your nerves soon enough. You might even end up appreciating pandas less). Independent reviewers seem to be uninterested in Panda as well, which makes it hardly a popular choice. Worst part: Panda eats up a lot of your RAM.

Summary: good detection rate, affordable; slow scan speed, RAM hog extraordinaire.
Price: $39.95 (for 3 users, 1 year)

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F-Secure

Check Product Page F-Secure product page TOP



I ended up using F-Secure for almost the entire trial period. The
new version is massively improved and it detects viruses fairly well (reviews have traditionally underrated F-Secure's engine). It
updates quickly and frequently (in small files, a lot like Kaspersky)
too. The reason I gave up on it is it eats up a lot of RAM. In that
respect, it shares the same curse as BitDefender. It's also pricey.

Summary: good detection rate, good update mechanism; pricey, RAM-intensive.
Price: $97 (for 3 users; the price is actually €65.90 on the company website)
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Next: (part 2: the biggies) will Post it soon


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Strange Google Crawler

Well it has been so long that I am trying to get my blog indexed in google search but no luck yet। My Blog is not even displayed in search result when I put whole url in search keyword. Enough of trying and I had decided to create another blog in wordpress because of two reasons .one is that wordpress has great themes and many widgets and second lots of people are switching to wordpress. Just two day before I had created oraview.wordpress.com blog .but after creating I got to know that we can' t have adsense on that so, I switched back again to blogspot on my old blog random-view.blogspot.com.

Today when I was trying to search for 'random-view' term in google god damn this blog didn't came up in search result but guess what my wordpress blog was up there .This is really annoying the blog, one which is created one and half year back is still not indexed. Whereas wordpress blog which was created just 2 days back got indexed so fast . looks google search and crawling algorithm is really grate secret in it. No one can guess how it works .Anyways Till time I will keep trying my blog to get indexed with good ranking and will see people coming to my blog via Google path way :)

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