Basics such as URL structure, HTML tags such as meta tags and titles as well as link anchor text, relevant content and other such points will be set out in easy to understand guidelines. Illustrations and a list of things to avoid are all included.

However, lets not be fooled. Google will not release anything that isn’t already out there to be found. Known for regularly moving the goal posts, Google like to have a little re-jig of the rules occasionally to ensure websites are kept on their toes. What this new rulebook will do though is to assist webmasters in a general overhaul of their site to ensure general search engine compliance. This will be ideal for businesses who are starting small and want to handle their own site as best they can.

Add to this the Google Site Search facility called On-Demand Indexing and each website owner can exercise a lot more control over their own site. As a re-launch of the original Google Custom Search, On Demand Indexing is a tool for individual sites.

It means that at the touch of a button, the site owners can customise the search results that visitors see and each customer will be able to build their own separate search index. Individual pages could take days to be indexed but now an ‘Index now’ button at the bottom of each page will do just that.
These changes are going to make life easier for webmasters as well as visitors to the net.

As the champagne flowed members of the High Position team demonstrated their expertise to existing and prospective clients. The evening saw speeches from Steve Dart (Managing Director), Shaun Parker (Head of Search) and Terry Heffernan (Commercial Director) highlighting the impressive growth the company has experienced since its inception. The evening culminated with a speech from local MP John Whittingdale who impressed with his knowledge of internet commerce and recognition of the fact that high rankings in search engines are ultimately important when courting online business.

All who attended were then given the opportunity to use the new High Position website and spend time conversing with the High Position staff members on matters of SEO strategy and delivery. Both staff and guests agreed that the party had been a great occasion that was not only a celebration of High Position’s past successes but a look forward to what is a bright and exciting future.

The High Position portfolio now contains some of British industry’s leading companies. Recently landing a lucrative Sony contract augments the current client base that includes companies such as haart estate agents, Budget Rent a Car, Hillarys Blinds and the Inchcape Group’s Honda, BMW, Lexus and Mini websites. Despite the growing number of corporate clients, the High Position team are dedicated to providing an exemplary service to existing customers; made possible through excellent customer service and unrivalled technical knowledge.

In terms of figures High Position experienced 142% growth in the last year whilst in the first six months of this year growth was recorded at 112%. This financial growth is bucking the trend in commerce generally and when put in context of an industry that is currently burgeoning, are even more impressive. Turnover at High Position has skyrocketed in the past eighteen months from £400,000 to £1.8 million, once again showing the sheer forward momentum present in the company. Staff numbers have also increased in the last eighteen months from a modest eleven to workforce forty three strong; almost a three hundred percent increase.

So what does the future hold for High Position? Firstly there is the rebranding effort that has been ongoing for the last six months. The culmination of this effort manifests itself in this new website and a unique, expertly designed corporate brand. Now residing in a new office in Colchester’s prestigious business centre, The Octagon, HP Managing Director, Stephen Dart stated that “the launching of our new website represents a new phase in the evolution of High Position, one that incorporates a fresh, chic brand and a continuation of the methods that have brought the company such high levels of success. One thing is for certain, the future of High Position is bright, exhilarating and ultimately exciting.”

In terms of an actual figure, the latest survey suggests that in the first half of this year, consumers spent over twenty five million pounds online; startlingly this figure is a thirty eight percent increase on the figure for 2007. Commercial experts are surmising that consumers in the current economic climate are seemingly less inclined to head out to malls and high streets for spending sprees and are far more likely to stay home and make considered purchases online.

The reasons behind the popularity of online shopping are difficult to ascertain although many consumer experts believe that a decrease in household budgets combined with the high cost of petrol has resulted in greater online trade. Additionally, some believe that the public’s environmental conscience has also had a part to play in increasing online shopping rates although the convenience factor cannot be discounted.

Stephen Dart, Managing Director of High Position gladly welcomed the report’s findings as further evidence of the importance of search engine optimisation. In this time of financial difficulty it is the ability of the High Position specialists to give businesses the greatest chance of success that is proving so popular with clients.

The deal incorporates an undertaking of optimisation strategies for not only Sony’s UK website but thirty seven Sony Europe sites. Undoubtedly the work involved in achieving results for Sony will be extensive, but achievable for the specialist team at High Position. The purpose of the deal is to raise the profile of Sony products in search engines, the result will be more hits on Sony web pages and subsequently more sales and higher income.

The securing of the Sony Europe deal is yet another plaudit for High Position who in recent months has secured other high profile accounts with companies such as haart estate agents and Hillarys Blinds. Understandably Stephen Dart, Managing Director of High Position is thrilled with the current level of success, he stated that “not only are we [High Position] providing a large client base with unrivalled SEO advice and strategy, but are also continuing to land high profile deals in the face of stiff competition from the rest of the industry. The success of landing the Sony Europe deal, as well as many others simply represents our growing influence and reputation within the SEO industry not only in Britain but worldwide.”

Pagerank is also known as PR and has been around for much longer than most people think, in fact it has been around as long as Google itself, it has been responsible for driving sites up or down the rankings in Google and is obsessively monitored by millions of website owners and webmasters around the world.

Ever wanted to know a bit more about Google’s Pagerank and wanted to hear it in plain English? Well here are some facts and some fiction about one of the most written and discussed subjects in the world of SEO, if you are interested then read on, those that know it already then read on as well and perhaps you can email any thoughts on this article.
Those who are beginners and do not understand had better read it to put to bed some myths and also to understand that chasing Pagerank is like chasing a white elephant.

Well this is a topic that provokes much dissention in the world of SEO and is probably one of the most misunderstood factors in the world of optimisation. In fact every popular forum is guaranteed to have at least one current thread that addresses this subject in one way or another.

Well what is true and what is myth about Google Pagerank?

It is true that Inbound links are responsible for Pagerank values.
It is true that Page rank is important but it is a myth that you should chase it.
It is true that you should pursue the activity that will improve it but false that you can measure it.
It is true that sites that have a good Pagerank will often be well placed in generic searches but false that this is the only factor influencing this placement.
It is true that having quality inbound links will help your Pagerank score and that having lots of poor quality inbound links does not help it.
It is true that reciprocating links from bad sources can hurt your pagerank.
It is a myth that reciprocal links in general will hurt your page rank.
It is true that on topic word proximity can assist in your link relevance.
It is true that a new domain name can suffer slow progress for search positioning due to a lack of trust which is generally passed by inbound links and therefore a lack of Pagerank.

So where does Pagerank come from?

Going back to the start of the evolution of Google it all began with the development of a search engine that could deliver more accurate results than facilities such as Alta Vista and Excite who back then were just two of a variety of dominant search engines. Google was different, it was different because it ranks on different factors and this started when the founders decided to see if they could crawl the whole of web world and trace every link that could be found.

It is probably not correct at this point to conclude that Larry Page and Sergey Brin were trying to create a new internet search engine. But the concept of tracking and sorting all the links on the Internet was certainly heading that way.

Link Relationship

What was even more impressive than just tracking the number of links was the idea of examining the link relationship between different sites and thus determining the concept of rank! It was March 1996 when Larry pointed his crawler at his homepage at Stamford University and let it lose to explore the world. From the information gathered it was possible to sort sites that were important from sites that were less important according to link quantity, that was just the start and much more was on the agenda.

The concept was that once this site hierarchy is determined then the value of a link can be determined, it was a complex mathematical process but with Sergey the mathematician on board it was deliverable. The goal of course was achieved, Page and Brin were able to develop a system of ranking based on the number of links into a particular site factoring in the number of links to each of the sites that were linking to that particular site.

Once this was done they started to search the data and noticed that many of the results were more relevant to the query than when the same query was entered into the established search engines.

Thus was born the soul of Google and the intrinsic relationship with pagerank, of course this term came from the marriage of the evaluation process: - rank, to the surname of Larry Page - hence Pagerank.

Thus another fact is established and that is Pagerank is not named because of a value of a webpage but from the founders surname. The obsession with Pagerank continues and debates rage but at the end of the day it is a mathematical formula and uses quantifiable elements to determine the end product which is rank.

Google Toolbar

Whilst it is important to understand what builds Pagerank anybody of repute understands that we do not know what the true PR is of any particular site or page. Google have given us an indicator which like any such directive was instantly abused so to the point where we are firmly in the dark as to the true Pagerank and we have to rely on the Google Toolbar indicator which is out of date and totally inaccurate. Even the backlink indicator is not reliable in Google since this was also abused in the drive to gain position by manipulation, after its release as a command it was quickly dulled down.
Every Pagerank checker uses the Toolbar mechanism in one way or another and so all those so called experts out there offering true PR tracking services are also deluded or deceptive with their claims.
And therein lies the Achilles Heel, once the industry understood the relationship between links and ranking then it was open to abuse in the effort to manipulate the position of any given website. This has led to ever more stringent changes to the system which can have cataclysmic effects on millions of websites as different updates are served to Google’s ranking model.

In a modern world the vast majority of linking is now done to try and pass a vote for authority with the aim of adjusting website positions in a positive way. The early days of links passing a natural vote of quality are gone for a huge section of the Internet, where this natural process still occurs is whereby the rank and file still link naturally to facilities such as Microsoft and Adobe and many other Goliaths.

Link Manipulation

What is certain though is that the average business website has its search engine position in part due to some manipulation of the link process, of course linking can be encouraged by releasing quality information, having a great content rich site and despite the manipulation Google still manages to produce remarkable results for relevancy.

This means that after a decade the system of Pagerank survives as the most relevant and accurate process for delivering search results to people entering their respective search queries into that search box.

With Google launching its services to China there are numerous problems arising. The question now is have Yahoo got a similar crisis awaiting?

Google’s corporate slogan is ‘do no evil’, according to the document it released when it floated on the stock market in 2004.

Ironically, some might say, that is exactly what the company is not doing when it comes to international expansion into China, with accusations flying that the darling of the search engines is now colluding with the Chinese government to block local references to Tiananmen Square uprising, Falun Gong, Tibet and other unsavoury, embarrassing and sore issues when searching at www.google.cn

Ironic too, then, that the company had also contested its own government demanding access to search terms and words on its www.google.co.uk site. That there is an incongruity in responses is indeed a troubling outcome thus far. Just try typing in ‘Falun Gong’ at www.google.com and then at www.google.cn and you will see.

The big issue over chasing market share, global click-throughs and thus international advertising revenues - 99% of Google’s business comes from that source alone - is enough for the company to launch corporate social responsibility and business ethics into the Yangste River, critics are now arguing.

But it’s not just Google who are facing the same kind of problem. In some ways, far worse is afoot for Yahoo, with its Chinese activities being marred by accusations it helped in the arrest of political dissidents by revealing personal data of users, according to reports.

However, it is a tough call. Since corporations are business entities in their own right, the dilemma facing boards of directors in their search to create and add shareholder value, is, particularly on a global political level, going to come into conflict with altruistic and humanitarian beliefs.

The last thing Google, Yahoo or any other Internet firm in China needs now is a concerted anti-corporate cartoon hacking campaign originating in Denmark to really stir things up.

Whitehall branded internet ‘Villain of the Year’

Legislation for the storing of personal information

Once again information control has come under the microscope with the UK government pushing through legislation as to how Internet organisations hold personal detail.

The British Government has been named “Villain of the Year” by a group of the world’s largest internet companies after pushing through laws across Europe that will force firms to store more information on their customers’ web and telephone use.

At an awards ceremony in London last night, the Internet Service Provider Association said the Government had used its presidency of the European Union in 2005 to push through EU-wide data retention laws that will force ISPs and telecoms companies “to retain more data for longer without proper impact assessment”.

The association’s members, which include telecoms providers such as BT as well as internet giants such as Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, are already among the biggest repositories of personal data in the world.

Under the legislation, which was given final approval in Brussels this week, they will keep details of their European customers’ telephone calls and internet use for up to two years.

Previously ISPs in Britain had operated under a voluntary code included in the 2001 Anti-terrorism, Crime & Security Act. The code suggested that subscriber information be stored for 12 months and web activity information – which includes logs of web pages visited – for just four days.

The Government has argued that such information is a crucial weapon in the fight against terrorism. Its support for the new EU measures measures followed the London bombings in July.

However, an ISPA spokesman told Times Online: “There are strong concerns that these data retention measures would be used for wider purposes than just terrorism.

“There is lot of confusion here, on issues such as data protection and human rights. It is not simply a matter of costs.”

The body has suggested that data could potentially be made available to groups other than the security forces, in moves that could breach people’s privacy.

In America, Google recently confronted the White House over attempts to have the internet company hand over search data to the authorities, a row which once again brought online privacy concerns to the fore across the world.

The industry is also concerned ober the financial impact of the fresh legislation. One large internet service provider in the UK told Times Online it estimated the cost at £26 million to set up a system to retain data and another £9 million a year in administration costs.

Peter Cullen, Chief Privacy Strategist at Microsoft, told Times Online last year that globally, political debate has “frequently and increasingly resulted in vague and conflicting legislation” which “was not protecting consumers and was not flexible enough for business”.

By Rhys Blakely

Over two years ago Yahoo purchased the Overture website to make sure their hold on paid advertising via PPC was not only established but maximised. Finally they have now re-branded this service as Yahoo Search Marketing Europe.

Overture has today re-branded as Yahoo! Search Marketing in Europe, more than two years after Yahoo! bought the sponsored search firm.

Yahoo! acquired US-based Overture for $1.8bn in October 2003. The firm launched under the name GoTo.com in 1998 to deliver paid for links alongside search engine results.

Following Overture’s name change to Yahoo! Search Marketing in the US last year, today sees all of Overture’s European markets brought under the new brand.

Stephen Taylor, RVP & MD Yahoo! Search & Yahoo! Search Marketing Europe, said: “Unifying our search marketing and related offerings under the Yahoo! banner reflects our ongoing commitment to integrate and simplify online advertising.

“With access to the largest set of search marketing and brand advertising solutions on the web, we will offer businesses the opportunity to take advantage of a wider range of solutions that best fit their marketing goals.”

By Robin Langfor 27-02-2006

While online is making huge strides, there is still much to be done to improve its effectiveness as an advertising medium writes, Conrad Bennett, technical services director, WebTrends.

If there is a war going on between the high street and the internet, then the net is winning. Christmas, the most recent battle-ground, saw a number of casualties from traditional retail. Senior executives from big brands resigned admitting defeat in the face of the internet’s armoury of affordable prices and convenience, while the national press has continued to run reports suggesting that the internet’s position is becoming unassailable.

There is no doubt therefore, that e-commerce is now a force to be reckoned with and this has been matched by the continued growth of internet advertising. Strong growth in broadband subscriptions helped online advertising expenditure beat commercial radio’s UK total in 2004 (£653.3m versus £637.4m – according to research by the Interactive Advertising Bureau). Online advertising’s next victim was the outdoor market. According to further IAB research, internet ad spend in the first half of 2005 rose by 62.4 per cent on the same period last year to £490.8m. Its share of the overall ad market rose to 5.8% per cent, pushing it ahead of outdoor, which accounted for 5.1 per cent of the market.

After the initial promise of internet advertising during the dotcom boom, there was not only the subsequent bust that dramatically affected spend, but also a consumer revolt against pop-up ads that left the medium with a tarnished image. Today, however, the industry is worth over £1 billion; thanks again to record broadband uptake in UK households, improvements in the creativity of internet advertising, and better targeting by advertisers.

Although a fantastic boost for the industry, this news means that web-hosts have an increased obligation to advertisers, who have a right to demand more in return for the huge amounts of money invested. This requires the provision of more information, more detail and more accountability.

Any visitor has an objective when they come to a website and if the experience doesn’t match the expectation, they will leave regardless of how many great offers they encounter along the way. Time and thought must be invested into why the visitor is there, as well as what messages are most likely to reach and affect them, if advertisers are going to get a return on the vast sums the IAB suggests they are investing.

Analysis of the advertising itself is also key. The web is an incredibly versatile and flexible medium in this respect, providing the opportunity to make rapid changes. Is how often visitors click out on the advertising carried being measured? Technically this is reasonably simple to achieve, but many sites are not evaluating in this way. A/B and multi-variant testing will allow you to optimise the advertising as well as the site itself. Ideally this would be integrated into a web analytics application in order to provide seamless reports.

Segmentation is vital when it comes to analysing website effectiveness to advertisers. Visitors from different media may respond and behave differently within the site and these differences can be more pronounced for returning visitors from email campaigns for example, as opposed to those from traditional acquisition sources such as search engines or banners. Constantly asking questions will help. If a large number of customers are leaving your site during the purchase process, figure out at what stage they are leaving and why. Are there too many steps for them to go through? If so, consider combining a couple of them. Are they becoming distracted? Then experiment with eliminating some content. Are they getting lost in your navigation? Try to figure out how to redirect them.

Making the process as seamless as possible is fundamental for advertisers, who may have a banner ad that appears at a point after visitors have dropped off or “abandoned their shopping carts”. This could simply be as a result of a poorly designed page but unless web-hosts are analysing the paths that visitors take, there is no way of reassuring advertisers that their banners will be seen let alone proving it beyond doubt with reports and hard data.

Analysis of the site itself with key metrics overlaid on individual pages can give a much better idea of how visitors use particular pages on a website. This can be a powerful tool to help refine messages to the customers that are most profitable to advertisers. A common mistake in site layout is to use a screen resolution higher than that of the average visitor’s. The only way to spot this is to look at a page overlay and see that no-one clicks on the right-hand side of the screen (visitors expect to have to scroll down, but not to the right).

Websites that carry advertising need to measure the success of content. This is not always as simple as it might be for commerce sites (since they typically do not host external advertising). Scoring systems for content and brand messages will allow site owners to measure the effectiveness of content and advertising, and will also help with visitor segmentation.
The online industry must now repay the vast sums invested by advertisers by tracking site popularity and optimising content effectiveness. By improving a website’s ability to persuade visitors to take a desired action, online can truly begin to turn what is still considered a developing medium into an established and consistent revenue generator. After all, online may have won the battle but it should also seek to push home the myriad of advantages it has over the high street to eventually win the war.