Axandra news archive: 18 July 2006

• Facts of the week
• Search engine news of the week
• Articles of the week
• Recommended resources - Win an iPod Shuffle
• Previous articles

Internet directories have become very popular because they are an easy way to get inbound links to your web site.

Why have Internet directories become so popular?

Inbound links can greatly increase the search engine rankings of a web site if the links contain the right keywords and if the links come from related web pages.

Usually, the category pages on an Internet directory are considered related web pages if your web site fits in the selected category. That means that links from Internet directories can have a very positive effect on the search engine rankings of your web site.

How many Internet directories are available?

Of course, there are the big old Internet directories such as DMOZ.org and even the Yahoo directory. All big Internet directories can be found in the IBP's Internet directory submitter.

In addition to these traditional Internet directories, many special interest Internet directories and small Internet directories that have only been created for the link purpose have entered the scene in the previous months.

Lists of Internet directories that can link to your web site can be found on several search engine optimization web sites.

How to submit your web site to all Internet directories as quickly as possible

Submitting your web site to search engines and Internet directories can be a time consuming task. That's why we included the search engine submitter and the directory submitter in our popular SEO tool IBP.

However, there are so many new Internet directories and Internet directories in different languages that we cannot support them all in IBP. For that reason, we have added the brand new Custom Directory submitter to the new IBP 9.1:

1. Start IBP and select the Custom Directory Submitter.
2. Enter the URLs of your favorite Internet directories (you can even paste a list of URLs).
3. IBP will fill out the submission forms for you.
4. You just have to click the Submit button.

The new Custom Directory Submitter in IBP allows you to submit your web site as quickly and easily as possible to the Internet directories and search engines of your choice.

That means that you'll get many inbound links and higher search engines rankings for your web site.

Google now supports the NOODP attribute

"Some site owners want to be to able to request not using the ODP for generating snippets, and we're happy to let you all know we've added support for this. All you have to do is add a meta tag to your pages."

Microsoft research develops spam killer for search engines

"'The Strider Search Defender' looks like a foolproof response to the onslaught of spam URLs on social networking sites, blogs and forums which spread rapidly and even start to appear on popular search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft’s MSN."

Editor's note: Further information about the system can be found here.

Search engine newslets

• Yahoo updates its index.
• Yahoo adds LiveSearch to Firefox 2.0.
• Google Talk headsets: Sign of a new version coming?
• Yahoo officially launches new website.
• Bytestart.co.uk is a new small business portal with search engine news coverage.
• Yahoo!, Google set for solid Q2 earnings.
• Google Smile (humor).

"Let click fraud happen"? Uh, no.

"Eric made clear from the very beginning that he wasn't describing our approach to click fraud and was answering hypothetically. He introduced his answer by saying: 'Let’s imagine for purposes of argument that click fraud were not policed by Google and it were rampant...'"

 

Why Google print ads didn't work... and why its radio ads will!

"Since radio advertising is rife with scarce, valuable opportunity, it's a great framework for auction media--making it the perfect next arena for Google. [...]

And so with its new radio enterprise, Google's found its new source of scarcity. Which is why I predict big things for Google radio advertising."

Click fraud scams on the increase

"The amount of click fraud taking place on search giants such as Yahoo and Google has increased since the beginning of the year, despite efforts to curb the practice. [...]

The greatest percentage of click fraud, over 88 percent, originated from North America. Unwanted click activity originating from India increased by 26 percent between April and June 2006."

PPC hyperinflation reported on Google Adwords

"Google’s Quality Score is really starting to bite hard on some PayPerClick budgets. Some are even reporting that average click costs have risen by almost 2,000% in just one week. One keyphrase has jumped in price from 12p to £2.75 in the last week."

"I was thoroughly impressed"

"I spent a few hours using IBP today and I was thoroughly impressed. I am definitely moving iPrioritize over from [competitor] to IBP.

I tried most of the features and I actually ended up doing quite a bit of tweaking to my homepage because of it. The 'Top 10 Web Page Optimizer' and 'Top 10 Inbound Link Optimizer' were the highlights of the software in my mind.

Both of those reports were more advanced than anything else I’d ever used and gave me a ton of great information. The ‘Search Engine Spider Simulator’ is also a tool that I’ve never used before but I will definitely use with regularity in the future. [...]

I also liked the IBP Manual – every SEO, whether brand new or a seasoned veteran, can learn something from that. I browsed through the checklists and learned a few new things."
Adam McFarland, www.iprioritize.com

Win an iPod Shuffle

We're looking for feedback to the all-new IBP/ARELIS version.

Tell us how the new IBP/ARELIS version has helped to improve your web site.

The names of all participants will be entered into a raffle for an iPod Shuffle. Thank you for helping us make IBP a better product!

The winner of the iPod Shuffle (who accepts the prize) will be listed in this newsletter. This offer is valid until 31 July 2006.

Submit your web site to your own directory lists

The new IBP version 9.1 now allows you to add your own search engines and Internet directories to the submitter.

If you haven't done it yet, download your free trial version now.

• The effect of outgoing links on your web site
• How to get high rankings with Flash sites
• Analyze the linking structure of your competitors
• New SEO tool for more customers and more sales
• The final goal of search engine optimization
• Google uses a new spider to index web pages
• What Google knows about your domain name
• Google official: PageRank is not a big deal
• The effect of co-citation on your search engine rankings
• View all past issues...