I just finished reading "The Search" by John Battelle, a book that outlines how Google and its rivals rewrote the rules of business and transformed our culture, and I found it to be a great read! Seriously... its amazing! While many authors and industry publications have focused on Google exclusively for the past few years, Battelle brilliantly lays out the history of search engines and explores the reality that exists behind Google and others.

This book highlights how Google and its competition were able to find the formula to make money and still provide the world with free search listings, and how so many companies, both small and large, actually depend on search in order to be successful. To think that search engines, like Google and Yahoo!, can actually make or break a company pending on their latest algorithmic update is truly amazing.

Battelle also touches on security issues, the Patriot Act and how it can and possibly will impact us, and his opinions of how search will affect the world around us in the not-to-distant future. In fact, he shared a very interesting idea in which he believes could prove to be true as search continues to be intertwined with other technologies.

Battelle believes that one day, through a combination of cell phone and search technology, a shopper maybe able to compare prices with other area merchants while standing in an isle at a supermarket or retail store. The shopper will have the ability to scan the products information using a built in (to a cell phone) bar-code scanner and perform various local search options to determine if they can find that same product cheaper just down the road. How cool would that be?

With such technology so readily available, I immediately think of how much cheaper merchants will have to go with their products for fear of being over-priced. Either that or they'll have to start banning cell phones at supermarkets and retail stores.

Kid Disco once asked me how I would compare "The Google Story," written by David Vise, to John Battelle's "The Search". Obviously at the time I could not answer, however, after now reading both books I would say that they are indeed very similar. In fact, it was really interesting to read Battelle's views of specific events relating to Google's success, and then to have also read how Google itself viewed those same events.

I wouldn't recommend either book over the other as I feel they are both great stories. The biggest difference between the two is that "The Google Story" relates only to Google and events seen through Google's eyes, where as "The Search" touches on all search engines, the evolution of the Internet, and is written from an "outsider-looking-in" point-of-view.

Here is an excerpt from "The Search" regarding John Battelle's view on the power and everyday use of search:

So, there you have it. If you're looking for a good read and are somewhat interested in understanding how the search engine industry and the Internet has evolved to where it is today, and thoughts of how it may continue to evolve... be sure to check-out John Battelle's "The Search". Please note that no where within this book does the secret of attaining top search engine positioning exist or even how to better your search engine marketing efforts.

Earlier this afternoon, Yahoo! Store announced a brand new "Sitemap" feature that is scheduled to be available as early as tomorrow. This new feature will assist merchants in notifying search engines of their store's pages, and thus making each Yahoo! Store that much easier to be indexed.

When enabled, the Sitemap feature will create a file, which will contain a list of all store pages (those created in the Yahoo! Store editor) and their URLs, and will place it in the website's root folder. Much like a regular "Sitemap", this Sitemap file is used to provide information to the search engine crawlers in an effort to better the site's indexing process.

In addition, the Yahoo! Store team went the extra mile and developed their sitemap file to be compatible with Google's "Google Sitemaps" program. For those not familiar with Google Sitemaps, it's an indexing program that was created to inform the Google search engine about all of the important pages of a particular website. The program provides website owners with a birds-eye view of how Google sees their site, where spiders are having problems in the crawling process, and many additional statistics.

Here is an excerpt from the Official Yahoo! Store Blog regarding the Google Sitemaps capabilities:

So, if you happen to be a proactive Yahoo! Store owner, and one interested in bettering your store's search engine placement (which I am assuming you are, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this Blog) be sure to check into this new "Sitemaps" feature. Again... it'll be made available tomorrow.

First off, before I even begin, I want to send a well-deserved "Thank You" to Barb Wilcox, one of my long time Blog readers, whom actually inspired me to write today's post. Thank you barb... your comments, suggestions, and questions are always welcomed and appreciated. And that goes for every reader.

I imagine that many, if not most, of you have already heard about the "Net Neutrality" debate/bill that's currently heating things up in Washington... at least in some form or another. Today I plan to shed some light on the subject, by introducing the ideas behind the debate, as well as sharing my own personal thoughts regarding "Net Neutrality".

What is "Net Neutrality"?
In the simplest terms... net neutrality is a term used to describe the idea of treating every Internet user the same. Under this idea, all users should have the right to access all of the Internet's content and they should be able to do so at the same speed and without additional fees.

The Debate / Bill
As with most debates/bills, there are 2 sides. In this case there are telecommunications companies, specifically your telephone/internet providers, (Side A) and then there's everybody else (Side B).

Side A - The Telecommunications Industry
The telephone companies believe that they should be the ones to regulate the Internet. Essentially, these companies want to end the idea of "net neutrality", and create a two-tier system that would allow these Internet providers to charge website owners at different levels pending on how fast they wanted their content delivered.

The Telecommunication industry is responsible for creating the infrastructure the Internet runs on, and they spent billions of dollars doing so. Now they find themselves seeking additional revenue to pay for the necessary upgrades needed to handle today's Internet, specifically the new broadband and video-rich content. Setting up a two-tier system, such as the one they're proposing, will allow them to generate it.

Side B - Everyone Else
Obviously by "Everyone Else" I mean those that don't stand to profit an excess of $2 Billion a year from ending "Net Neutrality". These people, and frankly I'm one of them, believe that the Internet is an intangible space in which everyone should have equal access to everyone else, regardless of how large or small they are or how traditional or unconventional they become.

"Side B" believes that on the Internet, a business shouldn't need the permission from their Internet provider to communicate with a customer or to begin a new and innovative service. This group wants to keep the Internet as is and without additional taxation and limitations set forth by the Telecommunication industry.

How does this affect you as a user?
Should the Telecommunication industry win this debate, they'll forever change the Internet as we know it. Everything from shopping to browsing to researching will have changed. Small businesses and content providers who cannot afford the new Internet tax will be limited by slower Internet access and thus make their sites less accessible as well as less appealing. To sum up this idea a bit futher, Telecommunication companies want to turn the information super highway into two lane road... one being a fast lane in which website owners must pay to use, and the second being a slow lane that nobody wants to use.

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, describes it best in his recent statement:

What Can You Do About It?
If your one of the millions of Internet users who side with "Side B" and oppose the idea of a two-tier Internet that's based on additional fees than I encourage you to rise up and make your voice heard. Internet companies such as Google, Microsoft, and eBay have already begun leading this fight, and hopefully as more and more take an active part in this issue the more congress will realize that this is a bad idea.

Please call your representative in Congress at 202-224-3121. For more information on the issue, and more ways to make your voice be heard, visit Its Our Net.org.

A few people in my office have wanted to know the kinds of music that I listen to here at work and I figured I'd share a little bit about that in today's post.

For the longest time, our office enforced a "no head-phones" rule, which, just as it sounds, banned the listening to portable music devices such as CD and MP3 players. That was up until a few months ago when the ban was lifted.

Today, I find myself juggling between 2 MP3 players every week. One is an office 2Gig iPod Nano which helps me (and the rest of the SEO team) to keep updated on industry news via podcasts. The player is set to automatically download about 6 or 7 shows each week and remove those from the previous week. We have a very sweet system in place.

The second MP3 player is my personal 20Gig Dell DJ, which currently has just over 3Gigs of music. I have created several play-lists to satisfy my music needs for just about any occasion, and yes I have one specially created for when I'm optimizing websites. I call it "SEO Mix", however, I also listen to it when I'm working on my site or working on graphic projects. I guess you can say it's one of the many ingredients in my SEO secret sauce... because as we all know, behind every good SEO is good play-list of music.

So what does my "SEO Mix" consist of? Well, before I get into that I want share with you a little bit of information regarding my taste in music. I was raised in a very diverse town and have learned to enjoy many genres of music. My favorite genres are Rock and Rap (what can I say I'm a sucker for guitar solos and great beats), however I listen to JUST about everything.

The following is my "SEO Mix":

1. ACDC - Hells Bells
2. ACDC - Highway to Hell
3. ACDC - T.N.T
4. ACDC - Thunderstruck
5. Aerosmith - Back In the Saddle
6. Aerosmith - Dream On
7. Aerosmith - Dude Looks Like a Lady
8. Aerosmith - Janie's Got a Gun
9. Aerosmith - Walk This Way
10. Alter Bridge - Open Your Eyes
11. Blink 182 - Dammit
12. Blink 182 - I Miss You
13. Blink 182 - What's My Age Again
14. Bon Jovi - Wanted Dead or Alive
15. Bush - Glycerine
16. Bush - Machinehead
17. Creed - One
18. Creed - What If
19. Dr. Dre - Forgot About Dre
20. Eminem - Like Toy Soldiers
21. Eminem - Mosh
22. Eminem - When I'm Gone
23. Foghat - Slow Ride
24. Foreigner - Juke Box Hero
25. Green Day - American Idiot
26. Green Day - Boulevard of Broken Dreams
27. Green Day - Holiday
28. Guns and Roses - November Rain
29. Guns and Roses - Sweet Child of Mine
30. Guns and Roses - Welcome To The Jungle
31. Incubus - Megalomaniac
32. Jay Z - Dirt Off Your Shoulders
33. Jay Z - Encore
34. Jay Z - Moment Of Clarity
35. Kiss - Detroit Rock City
36. Limp Bizkit - M.I.
37. Limp Bizkit - My Generation
38. Limp Bizkit - Rollin'
39. Linkin Park - In The End
40. Linkin Park - Numb
41. Linkin Park - One Step Closer
42. Lynard Skynard - Sweet Home Alabama
43. Marilyn Manson - Beautiful People
44. Marilyn Manson - Rock is Dead
45. Metallica - Enter Sandman
46. Metallica - St. Anger
47. Metallica - The Unforgiven II
48. Michael Jackson - Beat It
49. Motorhead - Ace of Spades
50. Motorhead - King of Kings
51. Nelly - #1
52. Nelly - Country Grammar
53. Nelly - E.I.
54. Nelly - Ride with Me
55. Nelly - Shake Ya Tail Feather
56. Nirvana- Smells Like Teen Spirit
57. Papa Roach - Broken Home
58. Papa Roach - Last Resort
59. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Dani California
60. Red Hot Chili Peppers - Snow
61. Rob Zombie - Superbeast
62. Saliva - Always
63. Seether- Because of Me
64. Seether- Broken
65. Seether- Gasoline
66. Seether- Out of my Way
67. Steve Earle - Copperhead Road
68. The Brownsville Station - Smoking In The Boy's Room
69. The Rolling Stones - Jumpin Jack Flash
70. The Rolling Stones - Satisfaction
61. Tom Petty - Free Falling
62. Tom Petty - Last Dance with Mary Jane
63. Tom Petty - Running Down A Dream
74. Trapt - Headstrong
75. U2 - Beautiful Day

I have the list set to play at random, so there's absolutely no telling what order the songs will be cranked out in... which leaves for an interesting day.

Do you have a special album or play-list that you jam out to at work or one that helps you to remain focused and motivated when optimizing or designing sites (or maybe one that decreases the level of annoying background conversations and noises)? If so, I'd love to hear it.

And we're back.... As most of you know I was out of the office all of last week taking in a very much needed vacation, and unlike most of the times when I'm away I was completely unplugged from the SEM/Blog community. I didn't check a single Blog nor did I read a single newsletter, and you know what... it didn't bother me one bit. It was great!

The only downfall about being away from the office for an entire week is that I now have to play catch-up, which is to be expected. I spent most of my day yesterday attending to emails, blog feeds, and the other responsibilities that needed my attention. As it turns out I'm going to need yet another day to completely catch up.

As busy as I am, I wanted to take a quick second to give a shout-out to ShoeMoney and his new radio show "Net Income" which premiered last Tuesday. I of course was on vacation and did not have the privilege of listening to it live. I did, however, download the podcast and am actually listening to it at this very moment. It's been a great show thus far as he and special guest Patrick Gavin, co-founder of Text Link Ads, have been discussing detailed ways to monetize websites via text link ads.

Here's an excerpt that I jacked from Webmaster Radio:

"Want to learn how to turn your website into a money making machine? Jeremy Schoemaker aka ShoeMoney will take you on the fast track to understanding contextual advertising, affiliate marketing, PPC, Subscription Sales and more. Net Income will help you bolster your bottom line and meet and exceed your financial goals."

Tonight's episode will feature special guest Lee Dodd, owner of Sprint Users, and is set to be all about how to make money from forums and other social networking websites. I encourage you all to check out the show as it comes live from Webmaster Radio.fm later on today, and every Tuesday, at 5:00pm (Central Time). If by chance you can't catch it live, or if your one of my many email subscribers who will get this post tomorrow morning, be sure to download the podcast. Net Income stands to be one of the better and more educational industry-related shows out there.

This week, our top 4 favorite search engines have added some tools to their game, which will help personalize the over all experience for their users. I get the feeling that the general public doesn't realize the features and capabilities search engines have and are making to improve their online experience. So, for those of you who don't subscribe to the search engines blog or keep up to date on what's going on, here is a quick recap of each addition.

Ask.com
With the official start of summer nearly upon us, Ask.com unveiled their Weather Search tools just in time to help provide users plan their vacation days. What I like about this new search feature, is that like on Google and Yahoo, you do not have to download a pesky toolbar, or have an annoying pop up show whenever a storm is brewing 80 miles away. Simply type in "weather, your city" (zip code, county or state) and you can see today's projected temperatures, current temperature, and weather condition. You also have the option to view the 7 day forecast, and view your choice of Celsius or Fahrenheit. Also, Ask provides you with seasonal weather, so you can start to plan your next winter get-a-way vacation to Hawaii. Interested in surfing conditions and ski conditions? Ask is the only search engine that I found to offer that information when entering a specific search like surf conditions San Diego or ski conditions for Falls Creak, Australia.

What I've come to find out though, is that it seems Ask only seems to consider people on the coasts to be interested in boating and surf conditions. I suppose the 94,000 square miles of water known as The Great Lakes and the 10,900 miles of coast along the U.S. and Canada border isn't considered a significant large enough body of water to attract any boating or tourism during these summer months, therefore, who possibly is going to be searching for that information? Well... me. I personally am very interested in surface temps for Lake Michigan because of the fact that I live 3 or 4 hours away from any decent beach (that doesn't have garbage or toxic waste floating around). I don't want to travel all of that time just to find out that it's July 5, and the surface temp is still 45 degrees! So if Ask is going to go to the trouble of making it easier for people on the coasts, why not me?

I also don't see, why doesn't Ask and the other search engines offer weather information when you simply type in a location. Obviously, if you are entering a location you are either interested in information about that specific area or are planning on traveling to that area, therefore you will ultimately be interested in the weather there. If they decrease the size of the space designated for the weather report, it will hardly take away from the rest of the search results, and therefore help users refine their searches even more while providing useful information.

It is just a few days in with this new search feature and I'm sure as time goes on they'll add new features and information. It does remove a few extra steps for Ask's users to take, and for that I applaud their efforts.

While the remaining 3 search engines did make additions to their services, they were to tools that I don't normally use, so this will be a quick run down of what was updated.

MSN
For those of you who use, or are interested in using Windows Live, they announced that they are bringing email and search one step closer with their Active Search for Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta. Here is what they announced on the 2nd:

Active Search bridges the gap between your inbox and the broader web using the power of search. Using Active Search is essentially the same as conducting a ton of related searches the old fashioned way - by cutting and pasting terms from your emial into a seperate web browser - only without all of the effort

So what happens is if you are reading an email or an RSS article about the video iPod, what Active Search will do is show keywords they pick up from your message and show you search results related to the video iPod, so you can see real results, without having to open a new window. MSN also provides a search box right underneath, so you can search for the video iPod or anything else for that matter, without the hassle of opening a new browser. If you are already an MSN mail user, and you don't care for the new feature, you can go ahead and close it down. MSN also keeps your information confidential according to the agreement you have already agreed to when you signed up for their services, so those worried about what they are receiving in their email, can be assured that that information will remain confidential.

What I've come to find out in reading and learning about search behavior is that people tend to be impatient and dare I say lazy and want to take as few steps as possible to find what they are looking for, I myself included. So with Active Search, this truly does cut half the work in half and I think will be an invaluable service to it's users. It is also great for businesses, because if someone who has just read an email and now is intrigued more about this information or product, they will be more likely to make a purchase sometime soon about that product they searched for using Active Search.

Google
Attention Firefox users, Google has announced a new tool titled Google Browser Sync. This tool allows you to synchronize your browser settings on all of the computers you install it on. So the bookmarks, history, saved passwords, and persistent cookies you have saved can now transfer from your desktop to your laptop and even to your work computer. It even allows you to keep open tabs and windows across different browser sessions and computers.

So, if you have been dedicating your life to solving the mystery of JFK's assassination and have been spending the past few weeks digging through and book marking documents on your desktop from the CIA's web site, you can easily transfer those book marks over to your laptop by installing an extension on your laptop and synching the two computers together. So how does this differ from just copying and pasting your bookmarks onto your laptop? Well from then on when you add a bookmark to your laptop, you can go back to your desktop, who will then automatically update it with your laptops new additions. Nice, huh?

Yahoo
Yahoo just updated the design and look of their MyWeb service. MyWeb is a service like del.icio.us that allows users to save their bookmarks in a place they can access by just logging in with their Yahoo account. You can also share your bookmarks with other friends and family members. The idea is, to provide people with common interests the opportunity to find useful sites that people who have the same interests have found and bookmarked as well as your own bookmarks. Obviously, if the page is worth book marking, that means it is worth sharing. You can also search for terms, such as travel tips that will bring up sites others have found useful and bookmarked.

Along with the MyWeb design update, came some feature updates as well. "Top Tags" and "Interesting Today" shows users what are the most popular terms being searched for in My Web. Also, now when you do a search, not only do book marks show up, but also a list of people who share a same interest in your search. So I did a search in the Tag Finder for one of my interests, archeology and there I can see that Elric (yeah, Elric) also shares my interest. I can then click on Elric's name and see sites he found interesting enough to bookmark related to archeology.

I am actually interested in beginning to use some of these new additions for myself in the future. What current tools do you regularly use that is offered by search engines?

I'm going on vacation this upcoming week, and therefore will not be in the office nor will I be Blogging. That's right... I'm going to be taking in some very much needed R&R, as my girlfriend Jackie and I will be heading down to Cave City, Kentucky for a few days to tour Mammoth Caves and then finish the week off in Bloomington, Illinois with some shopping and so forth.

I've been looking forward to this trip for weeks now and its should be a great time. Most importantly, there will be no Search Engine Marketing doing, planning, or thinking of any kind... well, maybe some reading here and there, but that's about it!

So what is to become of the Klog while I'm gone? Well, I'm pretty sure that it could with-stand a week of inactivity, however, I have asked my good friend and colleague Jessica Guadiana to step in and be my guest Blogger while I'm away. I am not sure what she has planned or how may entries she's going to make, but if its anything like the last time she guest Blogged for me we're all in for a real treat.

This just goes to show you that I, unlike a lot of other SEO/SEM Bloggers out there, am very committed to providing my readers with weekly Search Engine Marketing news, updates, reviews, and if nothing else commentary... even if it means getting an occasional guest Blogger here and there.

Be back in a week.

I just wanted to take a quick second to introduce a new article that I've been working on and have just recently published. The article is called "Converting Browsers into Buyers", and it can be found here on my website along with a downloadable PDF (printer friendly) option.

Here's an excerpt:

Click Here To View The Entire Article

In the article, I went ahead and outlined 4 really basic tips of how to create and maintain a comfortable shopping experience... which is indeed the key to converting browsers into buyers. Even though these tips are deemed basic (and I do mean basic), you'd be surprised at how many websites fail to understand such simple concepts.

I will no doubt touch more on this subject sometime in the near future, possibly throwing out a few more tips and suggestions in the process, but for now take a few moments and soak this one in. It's not very long at all, as I've tried my best to just get to the point.

Enjoy!

Last night Ask.com staked its claim in Blog search atmosphere as it launched its new, long awaited Blog search service. Like with most Blog search services, Ask is trying to capitalize on the keen interest in the topics and debates covered by blogs that aren't easy to find on traditional online news sites. Both Google, which acquired Blogger in 2003, and Yahoo! launched their blog search sites last year, and personally speaking... its nice to see that Ask decided to finally join the party.

The question remains though... what does Ask bring to the table of Blog search that its competitors don't? Well I had a chance to play around with this new service and in addition to the many small features we've come to expect from Ask, 4 features clearly stand out to me.

1) Unique Indexing and Ranking Methods
Instead of crawling the Web for blog postings to build an index to search like others do, Ask is using the index already created and updated by subscribers to its popular Bloglines site for searching, subscribing to, creating and sharing blogs and news feeds. This feature will significantly reduce the amount of blog spam that appears within most Blog search engines, as well as enable Ask to offer fresher blog search results than those offered by its competitors.

2) A "Sort By" Feature
Users can sort search listings according to relevance, most recent, and even popularity (according to Bloglines).

3) Binoculars Feature
This Feature allows users the ability to preview most of the site/blog post without having to leave the search results page. Simply roll your mouse over the "binoculars" image and a pop-up appears.

4) "Subscribe" and "Post To" Options
Bloglines users, as well as those who use rival Blog and RSS feed readers (like Google's and Yahoo's), can subscribe to the blogs that show up in the search results, and without having to leave the page. Users can also post their search listings to Bloglines or Yahoo's Delicious or Digg.

The following image highlights the Binoculars feature as well as the preview pop-up, and the "Subscribe" and "Post To" options.

The new blog search service is expected to be integrated into Ask's Bloglines site, which is similar to what Google has done with Blogger.

Thus far, I find myself really enjoying Ask's Blog search. I find the search results far more relevant (with less spam occurrences) than what Google and Yahoo! currently offer. It will be interesting to see how things progress from here.