Archive for the ‘Search Engine Optimization’ Category

A Brief History of Search Engine Optimization

Friday, September 3rd, 2010

Current info about Search Engine Optimization is not always the easiest thing to locate. Fortunately, this report includes the latest Search Engine Optimization info available.

Search engine optimization is the art and science of making web pages attractive to internet search engines. Some interne t businesses consider search engine optimization to be the subset of search engine marketing.

In the middle of the 1990s webmasters and search engine content providers started optimizing websites. At the time all the webmasters had to do was provide a URL to a search engine and a web crawler would be sent from the search engine. The web crawler would extract link from the webpage and use the information to index the page by down loading the page and then storing it on the search engines server. Once the page was stored on the search engines server a second program, called an indexer, extracted additional information from the webpage, and determines the weight of specific words. When this was complete the page was ranked.

It didn’t take very long for people to understand the importance of being highly ranked.

In the beginning search engines used search algorithms that webmasters provided about the web pages. It didn’t take webmasters very long to start abusing the system requiring search engines to develop a more sophisticated form of search engine optimization. The search engines developed a system that considered several factors; domain name, text within the title, URL directories, term frequency, HTML tags, on page key word proximity, Alt attributes for images, on page keyword adjacency, text within NOFRAMES tags, web content development, sitemaps, and on page keyword sequence.

Google developed a new concept of evaluating internet web pages called PageRank. PageRank weighs a web page’s quantity and quality based on the pages incoming links. This method of search engine optimization was so successful that Google quickly began to enjoy successful word of mouth and consistent praise.

If you don’t have accurate details regarding Search Engine Optimization, then you might make a bad choice on the subject. Don’t let that happen: keep reading.

To help discourage abuse by webmasters, several internet search engines, such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Ask.com, will not disclose the algorithms they use when ranking web pages.The signals used today in search engine optimization typically are; keywords in the title, link popularity, keywords in links pointing to the page, PageRank (Google), Keywords that appear in the visible text, links from on page to the inner pages, and placing punch line at the top of the page.

For the most part registering a webpage/website on a search engine is a simple task. All Google requires is a link from a site already indexed and the web crawlers will visit the site and begin to spider its contents. Normally a few days after registering on the search engine the main search engine spiders will begin to index the website.

Some search engines will guarantee spidering and indexing for a small fee. These search engines do not guarantee specific ranking. Webmaster’s who don’t want web crawlers to index certain files and directories use a standard robots.txt file. This file is located in the root directory. Occasionally a web crawler will still crawl a page even if the webmaster has indicated he does not wish the page indexed.

Sometimes it’s tough to sort out all the details related to this subject, but I’m positive you’ll have no trouble making sense of the information presented above.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

The Myths in SEO

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

Some people follow the book accurately when it comes to SEO. However, you have to understand that there are common myths that may only be detrimental to the growth of your company. Some of the approaches that used to be effective before may no longer be useful today, since the market and search engine crawlers are smarter. Debunk some of the basic myths and make the necessary improvements in your site to boost sales for long.

Myth #1: SEO Involves Techniques That Fool Search Engines

Fooling search engines mean that you are also fooling human users. Real SEO techniques involve more than just optimizing content, using marketing schemes and getting additional links. A number of tactics can be used depending on the persons you are dealing with.

Some of the useful strategies that can be used for SEO to last a long time include benchmarks, competitive analysis, search marketing strategy, keyword analysis, web design, user experience, creative copy writing, server side issues, ongoing link building, code optimization, information architecture, ongoing content development, web analytics, other channel marketing affecting SEO and conversion analysis.

Myth #2: Search Engines Aren’t Used That Much

Based on research, around 4.9 billion searches are done every month by 133 million unique searchers. Search engines have become one of the most common tools used for people to gain information. Majority of internet users rely on search engines to get to different web sites, pages and companies. Search engines lead you to different online businesses and shops where you can instantly shop and get more updates. You have to determine how much useful and relevant content is available in the market, then aim on becoming an authority in the industry.

It seems like new information is discovered about something every day. And the topic of Search Engine Optimization is no exception. Keep reading to get more fresh news about Search Engine Optimization.

Myth #3: SEO Doesn’t Work Because You Do Not Have Many Visitors

Keep in mind that SEO doesn’t promise instant and significant results. You have to use the different marketing tools and strategies together with the approaches and SEO to make everything work together. Experts recommend that you spend about 6 months after the implementation phase to evaluate the results of SEO.

You also have to ensure that your web site can back up all the methods you have incorporated. If your site is not easy to navigate, does not have sound and unique content and is not relevant to the people you are targeting, then your SEO efforts will be rendered useless.

Myth #4: SEO Happens Only Once

SEO takes time to develop and you need to evaluate and assess each approach to determine if it should be improved. Search engines view about 100 to 200 factors or signals to know its relevance as well as decide how to categorized search results. You have to give SEO constant attention because there are several other sites and pages that also promise unique content, entertaining media and other tools to entice the target market.

Always brainstorm on how you can further improve your techniques like integrating with other offline and online marketing, creating new content, building new links and refining your optimization approaches. If you have spent some time, money and effort creating the groundwork for your SEO, you have to ensure that operations continue to function and drive the right clients into your web site. SEO is not a one-time event. It needs checks and refinements every now and then.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

Search Engine Optimization and the Knight

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

On October 15, 1881 a baby by the name of Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (Plum to his friends) was born. In 1996, one hundred and fifteen years later, a brand new internet search engine would be named in honor of him, sort of.

P.G. Wodehouse was an extremely popular English writer who had a flair for comedy. Magazines like The Saturday Evening Post and The Strand serialized his novels while he spent time in Hollywood working as a screenwriter. P.G. Wodehouse had an incredibly prolific flair for writing. His writing career officially started in 1902 and ended in 1975. During that time he wrote ninety-six books, several collections of short stories, screenplays, and one musical.

When he was ninety-three years old, P.G. Wodehouse was made a Knight of the British Empire. Two of Mr. Wodehouse’s most famous characters(or perhaps infamous, depending on your point of view), are the bumbling Bertie Wooster and his long suffering valet, Jeeves.

P.G. Wodehouse will always be remembered for his comedic approach to writing.

In 1996, when Garret Gruener and David Warthen needed a name for the internet search engine they created they choose the name of Wodehouse’s fictional valet. The website was called Ask Jeeves. Jeeves remained the search engines mascot until the company retired him on February 27, 2006 a decision they announced on September 23, 2005. Jeeves retirement prompted the internet search engine to create a page titled “Where’s Jeeves”, that listed a variety of creative activities, including growing grapes and space exploration, the valet planned to do during his retirement. With Jeeves retired the search engine simply became Ask.com. During his reign at Ask Jeeves, the valet was always impeccably dressed in a beautifully tailored black suit, shiny shoes, and red tie. Although his posture changed almost yearly on the company logo he always had the same amicable smile.

If you don’t have accurate details regarding Search Engine Optimization, then you might make a bad choice on the subject. Don’t let that happen: keep reading.

When it was first created the idea behind Ask.com (back then it was still Ask Jeeves) questions would be posed in regular language and answers would be hunted down and provided. The creators of Ask Jeeves (now Ask.com) hoped that internet users would be drawn to the intuitive, user friendly style.

The growing popularity of keyword search engines like Yahoo! and Google prompted the powers-that-be at Ask Jeeves to overhaul their search engine to include keyword searches in addition to answering questions. Because Ask.com was not as quick to index new websites as some of its competitors its was not bogged down with computer generated linkspam., when users were unable to find usable web pages on the three most popular internet search engines, they turned to Ask.com who still had viable pages readily available.

Today, Ask.com uses the ExpertRank algorithm to provide its users with search results. Ask.com uses link popularity and subject-specific popularity to help determine rankings.

Ask.com has sold technology has been sold to additional corporations including Toshiba and Dell. A variety of web destinations, including country specific, sites such as; Germany, Italy, Excite, Japan, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Spain, IWon.com, Bloglines, and Ask For Kids are owned by Ask.com.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

How To Be An SEO Content Writer

Friday, August 27th, 2010

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the best online strategies and skill that you can learn and employ to get better page ranking in search engines for your site. However, there are some things that you just need help with, such as the type of content you should write about in your page in order to get good, relevant content for users.

Creating content relevant to your site for SEO requires a different set of skills, and demands you to perform a few tasks other than just simply writing and posting articles. Here are a couple of things that you should learn if you intend to become an SEO content writer.

Learn the SEO process

The first thing that you should learn if you want to become a SEO content writer is how the entire SEO process works in order to be able to create articles that have relevant content to what users are looking for, as well as create articles that will help funnel and direct market to the site or page that you are working on.

Search engines focuses on text and not images, so the written content of your page will receive the most amount of checking and analysis from search engine crawlers, and if deemed passable, will then get indexed in their database. This is why you need to make sure that your content is relevant and good in order to get a good chance of getting better results with search engines.

Use keywords properly

SEO content writers should learn how to use keywords and phrases in getting their content across to the different users searching for those that are relevant to their search. Keywords play a vital role in any SEO content since this will help determine whether your created article for that particular keyword or phrase has any relevance to what users are searching for.

Think about what you’ve read so far. Does it reinforce what you already know about Search Engine Optimization? Or was there something completely new? What about the remaining paragraphs?

You need to be able to take into account the keywords or phrases that users will be using in search engines to find the relevant content that they are looking for so that you can incorporate it into the articles that you will be creating and posting on your site or page. You need to know where to place these keywords or phrases in the article, such as in the title tags and body of the articles, in order to help search engines find your content so it can get indexed in their database.

Aside from this, as a SEO content writer, you should try to avoid overusing keywords wherein you try to flood your articles with the keyword or phrase associated with it. This can only lead search engines to believe that the content that you are creating as spam.

Write quality content

The quality of your articles will also play a major and important role on how your site or page will do in the entire SEO process. Keep in mind that if you cannot offer users relevant content to their searches, they will most likely find it somewhere else, and all of your work in getting them to your site would have been in vain.

Being a SEO content writer limits you to certain rules when writing your articles. In order to avoid certain mistakes and errors, you need to follow certain guidelines that will help improve your site’s page ranking in search engines. One example of this is the use of keywords in your articles. The excessive use of such will result in getting your content tagged as spam.

You also need to not only write quality and relevant content for users, but you must also offer fresh and new content from time to time in order to be able to offer more content for your users. This can actually also help get your site recommended by other sites, thereby improving your chances of getting more traffic directed to your site.

Also, your articles should be original and engrossing for the user at the same time. Writing an article that users have read on some other site will not get you good points from them.

Research is key

In order for you to be able to write technically about a particular topic in a way that it can actually generate good SEO results, you need to learn how to do research on them. This will help you create content that is relevant and informative for users.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

Comparing the Black and White Hat in SEOs

Thursday, August 5th, 2010

The following article lists some simple, informative tips that will help you have a better experience with Search Engine Optimization.

Since there are so many methods available in search engine optimization or SEO, webmasters have categorized these as either white hat SEO or black hat SEO. Certain SEO tactics are not accepted by certain popular search engines, but some individuals still use these to hopefully get the traffic they need. You have to know about the controversies surrounding the approaches and determine whether you should go with either one.

Describing Both

White hat SEO is the term used to describe methods that follow the guidelines and stipulations of search engines. Black hat SEO is the term used to describe approaches that are disapproved by search engines. There is an ongoing battle between individuals who use white hat and black hat SEO. Black hat SEO may not be what you can immediately consider as negative ethically. SERPs may be manipulated by black hat practitioners, but they also say that the approaches are highly acceptable with the sole intent of boosting site rankings.

Black hatters also say that there is no good or bad in trying to achieve the same goal of making their site relevant and ranked high. The benefits can extend to the users as they seek for the most useful information. Some big search engines do allow a number of web sites to function opposite to the stated rules.

Accepted Methods

See how much you can learn about Search Engine Optimization when you take a little time to read a well-researched article? Don’t miss out on the rest of this great information.

Cloaking is one of the allowed black hat methods that a lot of webmasters use. A cloaking policy may be enforced by big search engines, but still needs updating to fully become consistent. The cloaking method is accepted by the search engines, since it does improve user searches instead of provide them with just any kind of result. Cloaking cannot immediately be referred to as a negative influence, considering that it aids searchers in getting the information and web sites that they need.

Following the Rules

There are a number of methods that you should avoid if you want to rank high and get on search engines’ good side. Invisible text should be avoided. Do not place light yellow or white text against a white background. Engines can detect these and will only put you in more trouble. Avoid keyword stuffing. In the past, overstuffing articles and site content with the same keyword may help improve ranking, but search engines are smarter now and can determine if your content is natural or no longer of good quality.

What to Avoid

An automated robot visits every page in the index. The content is acquired to be analyzed at a later time. Cloaking involves giving the automated robot a different page, while assigning a completely new one to human users. Search engines greatly detest this practice. You should also stay away from doorway pages. Doorway pages are described as trying to create a page to rank high on search engines, but truly having no real good content. Orphaned pages may also be considered as doorway pages by search engines. The site or page can incur penalties by having these.

Stay away from spamming. Spam is described as useless pages having no content and is just created to rank high on search engines. You initially think that you have good and sound content upon clicking on a page, only to discover several listings and ads to other sites. This is highly related to doorway pages and should be avoided.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

SEO Techniques for Beginners

Friday, July 30th, 2010

Do you ever feel like you know just enough about Search Engine Optimization to be dangerous? Let’s see if we can fill in some of the gaps with the latest info from Search Engine Optimization experts.

If you are not quite familiar with the processes and tools of SEO or search engine optimization, you can rely on different programs and individuals available online. As a beginner, you will find that everything is relatively easy to understand, provided that you have the right background and know your customer, products and services very well. Your company can benefit more through the heightened visibility and improved search rankings.

Boosting Page Ranking

The title is one of the most important parts of your web site or content. This is the name which you find at the top of the window of the web browser, or Title Bar. The title has to be descriptive but brief and short. It should also contain the targeted keywords that are highly related to your web site. The search engines also present the title in the search engine results. The title should therefore describe the site’s content so that users can be more interested in entering your site time and again.

Keyword Use

The keywords are also important when using SEO techniques. Several web masters overdo keywords though, which you should avoid. You can rank high if you use keywords wisely, but your site can also suffer or lose credibility if you overstuff. You can find a lot of support in using and adding keywords, like ALT tags, other areas and anchors. These are generally used to help boost the keywords. These should also be relevant to the image or place where you plan to link.

How can you put a limit on learning more? The next section may contain that one little bit of wisdom that changes everything.

Most individuals try to stuff keywords in a lot of different areas in the site or article. As a general precaution, you should try to optimize a single page with no more than 3 keywords or keyphrases. You can safely use secondary keywords or terms by using keyword generating tools online. Start with one or two keywords and avoid overusing these. Tertiary keywords can also be used which are related or similar but not the same as the main terms. Using alternative keywords help drive other potential visitors that come from different areas and use different related terms.

Understanding Meta Tags

Meta-tags have two parts namely the description and the keywords. The description should generally be short, but it should also be both descriptive and logical to the reader. Several times, it will be the text that is found under the title during the search. You should aim for the reader to have a minor overview of the page. Include content that will help them understand what they need to expect when viewing the page or site and drive them more into clicking on your web site. The keywords should be the very same ones you used while running SEO research. These should also be used in the page text.

Using Links

The search engine spider can easily locate your site as other sites create web links leading back to your site. These links will be counted as a vote of support. More quality pages on the page link will eventually lead to higher search engine ranking. Submit your link to popular directories and use more links in your signature when joining online discussion boards and forums.

Always have informative and new content on your web page to keep your target market interested and keep linking back to your site. They will also refer other potentially interested individuals to your page over time.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new GVO affiliate site: GVO

SEO For Law Firms

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

Current info about Search Engine Optimization is not always the easiest thing to locate. Fortunately, this report includes the latest Search Engine Optimization info available.

Search engine optimization (SEO) can be a useful tool for a lot of businesses, especially those that aim to attract possible clients online. This is actually being utilized by a lot of businesses already, including law firms, since this can allow them to get ahead of their competition. By optimizing their site’s visibility online through the use of search engines, lawyers and law firms are able to beat other, more well-known law firms by making their name more visible and easier to find for possible clients online.

Keep in mind that people are now more educated in using the internet as their means of locating businesses and firms that offer legal services. Although more well-known law firms would appear more attractive to most, if they are not able to find those firms online, then there is a great possibility that they would be directed to another law firm, one that is easier to find online.

Here are a couple of steps that you must do in order to be able to get a competitive edge over other law firms, and finally get more prospective clients.

Create a website

The first thing that your law firm must do is to create a website. You will not be able to get traffic to check your business online if you don’t have any website to direct them to. Make sure that you try to find a website designer that will be able to capture your vision on what your site will look like. If you find it difficult to picture out yourself, you can always seek help from professionals to design the site for you specifically.

Keyword choice

Once you have successfully created your website to your specifications, you must now try to figure out what keywords or tags you will need to associate to your site. Remember that people will use certain keywords to try and find law firms on the web through the use of search engines.

Choosing the right keyword can help determine the success of your site’s optimization in search engines, which is why you must make sure that the keywords that you choose reflect directly on your site’s content. This will make it easier for your chosen keywords to get the right market or prospective clients that you aim to get.

You may not consider everything you just read to be crucial information about Search Engine Optimization. But don’t be surprised if you find yourself recalling and using this very information in the next few days.

Create relevant content

Creating the right content for your site is also one of the more important things that you should focus on, especially if you want to keep the people that are already on site. You need to make sure that you use the keywords that you have chosen on your site’s content. Having keywords or key phrases would be pretty useless if you haven’t created any content that relates to them, so make sure that you take the time to write down meaningful and relevant content.

Build links

You must also now try to improve the page ranking of your website on search engines. A site that is page ranked number one has a much better of getting more traffic directed to it than those ranked lower. If you want to make your law firm to become more visible online, then you must now focus on how you can increase your site’s page ranking, and you can do this through the use of effective link building.

Link building can help get your site indexed on search engines. All you need to do in order to get the right type of market directed to your site is to link your site to those that have the same content as your site. Remember that people who are looking for legal aid regarding a particular issue will be looking for sites that directly relates to their situation, so make sure that you link to relevant sites only to help boost up your site’s page ranking when users type in a particular key word in search engines.

Doing these steps is not a guarantee that your sales will go up with the increase in your possible clients list, but it can guarantee the improvement in how much traffic you can direct your way. Let this serve as your starting point, the rest is up to you.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit his new site for adsense publishers: Free Adsense Websites

Natural Search Engine Optimization or Pay-Per-Click

Sunday, June 27th, 2010

The internet is literally like having the world at ones fingertips. Not only does it provide families a cheap way to stay in touch (e-mail and instant messaging), it allows students to cram for finals and write last minute papers in the middle of the night, long after the library has closed, but the internet is suddenly a way for the smallest business to break into a global market.

Let’s pretend that you are the owner of a small novelty store in a small rural town in the Midwest. Most of your merchandise is handmade trinkets and crafts created by the residents of the small town (on commission so the up front cost of most of your merchandise is minimal). Although business is slow during the winter months during the tourist season you turn a tidy profit. One day as a Chicago tourist purchases a photo of the late afternoon sun glinting off a herd of sleeping cattle she mentions that she wishes you had a website so she could purchase quaint Christmas gifts for her family. As she leaves the story, her wrapped photograph tucked under her arm, you stare at your computer.

The internet could be a cheap way to increase your profit margin. You already have your physical business, a website would simply be an addition. You look at all the pretty knickknacks arranged throughout the store. If you expanded your business to include a website you could sell mid-western trinkets all over the world. It wouldn’t take that much time. You have a friend that would design and teach you how to manage a website for free. You could answer questions during the slow times when you’re not doing anything anyway. It would be a win-win situation.

In theory you’re correct. A website could be a lucrative addition to your business.

It is possible to design website, register a domain name, and submit it to a website. But what happens next. Just like the physical shop the website will not do any business if there isn’t any traffic. No one will visit your online store if they don’t know about it.

The chances are good that your regular customers will probably check out your website, the ones that made items you have featured will probably tell their friends and families about it, but the chances are good that they won’t buy anything, why should they pay for shipping and handling when they can drive a couple of miles and purchase it directly from you. Your tourist customers might buy from your online store but only if they know about it and since you probably waited until the slow season to create your website it will be months before you can tell them.

I trust that what you’ve read so far has been informative. The following section should go a long way toward clearing up any uncertainty that may remain.

You could look into search engine optimization.

You might even want to consider something called pay-per-click.

Pay-per-click is a search engine that bases its rankings on something that is called a bid position. A website owner bids for an elevated position in the ranking when a certain keyword is typed into the search bar. The higher the bid, the higher the ranking.

Businesses that use pay-per-click prefer it to natural search engine optimization because it’s an easy efficient way to improve a sites ranking and increase its traffic. Pay-per-click also lets webmaster maintain control over the search engine campaign.

People who for go pay-per-click to natural search engine optimization say that the cost of pay-per-click is too high.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit this new site for my swedish customers: Billigt Webbhotell – from SEK 10:- per month!

Keyword selection For SEO

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

When you’re learning about something new, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer amount of relevant information available. This informative article should help you focus on the central points.

One of the main components that helps determine the success, or failure, of your search engine optimization (SEO) campaign is your keyword selection. Although this may not appear much, choosing the right keyword to use for your website is one of the more grueling parts of the entire SEO process, especially if you aim to find one that will be most effective for your site’s search engine optimization.

When using keywords for SEO, you just need to follow a few simple steps in order to properly find the right keyword that will do the job. There are also a couple of things that you need to look out for in order to avoid any problems when trying to optimize your web page.

Make a list

The first thing that you should do if you want to be able to use keywords effectively is to start out by making a list of ?key? keywords or phrases that are relevant to the content of your site, and by doing this, it can actually lead you to create or discover more keywords or phrases that may blossom from the original one that you have chosen.

Select key phrases or words

Once you’ve made a list, try to select ones that contain a ?key? keyword or phrase that can help you identify your site’s content. Let’s say your site’s content is all about cars, using cars as a keyword won’t put you high up in the page ranking of search engines, especially since a lot of sites or pages have that as a keyword. Try to avoid using words or phrases that are too general, as this will not help improve your page ranking. By adding other key terms to your chosen keyword, such as ?second-hand cars?, or ?second-hand sports cars? will actually help improve your chances of going up higher in the page rankings. Just make sure that these are relevant to your site’s content.

Sometimes the most important aspects of a subject are not immediately obvious. Keep reading to get the complete picture.

Check your competition

It also helps if you took the time to search for keywords or phrases that your competition are using so that you can narrow down which ones to use, and which ones to avoid. There is no sense in using a type of keyword or phrase, such as ?cars?, which a lot or most of your competition are using as well, and if their site’s are ranked high up in the search engine’s index, then you might have a difficult time going up against that.

Use your location

You can also improve your chances of getting a much better page ranking result if you incorporate your location to the keyword or phrase that you are trying to use. Let’s say your business is located somewhere in Minnesota, by simply adding the word ?Minnesota? to your keyword selection (?Minnesota second-hand sports cars?), you can fair better in your page ranking. However, this type of method usually entails that people are planning on seeing you in person when they do searches like this, so make sure that you only utilize this technique if you are open to the idea of them visiting you in person.

Use your niche

Always try to choose the keyword that you specialize in, or at least the one that offers you with the most profit. Keep in mind that you want to offer the keyword that best describes your business, but if the search volume of users is leaning towards one that isn’t your main product, then you can actually opt to use that keyword instead, just as long as that keyword is still related or relevant to your site’s content.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit my latest acquisition: Adsense Sites and make sure to download the free adsense sites package!

Search Engine Optimization-Hoaxes

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

If you’re seriously interested in knowing about Search Engine Optimization, you need to think beyond the basics. This informative article takes a closer look at things you need to know about Search Engine Optimization.

Google believes in having a good time. They especially believe in having a good time on April Fools Day. How does a company who runs a search engine celebrate April Fool’s Day? They set up search engine hoaxes. April Fool’s Day hoaxes are fast becoming a Google tradition.

On April 1, 2000, Google announced its brand new form of search technology, a technology they cheerfully named MentalPlex. How did MentalPlex work? Brainwaves, all the searcher had to do was think about what they wanted to search for, this eliminated the need for typing, effectively eliminating the issue of spelling errors.

In 2002, Google openly discussed the genius behind its PageRank system. The secret? Pigeons or rather PigeonRank. Google was very proud of the way they had created a more efficient and cost effective way to rank pages. They were quick to explain that no pigeons were cruelly treated.

April 2004 offered Google employees the opportunity to work at the Google Lunar/Copernicus Center…on the moon. This April Fool’s Day prank made several tongue-in-cheek references to WindowXP’s visual style. They named the operating system Luna/X paying homage to Linux.

You can see that there’s practical value in learning more about Search Engine Optimization. Can you think of ways to apply what’s been covered so far?

Google broke into the beverage industry in 2005 with their Google Gulp. People who drank Google Gulp would be able to get the most out of their Google search engines because they would be increasing their intelligence with every swallow. Google Gulp worked through a series of algorithms that used a real time analysis of the drinkers DNA and made precise adjustments to the brains neurotransmitters. Google Gulp came in a variety of flavors including Google Grape (glutamatic acid), Sero-Tonic Water (serotonin), Sugar-Free Radical (free radicals), and Beta Carroty (beta carotene).

2006 was a time for romance. Google created Google Romance. Google’s catch phrase, which appeared on the main search page was, “Dating is a search problem. Solve it with Google Romance.” Google users were invited to use Soul mate Search which would send them on a Contextual Date. Google invited people to “post multiple profiles with a bulk upload.”

Google has also taken advantage of April Fool’s Day to announce very real changes in the company. The reason they make real offers to consumers on April Fool’s Day is so that the consumers will think that it’s a hoax, joke about it, and then be pleasantly surprised when they find out that its real. Google announced the launch of Gmail, e-mail that was free to the consumer and provided one entire gigabyte of storage (that amount of storage for free was unheard of at the time), on March 31, 2004 (most consumers found out about it on the morning of the first). Exactly one year later they announce that they were increasing the one gigabyte of storage to two gigabytes.

Google’s map of the moon was added to Google maps on July 20, 2005. The map of the moon was semi-real, it did show NASA images of a very small section of the moon, but zooming in on the tiny section presented viewers with a photograph of Swiss cheese. There was also the location of all moon landings on the map. The map was Google’s way of celebrating the thirty-sixth anniversary of the first man on the moon but many consumers assumed that it was an extension on the Google Copernicus hoax. Google claims, through something called Google Moon, that in the 2069, Google Local will support all lunar businesses and addresses.

About the Author
By Anders Eriksson, feel free to visit my latest acquisition: Adsense Sites and make sure to download the free adsense sites package!