When it comes to the fundamentals of SEO, whenever I post something on Google+, I always think carefully about my use of keywords and phrases within my comments or posts to measure it’s impact on personalized Google results. I ran an SEO experiment over a weekend where I only changed one element of one page on a site and posted the difference it made, when comparing the same time period to 1 week before, to G+.

The Impact one change made to that one page:

• Visits from search engines increased by 118%
• Those visitors viewed 45% more pages than the previous week.
• Bounce rate decreased by 53%

So what on-site SEO change had that big impact you may be wondering? Some of the G+ comments suggested that one of the following changes had been made;

• Added fresh content
• Changing of the title tag
• The utilisation of a trending keyword
• The removal of a pop-up
• The addition of a pop-up
• Adding a clear call to action, video action or something else on the page that requires an action
• Internal linking
• Spam reported competitors
• Duncan Green even suggested that I did a bit of adobe photoshop to the dashboard page!

I’m sorry to burst your bubble but the only thing I changed on the page was the page’s <title></title> To me, this demonstrates that no matter how much Google is changing the fundamentals of SEO remain the same.

What impact will Google+ have on SEO?

With users able to switch between personalised and ‘worldly’ search, SEO efforts will have to be tailored specifically for each. The new functions being presented by ‘person’ toggle function, seemingly provide more authority to Google+ pages and social shares. As a result authoritative content will be determined with respects to “+1’s” and shares.

There may be some advantage to SEO practices in respects of the ‘world’ search function, as personalisation features are completely eliminated, allowing for more SEO tailored items to pull through.

Further items for consideration:

• Technical On-Site SEO Fundamentals and basics will remain important.
• Authors of content will have to place emphasis on their G+ profiles, in-line with the implementation of Google’s authorship mark-up. This includes UGC and content created by company employees/journalists.
• With the evolution of search and content becoming social objects, immediate implementation of Schema.org is necessary to ensure various content types are properly indexed and understood by bots. With Google being one of the founding organizations behind schema.org, it is more than likely that SERPs will see the inclusion of more rich snippets (Google+ is “social rich snippets” ).
• (not provided) keywords, the hiding of keywords for users signed into their Google accounts, launched in Q4 2011 in Google Analytics could be used as a signal to determine what percentage of users are more than likely to see SPYW results. This could be used to determine how important an G+ SEO strategy should be within your business.
• Having More Pluses Will Increase Search Rankings, thereby placing emphasis on quality of product, service and interactions, especially in the context of e-commerce. This is due to social networks being able to provide users with a general perception about a product or service, accorded by known friends and even unknown people (Bing has previously cited statistical findings that around ninety per cent of users take into consideration the feedback of family and friends when making decisions).
• Ensure that your content is well optimized for distribution on Google+
• User search patterns will start to change (as this change begins to take hold, the way people search for travel destinations and products online could change, due to users making more use of their own network’s recommendations.)

Has Google Search Plus Your World impacted your SEO strategy yet? Let me know in the comments below.

Some have applauded Google’s inclusion of personal results as the logical next step for Search in an ever increasingly social Internet. Others have been cynical, seeing it as a blatant attempt by the search giant to force their Google Plus social platform into a world dominated by Facebook and twitter by building on Google’s monopoly of the search industry.

Predictably there have also been claims that this is the “death of SEO” – the latest move by Google to force the focus of SEM away from manipulating organic results (SEO) towards their cash-cow of sponsored search (Adwords). And its hard not to see the merit in the conspiracy theorist’s argument after October’s SSL encryption of user queries which hides personalised search keywords from Google Analytics organic traffic reports, while retaining the same keywords in Adwords reports.

I dont know if Google is trying to kill SEO, but I think its obvious that there will be increased competition for real estate now that Google + Profiles are showing up at the top of the SERPs as well as on the right side where ads are traditionally displayed. In order to  guarantee a position above the fold people might have to turn to Adwords. And Adwords advertisers will have to ensure they are in the top 3 most visible ad positions, while adverts below position 3 might see a decrease in click through rate as they are pushed further down the page.

I also think its vital that advertisers enable the Social Extensions feature within Adwords in order to ensure their  adverts and landing pages share +1 votes.

I’d also recommend keeping an eye on predictions about Google Plus. Last year at SMX East I attended a session called “What Every Paid Search Marketer Needs To Know About Google+” and I was particularly interested in some of the predictions that Mathew Guiver made about the future of +1s. I wont go into detail about through all his predictions, but the one that’s of obvious interest to anyone with an Adwords account is the prediction that +1 votes will eventually have a greater impact on average advert position that quality score.

While Google currently deny that there is any impact of +1 on Quality Score or Ad rank, I think that its almost inevitable that Google will start including +1 votes as a sign of relevance, and therefore something that will affect quality score in future.

Also, whether you believe +1s will eventually have a direct effect on quality score, there is no denying that they already have an indirect effect – by making adverts more prominent, thereby increasing click through rate.

The start of 2012 has shown us that Google Plus is not just an attempt to get into social media, but also a way for Google to incorporate social media into search. I’d definitely recommend watching this space. You can start by checking out some more of Mathew Guiver’s +1 predictions available on slideshare here.

Amazon announces it’s ready to accept e-books in new KF8 format. Amazon has announced that it is now ready to allow publishers to submit e-books to its Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) site, in what it is calling Kindle Format 8 (KF8). The new format will allow publishers to add richer looking content to their e-books, making them perhaps more attractive to readers. Instead of simple text and the occasional pasted-in image, the new format takes advantage of advances in both HTML and CSS. For now, the new format is for the Kindle Fire only, but will eventually be made available on newer dedicated Kindles and Kindle apps, which will support the new format as well.

Google persuades Spanish bank BBVA to use the cloud. The deal with the banking service provider serves as a great way to promote the security of Google’s cloud computing services, meaning that Google software will now be offered as a service via the internet. BBVA will still use traditional channels to serve it banking functions, with the bank using Google applications like email, calendar, docs, chat, video conferencing and other collaboration tools internally, as a communication tool amongst employees. The deal signed, would be the largest yet for the still nascent Google cloud-computing service.

Google Was Caught Scraping Data From A Kenyan Startup And Telling Lies About The Startup To Its Customers. Kenya’s Mocality featured across the globe in news stories highlighting Google’s ‘scandalous’ poaching of Mocality’s database, and then fraudulently contacting business with fabricated details of partnership with the Kenyan start-up. Google has since released a statement saying that they are ‘mortified’, and in no way condone the actions of GKBO (Getting Kenyan Businesses Online). Google is said to be investigating the matter fully.

Raspberry Pi is About to be Served – Manufacturing Has Begun for the $35 Computer. The Raspberry Pi Foundation announced that as of “a couple of days” before January 10th, production has begun on their $35 Linux computer. The Raspberry Pi Model B is an ARM GNU/Linux Box with 256 MB memory, 700 MHz processing, HDMI port, and Blu-Ray video quality capabilities. Low cost computing is becoming a strong promoter for innovation; just recently, India launched its $35 touchscreen tablet computer and with sub $100 smartphones, higher penetration and experimentation is being achieved worldwide.

Author of Controversial Piracy Bill Now Says ‘More Study’ Needed. The senator, who introduced hotly debated legislation intended to shut down pirate websites, has backed away from one of the most controversial parts of the bill, amid criticism from Web companies, human rights groups and Internet engineers. The victory is bolstered by the announced support of the White House, expressing concern over SOPA. With revision of the bill more than likely, early supporters of the bill will have lots of PR to manage going forward.

‘Smart TVs’ offer new windows onto the Internet. Internet TV has seemingly been the buzz at this year’s CES exhibition, with Microsoft, Google and Apple adding to the momentum (…and hype). The expectation is that 2012 will see television rapidly becoming the gateway for content from the Internet, with the next stage really being about engagement and providing relevant content. Major manufacturers (Samsung, Sony, LG, etc.) are trying to out-innovate each other with beefed-up TVs featuring: online capabilities, gesture and voice controls and cloud storage.

Google search gets its biggest change in a decade with a dose of Google+. The inclusion of Google+ into search, is Google’s long-term pursuit to personalise search. The inclusion of ‘Search Plus Your World’ (SPYW) means that search results will now not only take into account data and factoids, but will also promote ties between traditional search items and personal connections. Critics however, have hailed the update to rather be “Search, plus Google+”, as the changes seem primarily designed to promote the firm’s own social network.

Internet revolution dawns with .yournamehere domains. Revolution or tweak… “Top-level” international domains are now open for application. Most of the first wave of applications is expected to come from leading brand owners who see an opportunity to boost their visibility online, or simply fear that others will grab “their” space if they do not do so themselves. A handful of potential new domains such as .eco seem likely to succeed but many may turn out to be little used, as was the experience for .jobs, .museum .travel and others in previous, experimental rounds of liberalization. The cost of a single gTLD registration is $185,000, on top of the $25,000 annual fee domain operators have to pay ICANN.

The XBox Metro Update Nudges Microsoft’s Console Closer to Set-top Hedgemony. The next level instalment of the gaming console has arrived, citing XBox’s official extension into a full home-media entertainment centre. Whilst this may to some degree have existed before, the new extension shifts beyond just insulated content aggregation to include a fully revised media management system with next level user engagement. The XBox Metro update is said to contain  traces of the various UI elements featured in the new MS Windows, with every app Kinect-enabled, allowing users to swipe through tiles or call up apps by voice. The update will also include a Windows Phone feature, which will allow users to control the XBox remotely (adding items to the queue and looking up content to send to the TV while other content is playing). Content features have also been extended through the inclusion of new studio content. 

Lenovo Sets Web-Linked TV. As a result of changing consumer habits and the rise of cross-sector competition, traditional business models have been forced to adapt and diversify. For this reason, Lenovo has unveiled a “smart TV” product called LeTV, in addition to a new cloud-computing strategy (storage facility), which will act as a backbone to its hardware offerings. The new service will allow users to share content between multiple devices and help manage their personal information and social networking requirements. A ‘personal cloud’ solution will automatically synchronize data from all devices, and will provide 200 gigabytes of space to users.

PayPal Cyber Monday Mobile Payment Volume Up Over 500 Percent. Black Friday and Thanksgiving Day brought record mobile engagement for PayPal, with 511 percent and a 538 percent increase in global mobile payment volume when compared to Thanksgiving and Black Friday in 2010, respectively.

Government Backs Call for Classroom Coding. Rigorous reform of the UK education syllabus has been called for, after an industry report highlighted the fact that future generations are likely to lack the skills required to lead technology related industries. According to the report, the way in which computer science and information technology is currently taught, is insufficient, putting emphasis on the fact that coding skills should be favoured over that of just being taught how to use software. The push for the re-writing of the curriculum’s to ensure the inclusion of core digital skills is likely to become a common feature, as governments realise the value creation that could lead to a superior workforce and higher incidence of entrepreneurship. The Next Gen report has led to a nationwide campaign, backed by many corporates, including: Google, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo.

Zynga seeks $1B in IPO. According to a filing on Friday, Zynga will look to raise $1 billion in cash, placing its overall value at about $7 billion. The listing of common stock is expected to price at the range of $8.50 to $10.00 per share. The 100 million shares on offer represent 14.3 percent of total Zynga shares.

Tech Firm Implements Employee ‘Zero Email’ Policy. The head of one of Europe’s largest information technology services companies is intent on banning staff from sending each other emails, saying they waste time and are out-dated, arguing that only 10 per cent of the 200 electronic messages his employees (all 74,000) receive per day on average turn out to be useful. Atos is currently evaluating a number of new tools to replace internal email including collaborative and social media tools. These include an Atos Wiki, which allows all employees to communicate by contributing or modifying online content, and an Office Communicator, representing the company’s official online chat system which will allow video conferencing, and file and application sharing. The former French finance minister is set to introduce the policy within the next 18 months.

RIM PlayBook Jailbroken. A group of researchers are claiming that they’ve found a root exploit that enables them to jailbreak the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, made by RIM. A video released by the hackers, shows off the ability to change the settings on a PlayBook and also install the Android Market App on the tablet. Rim is yet to test the hack claims.

Facebook buys Gowalla. Whilst there is little mentioned from either party, it has been confirmed that the acquisition has taken place. Gowalla was Launched in 2009, and competed head-to-head with rival Foursquare- and lost. Badly trailing Foursquare in user adoption, Gowalla recently shifted directions, recasting itself as a travel guide. With comments few, it is not certain whether Facebook has a use for the location based service or whether it is a case of aqui-hiring (as the acquired team is rumoured to be placed for work on the Facebook Timeline Feature).

Facebook to Hire Thousands of Workers, Open New York Office. In a bid to further its expansion, Facebook is set to hire thousands of employees over the next year, and also add an engineering team to its office in New York in order to further lure and bolster technical talent: “New York has a strong history of innovation and is home to thousands of talented technical people, and we want them to help us solve the challenges of designing and building the next generation of Facebook”.

YouTube unveils biggest redesign in its history. YouTube has launched a major redesign of the site, making it look and feel more like a social network. The design is likely in wake of the anticipated role out of YouTube exclusive, professional content.

Nimbuzz Gets Into e-Commerce; Launches Ncarry.com. Chat-app company Nimbuzz announced that it has launched an e-commerce website called Ncarry.com, that will offer the latest phones to for purchase.  Nimbuzz hopes that the service will be incidental to the uptake of users on their chat platform (by pushing more smartphones to market).

China Overtakes America to Become Largest Smartphone Market. Earlier this year, China overtook the US to become the biggest PC market in the world. Now, new data indicates that China has also claimed the title of the largest smart-phone market in the world by volume. The growth is driven mostly by the demand from the under 30 year old, middle class youth market. Nokia still maintains their first mover advantage in the market, thereby controlling biggest market share at 6.8%, with Samsung in second, with 4.2% market share. The rest of the market is made up of cheaper alternatives, Chinese brands running the Android operating system, like ZTE, Huawei and Xiaomi. The IPhone remains an aspirational item, with a lesser but more pronounced market presence. 

PayPal predicts the future of money: No wallets required in the UK by 2016. Paypal is said to release a report in which it predicts that by 2016, not only will consumers not need to carry cash to go shopping, but they also won’t need a wallet. Through Paypal’s extended vision, they forecast that consumers would be enabled to pay for something from wherever they are, whatever device they are on – a PC, mobile phone, tablets and games consoles. Paypal in itself expects to by year end, to have processed $3.5Billion in mobile transactions (5 times the volume it processed in 2010).

Google’s Search Algorithm Challenged. Volunia is an attempt by a Padua University professor to bring about a new search engine that could challenge Google’s search dominance, which could ultimately lead to radically different search engines in the future. The professor who in part assisted with the creation of the Google Search Algorithm, is intent on creating an algorithm which will bring a different perspective to the search engine of the future. So while it seeks to challenge the dominance of Google, the search engine could at the same time be complementary. Volunia is currently accepting users who wish to be part of the beta, to be launched in 12 languages by the end of the year.

The Facebook Phone: its Finally Real and Its Name Is Buffy. After much speculation, rumours and denials, the Facebook phone it seems is likely to materialise. Facebook, through a partnership with HTC will build the smartphone that has the social network integrated at its core. The phone is planned to run on a modified version of Android that Facebook has tweaked, in order to deeply integrate its services, as well as to support HTML5 as a platform for applications. Mobile is critical to Facebook’s future, and with the fight for mobile control is only getting more fierce, Facebook is stepping in to ensure that it is not overrun by Google (Google+) and Apple (for its control over the iStore payments

Microsoft Surface: Next generation of touchscreen tabletop goes on sale. The computer, called Samsung SUR40 for Microsoft Surface, made its debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, and is Microsoft’s second attempt at large-scale multitouch computing. The touch screen table top has adopted a more powerful processor, new system software and new sensor hardware, that promises to make touch recognition more accurate.

Is there anything Siri can’t do? Control your computer, room and TV with your voice. It seems Siri hacks are being recieved with the same sporting purpose that was experienced post release for the Kinect. Siri was first hacked by Applidium, who figured out the format Siri uses to communicate with Apple’s servers. Now a SiriProxy has been developed which lets a server pose as an Apple’s Siri server, intercepting its communications and then using it to create plugins to control virtually any network-connected device in the world, via Siri.

Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos? New Test Confirms Accuracy of Experiment’s Initial Measurement in Flight Time of Neutrinos. The test confirmed the accuracy of OPERA’s timing measurement, ruling out one potential source of systematic error. The new measurements do not change the initial conclusion, as the results still require further scrutiny and independent measurement before it can be refuted or confirmed.

Facebook feature:

Facebook who now boasts 800 million active users, has just released details regarding its Facebook phone , which will no doubt look to strengthen its presence on the mobile web. These are just some of the reported pieces being laid down, as Facebook prepares for its IPO. It appears then that all is well for the mighty social network.

However, contention for Facebook is mounting, as its practices start to frustrate users and content creators alike. A recent post by Anil Dash, brought attention to the fact that the social network giant is attacking Facebook users’ ability and willingness to navigate the rest of the web, even for sites which embrace Facebook technologies (including site indexing). The form primarily taken by Facebook, suggests ‘a warning’ to users, making them believe that the page to be visited is potentially dangerous.

This has of course contributed to the furore that is being caused by the introduction of its frictionless sharing feature. In preparation of its new features, Facebook is adapting its older functions, which according to Anil, will cease the ability to bring content into Facebook Notes via RSS feeds (creators will now have to use the Facebook’s Notes feature within Facebook to generate the required content). The result, Facebook created content will feature higher in the time-line vs. that of an ordinary hyperlink.

In essence…Facebook is seeking means to promote captive content on its network ahead of content on the web, by prohibiting users from bringing open content into their network. This is further deployed by warning users not to visit web content, whilst at the same time placing obstacles in front of visits to web sites, even if they’ve embraced Facebook’s technologies and registered in Facebook’s centralised database of sites on the web.

http://bit.ly/t1vfhc, http://reut.rs/uHye2V

SEO for Web Developers

When it comes to achieving sustainable SEO results the work of the web developer plays a major role in a campaigns success or failure. So much so that 2 of the 3 “On Page SEO” columns in the Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors, HTML and Architecture, rely solely on the work of our web developers. Preventing violations like cloaking and hiding words by using the same or nearly the same text colour and body background could be blamed on developers and designers who do not know enough about what works or doesn’t when it comes to SEO. The following post highlights 1112 SEO guidelines every web developer should know and try to adhere to.

1. Product Owners should assign SEO stories to each sprint.

Whether you like it or not visitors referred to your web application by search engines can be anything from one third to somewhere near 80% of all your traffic. If you are building anything that will be publicly available on the web- search engines, or rather their bots, should also be considered as a user. “How will search engines react to any change we make to our site?” should be asked when planning your Agile sprints therefore adding it as a user story will be beneficial.

2. Give SEO tasks higher priority in the Product Backlog

In most cases an SEO or agency’s expertise is consulted when the powers-that-be realize they need a boost in their rankings. The great thing about search marketing is that it’s never too late to provide assistance in increasing search engine traffic. Your engagement with an SEO usually results in an audit in which many tweaks and changes are suggested. From personal experience those tasks are assigned to somewhere near the bottom of the product backlog or don’t make it to the product backlog at all.

3. Page Speed – Make Your Code Harder Better Faster

Not only does the speed of you site have a positive effect on decreasing bounce rate, improving page views, and a higher conversion rate. The speed of you page is a factor in search engine algorithms too. I’d suggest reading Google’s Distinguished Engineer, Matt Cutts’ post. If you need more convincing that site speed effects the bottom line read Alistair Croll’s detailed article. Their are various add-ons plugins available for Firefox and Chrome that can assist web developers at improving page speed. Web Developers should take Daft Punk’s lyrics to heart…

Work It Harder Make It Better
Do It Faster, Makes Us stronger
More Than Ever Hour After
Our Work Is Never Over

Google have also released a web-based page speed testing tool. The easiest way to find out how to improve you site’s speed is to enter the URL, click analyze and follow the guidelines.

4. The URL’s impact on SEO

When it comes to SEO all URLs are not created equal. URLs should be constructed for users first, search engines second. A personal rule I like using is to keep the URL as close to the root directory as possible i.e do/no/put/folders/in/the/URL/if/it/is/not/needed. Rather use hyphens (-) as separators between words or numbers. Even though the underscore performs a similar function to the dash, works as a keyword separator in a URL, it requires an additional keystroke when typing _. There are still some people who believe people use the URL structure when browsing a website but have you ever witnessed the practice of navigation by URL structure recently? If you plan to change ensure the proper redirects are in place. This brings us to the next point…

5. Getting Redirections Right for SEO

You’re about to change the URL structure of your pages and would like to retain the traffic those pages are receiving via search engines. We’ve known for over a decade that links are vital when is comes to rankings in the SERPs and those URls you are planning to change may also may have vital links pointing to them from external sites which are sometimes impossible or time consuming to request other webmasters to update. Have no fear, the 301 redirect is here. Of all the redirect codes the 301 redirect is the most important one to know. This will alert search engines to the new location of a page(s) and pass almost all it’s link juice (ranking power). SEOmoz has a detailed guide to redirection using an Apache Web Server. When redirecting pages or folders on IIS do not forget to select “A permanent redirection for this resource”. If you require a guide to 301 redirect for PHP, ASP(.net), Coldfusion, JSP/Java, Perl or Ruby-on-Rails follow these guidelines.

6. Duplicate Content Mitigation & Parameter Handling

Duplication of content occurs on the web when various pages (URLs) contains the same or very similar content. The problem with having more than one piece of identical content on the Internet is that it’s difficult for search engines to decide which version is more relevant to a given search query. To provide the best search experience, search engines will rarely show multiple, duplicate pieces of content and thus, are forced to choose which version is most likely to be the original (or best). To assist in preventing duplicate content issues which may negatively impact your SEO efforts the rel canonical tag was introduced. The rel canonical tag is vital for ecommerce stores which allow users to toggle the order in which the products are displayed (order by price or alphabetically). In most cases the same URL with additional query parameters are created to order/sort products. The canonical tag will prevent duplicate content issues in this case. Another instance where you wouldn’t want to confuse search engines is when paginating pages with hundreds of products listed or archived content. Google advises you not to use the rel canonical tag in this case but rather another rel tag called rel prev an rel next.

7. Get to Know & Give Robots.txt a Go

The Robot Exclusion Standard, also known as the Robots Exclusion Protocol or robots.txt protocol, is a convention to prevent cooperating web crawlers and other web robots from accessing all or part of a website which is otherwise publicly viewable. Beware of blocking pages that should be indexed when using robotx.txt there is also a robots meta tag. The robots.txt or tag can be your best friend when implemented correctly or worst enemy if not This site dedicated to the Robots Exclusion Standard is a great place to start learning all you need to know.

8. Give Images Descriptive File Names

Digital cameras and mobile phones have the naming conventions that make no sense to us or search engine spiders. Instead of uploading an image as DSC00786.jpg rename it to something descriptive that give like may-the-force-be-with-you.jpg instead, if you were displaying an image of Yoda

9. Do not hide content within Javascript or Flash

JQuery is used almost everywhere online these days which isn’t bad as it improves the user experience in most cases where content on a page can be changed on the fly. Search Engines may not see the content you wrap within Javasrcipt or Flash even though progress has been made by them to better read and understand them. This is where the <noscript> tag comes into play. When using Javascript or Flash be sure to also include the content you want indexed by search engines between <noscript> and </noscript>. A word of warning though, be sure that the content within Flash/Javascript is identical/similar. We do not want to violate their guidelines with keyword stuffing, cloaking or excessive link manipulation within the noscript tags.

10. SEO’s Future is Semantic

Seen those enhanced search results with movie ratings, personal information, product prices etc.. Google calls them rich snippets. The only way to enhance your site’s SERPs is providing semantically marked-up data. At SMX Advanced 2011 a new standard adopted by the Bing, Yahoo and Google was introduced called Schema.org. Utilizing schema.org may not be a major ranking factor right now but it certainly will be in the near future. The best advice I can give any developer who wants to build a web app that will perform well when it comes to search engines rankings and attracting traffic is that you have to learn and implement schema.org as soon as you can.

11. Social, Social, Social

Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and the thousands of other Social Media platforms your target market use helps your SEO efforts too. Don’t go out and spam the various Social Networks with messages that are not targeted/solicited. Rather provide the tools and widgets that allow users to easily share your content with their networks. Which networks you choose will depend on who your target audience is. In this article’s case of we allow you to tweet, +1 or Like on Facebook. If you’ve found any value in this article feel free to share it

12. How To Ensure New Content is Indexed by Search Engines Quickly

Google have recently updated their algorithm to ensure their results show you fresher content. The latest update impacts 35% of all search queries. What can you as a web developer do to ensure the content on your site gets indexed quickly? By utilizing XML sitemaps and alerting the major search engines to changes to your XML sitemap as soon as content at a new URL gets added, content at old URLs are updated (a comment is posted, or any editorial changes) or even when a URL is changed. What is an XML sitemap?

Sitemaps are an easy way for webmasters to inform search engines about pages on their sites that are available for crawling. In its simplest form, a Sitemap is an XML file that lists URLs for a site along with additional metadata about each URL (when it was last updated, how often it usually changes, and how important it is, relative to other URLs in the site) so that search engines can more intelligently crawl the site.

Learn more about the XML Sitemap Protocol and study the XML Sitemap WordPress plugin for a better technical understanding of how to create sitemaps and alert (ping) search engines to changes to your site quickly. This should ensure your new content is indexed quickly and should ensure pages from your site is included as part of the ‘fresh’ search results (when relevant).

This article was not intended to be the complete list of SEO Guidelines for Web Developers but the intention is for it to be the starting point on your journey to make the web applications you buiild more SEO friendly now and in the future. If you think or know of anything I may have missed feel free to comment below with your SEO tip(s).

Images used within this article are CC by Kalexanderson.

Exascale Computing Seen in this Decade. Much thought is being applied to the development of exascale computing systems (which would be a 1,000 times more powerful than existing systems). The first system has been requisitioned by the U.S. Department of Energy, who hopes to get a functional exascale computer operational by 2020, with emphasis on the fact that it will not use more than 20 megawatts (MW) of power. To reach the required level of power efficiency, power usage technology will have to be improved by a factor of 50. Intel plans to meet the 20 MW exascale goal by 2018. 

Face Recognition Makes the Leap From Sci-Fi. Facial recognition and detection technologies are increasingly being realised for mainstream application. Commercialisation includes software for digital billboards that gauges a passer-by’s characteristics to personalise displays with targeted ads. Facebook has also introduced a tool that uses facial recognition to identify a user’s friends in photos, which then automatically suggest name tags for them. The technology has brought to fore opponents, each meriting support for both sides: one side that recognises that the technology offers tremendous marketing opportunities vs. those who acknowledge that the technology has the potential to seriously compromise privacy.

Apple gets killer location services patent. Originally bought from Xerox in 1998, a reissue of the location services patent has the potential to sever the business models of major competitors and small start-ups. The patent could give Apple control over mobile technology aspects related to location-based innovation in advertising, social networks, mapping, flash deals and augmented reality.

PayPal Facebook app lets you send money and greetings to friends, only takes 2.9-percent cut of your ‘free’ e-card. Paypal has launched a Facebook app: ‘Send Money’, that will let users send money to anyone on their friend list. A layer of fraud protection is added by the requirement that both the sender and receiver own a Paypal account. Payments are free to send and receive, but only if they’re funded using a bank account with both parties in the U.S. If a credit or debit card is used instead, PayPal will collect 2.9 percent (either from the sender or recipient), in addition to a 30-cent processing. For funds sent abroad, fees will range from 0.5 to 3.9 percent. There is no mention of the percentage that Facebook will take from the transaction.

Google Music Launch Challenges Itunes, Boosts Android And Google Plus. Google Music (which has been in beta since May), has been officially launched. The service will offer a cloud-based facility, which will allow for auto-syncs and the creation of online playlists, broadcasted to user’s laptop, tablet or phone. Users will also be able to choose a list of favourite songs, which will be made available offline. The service allows users to upload up to 20,000 of their own songs to Google Music, with the option of purchasing further tunes in the Android Market Music Store (it features 13 million tracks, compared to Apple’s 20 million-plus). Google Music will include an option for Individual artists to build fan pages, allowing them to upload and sell their creations. Listeners can share a full song for their friends to play on Google Plus – but only songs purchased on the Android market.

Tech Firms Fight Antipiracy Bill. US based technology giants: Google, eBay, Facebook and Twitter, are stepping up efforts to block a bill in Congress that Hollywood studios say would clamp down on foreign websites selling pirated movies and other goods. They have cautioned that the bill might “expose law-abiding U.S. Internet and technology companies to new uncertain liabilities.” The bill allows for court orders to push U.S. Internet sites and search engines to take reasonable measures to block access to other websites carrying pirated material. The legislation has of course been well received (and likely lobbied for) by Hollywood studios.

Sony Considers Internet Rival To Cable TV. Sony is considering launching an Internet-based alternative to cable-TV services (coinciding with the news that Google is also said to launch its own cable service). Sony is proposing to beam the channels over Internet connections to Sony-made devices, including PlayStation gaming consoles, TV sets and Blu-ray players.

Intel unveils 1 teraflop chip with 50-plus cores. Back in 1997, Intel boasted that they were able to build the first supercomputer with sustained 1 teraflop performance on a system with 9,298 Pentium II chips that filled 72 computing cabinets. 15 years later, Intel has squeezed that much performance onto a matchbook-sized chip.

Cracking Siri. Hackers at Applidium (an official VLC app maker) has managed to crack open Siri’s protocol, meaning that Siri’s recognition engine can now be transferred to any device…including Android.

Ten Algorithm changes on Inside Search. As an update to the 500+ changes that Google makes to their search algorithm, Google has released a recap on the search changes that they have made recently.

Microsoft to Help 10 Kinect Start-ups. Microsoft has announced a program designed to assist startups launch businesses to develop and create products for Kinect. The program supported by TechStars, will allow developers with Kinect applications for the Xbox or Windows to apply to the Kinect Accelerator program. The startups accepted, will spend three months working out of the Kinect Accelerator office, where they will receive technical training, support and mentorship. They will also get US$20,000, an Xbox development kit, and the Windows Kinect SDK (software development kit).

Harvard Opens Startup Incubator. The i-lab is an incubator designed for ‘startup-hungry students on campus’. The allocated campus space will allow for classrooms to be used for studying, academic research, co-working and project development. Partnerships have been extended to local business associations such as the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center Network, which will provide for one-on-one coaching, workshops and training with a community of mentors.

Google to set up Israeli incubator in 2012. The incubator will begin operations when Google Israel enters its new offices in the Electra Tower in Tel Aviv. The incubator will initially host 20 pre-seed stage start-ups (or 80 people). The start-ups will be hosted for a training period of at least three months, focusing on start-ups developing open code technologies, such as Google’s Android mobile operating system and Chrome browser. Google’s Israel staff will provide advice and mentors- including access to founders of established companies, technology experts, marketing and financial advisers, and attorneys.

Obama Pledges to Veto Anti-Net Neutrality Legislation. The decision to veto upcoming legislation comes with the acknowledgement that the bill will seriously undermine a fundamental part of the Nation’s Open Internet and innovation strategy, and of course also, curtail the growth of a prominent sector of the US economy (potentially pushing tech companies to go to more moderately legislated climates). 

Gestural Interfaces Go Mainstream. Gestural interfaces are set to enter a new discourse, after being hosted into the mainstream arena by gaming platforms. The technology is now finding its way to other areas of consumer interaction. Analysts have predicted that the market just for hardware and software components required to enable gesture recognition will be worth $625 million by 2015. The future of gesture interfaces, will see the technology moving beyond the living room and finding general application in motor vehicles, outdoor advertising and on mobile devices.

Disney and YouTube Make a Video Deal. In a bid to improve their online positioning, Disney and YouTube have entered into partnership that will see each platform lending its strengths to each other. Disney’s hopes are pinned on the expectation that the partnership will bring on the much desired traffic, whilst YouTube looks to use the Disney brand for content and to build credibility with parents.

WhatsApp bucks convention, quietly builds a messaging titan. WhatsApp delivers 1 billion messages a day on six different platforms. It has become the number one paid social networking app in the Apple App Store, and has more than 10 million downloads on Android with 369,270 user reviews (more than almost any other Android communication app). It is said to be used in 250 cities (incorrectly cited countries) on 750 networks. This is amazing when one considers that WhatsApp has spent no money on marketing and has only ever done two interviews.

Is Flash and Silverlight dead…and has HTML5 been officially acknowledged as the new convention?

Adobe has officially announced, that it will be ceasing development of Flash for mobile in favour of HTML5, with rumours extending to mentions, which suggest that it’s likely that Microsoft too, will drop Silverlight (after the launch of Silverlight 5) in favour of HTML5. It seems that HTML5 has been unilaterally embraced as the new convention, with the apparent sentiment being that… those who don’t get on board will be left behind. Much of course then needs to be said in this context about Steve Jobs decision not to allow Flash onto its iOS devices.

HTML5 though, is still pretty much a new platform, and whilst it has the potential to be the next standard of the web, it is still plagued by some problems. That said, the problems are not unacknowledged. The standards committees behind HTML5 are aware of the issues and are making strides to address these problems and missing features.

Flash (more than Silverlight), won’t just disappear, as Flash still remains the primary way in which web video is consumed, while Silverlight still has a role to play in Windows Phone app development. They do, however, look likely to play marginal roles in future software and web development.

Flash is still represented in:

• 98% of enterprises
• 85% of the most used sites use Flash.
• 75% of web video is viewed using Flash Player.
• 70% of web games are made in Flash.

http://bit.ly/sU4vk5, http://bit.ly/tQrTym, http://onforb.es/t6HdaL

Google May Penalize Ad Heavy Pages. Google is continuing its pursuit of quality driven search results, and is now looking to target ad heavy pages that obscure content, usually frustrating and distracting web users. Google is said to be testing algorithms to identify what really matters, and how much content is above the fold.

ARM’s new GPU chip design aims to boost mobile graphics. Mobile chips are on the fore of getting major upgrades as chip makers target the shift in demand. British computer chip designer ARM has unveiled its latest graphics processing unit (GPU) for mobile devices, which will look to boost gaming abilities on mobile devices. Beyond gaming, the upgrades extend to improving applications like augmented reality, image processing, patterns matching and speech recognition.

Google Decides to Pull The Plug on BlackBerry Gmail App. Google has announced as of the end of November, its Gmail app will no longer be available for download in the Blackberry App Store. Those who have already downloaded the app can continue to use it, but the app will not be serviced for upgrades going forward. RIM has advised that through its native support feature for Gmail, users will still have full access to the Gmail accounts.

Deployment of IPv6 Begins. After a year of Comcast conducting IPv6 technical trials in their production network, they have now started their pilot deployment of IPv6 to customers in selected US markets. The first phase will support certain types of directly connected CPE, where a single computer is connected directly to a cable modem. Subsequent phases in 2011 and 2012 will support home gateway devices and variable length prefixes.

Start-up focus

Intel Launches Search For Innovators; Awards $100k A Month for Bright Ideas

Intel is putting a social spin on its Intel Innovators program search. The (accelerator) program looks to find and reward the brightest ideas they can find. Intel has developed a platform inside Facebook that connects young people with new technology ideas, to other people who like technology ideas. Every month, the Facebook community will then assist in deciding which young entrepreneurs deserve to receive $100,000.

A panel will then select the 20 best ideas from the Idea Feed (the real-time display of new Ideas). The top 20 Ideas will then be featured in the “Pitch Room,” where Fans can “invest” their earned Social Capital in their favourite Ideas. The five Ideas with the most Social Capital at the end of the month will be deemed Finalists and move on to compete for $100,000 in the “Live Battleground.”

Each month, the Live Battleground will give each Finalist, 5 minutes to present their idea to a panel consisting of prominent VCs, industry executives, technology entrepreneurs and the top Social Capitalist of the month.

The hottest new internet companies are growing up outside the U.S. Even with US start-ups featuring regularly, due to high valuations and talk of forthcoming IPO’s, it seems public investment in technology companies are still favouring non-US based technology companies based on merits and ROI. This acknowledgement is especially valid in the context of several foreign economies experiencing a rapid growth curve.

IBM Open-Sources ‘Internet of Things’ Protocol. As part of a collaboration effort, a complete protocol [Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT)] has been donated to a foundation looking to expand asynchronous inter-device communication. IBM has made no secret of the fact that they are working on a different version of the internet, that will eventually evolve into the internet of things. The MQTT protocol looks to build on a process which will digitally empower devices for more optimised communication and its ability to send messages to each another. The alternative protocol comes as IBM notes that the current HTTP-based Web services protocols are inadequate in the context of machine-to-machine communication.

Researchers Defeat CAPTCHA on Popular Websites. CAPTCHAs have been used as an anti-spam tool, curated to tell humans and machines apart. Now, Stanford University researchers have developed an automated tool that can decipher CAPTCHAs. The researchers created Decaptcha, which was test-run against CAPTCHAs used by 15 high-profile Web sites. The only tested site that could not be broken was Google. The researchers have suggested several recommendations to improve CAPTCHA security, including randomising the length of the text string, randomising the character size, applying a wave-like effect to the output, and using collapsing lines in the background.

Most YouTube views come from non-English users. Sixty percent (1.8 billion views) of all video views on Youtube come from users who select a language other than English. For this reason, Youtube has ramped up efforts to ensure that its site is available in multiple languages, which now extends to a repertoire of 51 languages in 35 countries. Youtube’s localisation features include: a localised Top-Level domain and country-specific video recommendations.

Giving you fresher, more recent search results. Google will be rolling out a new search algorithm that will concentrate on making search results “fresher”. The change is likley to affect 35% of all searches. In the face of increasing competition from alternative realtime search platforms: Twitter, Facebook and the future potential of Siri, the main objective for the Google update is to provide near ‘real-time’ data. The update will look to build upon the Caffeine introduction, which sought to set the infrastructure for improved indexing and crawling. The types of searches that will be impacted most are: recent events or hot topics, regularly recurring events, or items that are frequently updated.

Japan Pushes World’s Fastest Computer Past 10 Petaflop Barrier. Researchers at Fujitsu and RIKEN have broken the 10 petaflop barrier for the first time with a computer capable of 10.51 quadrillion floating point operations per second, earning it the title of the world’s fastest supercomputer. The K Computer includes 864 server racks and more than 88,000 interconnected central processing units, with the average performance being about about 93 percent of its peak 10 petaflop speed. The computer however may not hold on to the title for long, as IBM and Cray are working with the U.S. Department of Energy to build a 20 petaflop machine, which should go live sometime in 2012. Exascale computing, which would be 100 times faster than the K computer, is expected to debut in 2017 0r 2018.

SEO Beats PPC & Social Media For Generating Leads. With the recent acknowledgment by Google that SEO is not Spam, a new report now aims to show that SEO is the number one source of leads for both B2C and B2B marketers, beating out both PPC and social media marketing. 57 % of B2B marketers credit SEO as their primary source of generating leads.

(SA’s) Most In Demand IT Skills Revealed. According to The latest CareerJunction Index, over 60% of job adverts posted on CareerJunction were aimed at software developers, 13% for system and network administration and 11% for business analysts. When it comes to programming languages .Net and Java were noted to be the the most popular.

As it has been heralded so many times before, we know that the internet has become the engine of change; it has been both revolutionary and disruptive. So it begs the question: is the internet (now finally) in a position where there is truly the potential for it to disrupt the TV industry?

Why the push for convergence? According to Eric Schmidt (in his recent MacTaggart presentation ), it’s because the internet can offer something TV cannot do: “It makes TV more personal, more participative (and) more pertinent”.

What is convergence?

The convergence of Internet and TV is not just about the migration of traditional TV content onto a computing device, or even for that matter allowing web pages to load onto a flat screen TV. Media convergence is more than simply a technological/hardware shift. True convergence is recognized through the ability that new media has to alter the relationship between existing technologies, audiences, genres, industries and markets. The essence of this convergence is the migration of media consumption from the computer to the living room and the living room to everywhere else.

This account gives to the realisation that technology hasn’t been the barrier to online convergence; the barrier has been the sought acclaim that comes in owning the business model, as all industry stakeholders seek to control the final entitlement: the relationship with the consumer.

Why the fight for this control

Fuelling the fight for control of the inevitable convergence has been buoyant-ed by the pattern shift in media ownership. No longer are media companies operating in silos, where traditional media is confined to a vacuum; they are now vertical, horizontal and even diagonal. The result: new media networks have shifted their controlling interests across the entire entertainment industry, from conception through to delivery.

These are evident when one looks at how the media giants are aligning themselves:

• Comcast’s acquisition of NBC Universal
• Google acquired YouTube
• Sony Entertainment acquired Grouper networks, Gracenote and Media Systems Corporation.
• Warner Bros. Acquired Social Movie Site Flixster (and Rotten Tomatoes)
• Walt Disney owns 27% of Hulu, NBC 32% and Disney 27%
• Fox has Fox on-Demand
• And in the UK, BBC has the iPlayer

And most recently: the launch of the UltraViolet System (cloud-based licensing system that allows content to be streamed or downloaded onto multiple platforms and devices: a partnership between Sony Entertainment, NBC, Fox, Paramount, Warner and Lionsgate.

He who controls content is king

For this reason, GoogleTV and AppleTV have never taken off, for this reason Netflix, Roku, Red box, etc. are troubled. Whilst they able to provide access to the viewer, they don’t carte blanche access to premium content. Hence, Netflix paying billions to secure content rights and even going to the extent of licensing scripts to produce their own content (House of Cards starring Kevin Spacey). Youtube too have gone to great lengths to secure long form content, to the extent that they are approaching Hollywood directors and actors to make exclusive content. The most recent Netflix stock plunge is a case in point (other than bad management) as to why it is important to have access to content. You can’t be the future of TV if you got nothing to show.

For the sake of mention: there is of course, Facebook, who could potentially be in the best position to deliver next level TV convergence. In many ways they have started ramping up efforts in this direction through partnerships with content producers which enables them to stream TV Shows and movies.

Why the delay in convergence?

As mentioned previously, the delay in convergence is not due to the technology not being ready; rather it is the networks fight to assert control over the business model. Convergence presents the opportunity to mess with the synchronicity and localisation of content, that networks push to control. Synchronicity, relates to: the control of the audience (creating peak viewing times, etc.), and localisation, the regulation of content through different licensing geographies.

Both these aspects allow media networks to exert a measure of control. Allowing the TV medium to migrate to the internet medium and let others control the platform, opens the networks up to vulnerabilities, meaning loss of revenues (mostly in the form of advertising dollars). Networks therefore have clammerd, they have push to force their control, until they themselves can continue their dominance in the online arena.

Furthermore, allowing the internet to become the dominant medium for viewing content, puts the networks against the risk of the mounts of democratised content (Indie and layperson releases). This potentially creates an issue, as audience now have more content to select from, potentially bypassing the professionally created content, creating an issue for the synchronicity element.

Benefits of convergence for the user?

It provides viewers with a more immersive and involving experience. The greatest advantage of convergence: is the push to pull factor. This will change the commercialisation of media forever.

The internet has been hailed by the Indie movie industry, as the barriers to distributing TV shows, news and even movies will go way down (like how the Bieber person used social media to rise to fame). Media passionista’s and entrepreneurs can now compete with traditional television channels by producing and crowdsource editing their own TV series or news and talk shows.

With too much content available, the viewer will inevitably be snowed with an overwhelming amount of content. So with, the extremely long tail of content, the natural coping mechanism will be to have recommendation engines. Content discovery engines will draw on user data and social recommendations to fuel the viewing list: the more you watch and share, the more the system learns, the better its predictions.

How will marketers leverage the change in consumption?

The result of the convergence will potentially see two platforms become one. This of course does leave to loss the most valued platform of all time; however at the same time this will give rise the genre of unified communications- highly targeted and interactive ad products on the Internet will accelerate, with advertisements being selectively integrated in or around content in real-time based upon targeting metrics (day part, behaviour, demographics or other). All video advertisements may be bought based upon who is seeing the ad rather than what show it is playing in. the potential for reach then becomes more valuable. The result is that marketers will create an ecosystem around their TV programming. No doubt, the space will become more competitive; marketers will have to go beyond just creativity and need to draw in intelligent process advertising

Advances in the internet have changed the way that individuals are able to interact with the web. Established players are noticeably shifting their business models to accommodate for new technologies, competition and the changing consumer landscape. Convergence is inevitable: Video and social media’s versatility is one of the leading causes for this change. As Eric Schmidt mentioned: “…you ignore the Internet at your peril. The Internet is fundamental to the future of Television for one simple reason: because it’s what people want.”