This blog has been moved

I've moved this blog to movable type. Blogger was great, and really easy to use, but I needed a little more juice.

The new blog is now at:

http://www.esoos.com/

Seeing More Pages Broken in IE

Just happened to be checking this blog in Internet Explorer (yes, it still happens occasionally, at least when I'm checking pages for cross compatibility) and I noticed something funny. This page is broken in IE, but looks great in Firefox. In particular, the menu to the right is pushed way down to the bottom of the page in IE.

I've been seeing this more and more as I surf the Internet - pages that look great in Firefox but look abysmal in IE. It used to be the other way around.

I would guess the root of the problem is that, while most casual surfers are still using IE, more and more web designers are exclusively using Firefox, and forgetting to cross-check their pages.

Update: Well, it's been a few days, and it looks like my blogger template has been fixed. I doubt my little post had anything to do with it, but you never know...

Serenity Now, Insanity Later

Battelle points to an recent interview with Yahoo's new head of content, Lloyd Braun. The interview is mostly fluff, but it does illustrate nicely the differences between Yahoo and Google. Yahoo clearly retains their focus on being a portal/content provider, which I think will work for them in a big way.

For instance, I do almost all my searching though Google, but Yahoo is still my homepage, because of MyYahoo and all the great content that can be incorporated into it, especially the RSS aggregator they furnish.

But if Yahoo really wants to step up to the content plate, they might take a few hints from the new AOL Search. They still get their results from Google, but as I wrote in a recent issue of SearchEngineNews.com:

AOL has made the most of the huge amount of content they control to provide a richer and more compelling search interface than one could get with Google's bare-bones approach. AOL employs a team of 60 content editors—each working full-time to create "snapshots" of the most popular queries on the Internet.

These snapshots consist of specially selected content chosen from AOL and their partner sites. The goal is to provide the results each user is most likely to be seeking for a given query. For example, doing a search for the music group Modest Mouse, returns photos, mp3s, and videos as well as an artist bio and links to where you can buy concert tickets, CDs, and other band paraphernalia.

Don't quote me on this, but I believe that Lloyd Braun is the former ABC Vice President who turned down Jerry Seinfeld's pitch for "Seinfeld". Jerry shopped it over to NBC, and the rest is history. NBC made billions, and Lloyd Braun recieved the honor of sharing a name with George Costanza's somewhat-insane childhood rival.

Serenity Now!

Get Primo Amazon at Schwag Prices

Amazon announced the debut of Amazon Prime today. Get unlimited free 2-day shipping for only $79 dollars a year (can you really call it free?)

Personally, I'm not so impatient that I can't wait the extra couple of days in exchange for free shipping. (Incidentally, it was a genius move for Amazon to forego traditionally advertising and put those resources into offering things like free shipping. Free shipping is the reason I make the bulk of my online purchases from Amazon.)

Great way to get people locked into making all their online purchases from Amazon.

MSN No Longer Sucking at the Yahoo Teat

MSN formally anounced that its own search engine, which has been in beta lo these past few months, will be replacing the Yahoo search technology that had been providing search results on the MSN web site.

MSN had been running this search engine periodically all January on its main search page, gradually phasing out Yahoo as the tests MSN was running proved that their new search engine was up to the task.

Important search developments are coming so fast and furious these days that it's almost impossible to keep up. Not only are MSN, AskJeeves, AOL, and Amazon's A9 all rolling out new features at a breakneck pace, but Yahoo and Google, the original big dogs, aren't missing a beat.

What a time to be alive!

We have a in-depth review of the new MSN search engine in the subscribers-only section of SearchEngineNews.com. One thing I can tell you is that this new MSN engine loves links. Any link will do - it's not nearly as picky about link quality as Google or Yahoo. Of course, that makes this engine easy to link spam, so enjoy it while it lasts.

The other thing is that it's really fast. Looks to be at least 3 to 4 times as fast a Google when it comes to indexing and ranking new pages and updating backlinks.

Google Kicking Ass On Wall Street

Google blew away analyst's expectations today, post a Q4 net income of $204 million on revenues of $1.03 billion. That's a 650 percent increase over Q4 of last year.

Even with the insane level of competition and the almost daily level of innovation coming from search engines like Yahoo, MSN, AskJeeves, and AOL; Google was still able to far outperform analysts most optimistic projections. Interestingly, much of the growth occured in markets outside the US - accounting for more than a third of sales in Q4.

Will Google prove to be the greatest business of all time? We might be watching it happen right before our eyes.

CNN Money has the scoop.

Sam the Link Spammer

This is something every SEO should read:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/31/link_spamer_interview/

A great article, even though the author seems to display his own bias, particularly with lines like:

...the link spammers - who prefer to call themselves "search engine optimisers"...

I don't know if Sam the Link Spammer would consider himself a search engine optimizer. Maybe more of a renegade marketer. What he's doing is a bit extreme, especially when you consider there's probably some doddering old men in congress/parliament right now considering passing some draconian new law against this stuff.

I wonder how many of us read an article like this and feel the pull of the "dark side". And I don't mean the cloaking, doorway-page making pseudo-dark-side that we usually hear about; but the real, borderline-illegal dark side that Sam treads on.