A Spam Free Blog Search Engine Prepares for Full Launch

As the Internet continues to grow, users no longer face the problem of having access to nearly any type of information they could need. Now they must deal with the problem of finding the relevant information among the millions of sites, blogs, and multimedia files available online. Using a traditional search engine provides access to only a limited number of web sites, today's users require a more versatile tool. Strategicboard.com is a tool which may meet that need.

As the Internet continues to grow, users no longer face the problem of having access to nearly any type of information they could need. Now they must deal with the problem of finding the relevant information among the millions of sites, blogs, and multimedia files available online. Using a traditional search engine provides access to only a limited number of web sites, today's users require a more versatile tool. Strategicboard.com is a tool which may meet that need.

Strategicboard.com is a search engine specifically designed for the blogosphere. The engine is as easy to use as any traditional search engine and provides detailed results for search term. From the main page, users can explore top posts and blogs or explore discussions of hot topics with a single mouse click. Additionally, Strategicboard.com's search results are available as RSS or OPML feed and one-click bookmarking so they save their favorite blogs right from the results.

Strategicboard's seeks to provide the highest quality blogs and feeds for its users. One of the company's motto's is "real blogs by real people for real people." To achieve that goal, Strategicboard has in place editorial techniques and automated processes that exclude spammers from the search engine. Strategicboard also invites users to report suspicious blogs using the "Spam Free" report tool.

Of course, Strategicboard.com does not only benefit web users. Bloggers can add their blogs to Strategicboard.com's growing index for free. Doing so will give them access to an expanding group of users who would have little chance of finding them through traditional search engines.

Strategicboard.com is owned and operated by aggreg ltd., a web holding company operating a half dozen other sites, including King Ping which provide additional services for bloggers. In January 2006, Strategicboard was launched in a beta version and has been successfully tested for more than a year and is now being fully launched. The search engine not only provides blog results, but also images, videos, and podcasts within posts. With more than 300,000 quality feeds being tracked constantly and more than 2 million page views a month, Stategicboard.com is fulfilling a need for both Internet users and the blogging community.

Source : www.prweb.com

Leading SEO Training School Expands Into New Mexico and Arizona Search Engine Academy

Leading SEO industry educators Robin Nobles and John Alexander expand their SEO skill-building training schools to include New Mexico and Arizona State as they welcome new associate SEO educator, Emily Leach to their Search Engine Academy network.

SEO industry educators Robin Nobles and John Alexander recently announced more new localized Search Engine Academy classes are soon to be available in Albuquerque, New Mexico and Arizona in the ever expanding North American network of http://www.searchengineacademy.com training schools.

John Alexander, Director of the Search Engine Academy officially welcomed Emily Leach of http://www.WhiteHatWorkshops.com this month stating, "Robin Nobles and I are delighted to have Emily joining our network of licensed educators. Emily is an advanced SEO graduate who brings a strong SEO technical background to the Search Engine Academy. We anticipate hearing some wonderful SEO student success stories out of New Mexico and Arizona in the near future."

Alexander asked Emily if she would mind sharing a few her views on SEO and give people a brief overview on her SEO training plans for New Mexico and Arizona.

The interview followed with a question and answer period on SEO certification:

Q: "Emily, can you please describe what is unique or special about your workshops?

A: Absolutely! There is more than one aspect that makes this seminar unique. First is the fact that they are truly hands-on! The student brings their project to the class, instead of providing a canned project that works perfectly and then leaves the student having to translate what they learned when they get back to their office. Secondly, I do not teach anything that has not been tested and proven by the Search Engine Academy. And Third, the seminar is followed up with 6 months of mentoring.

Q: How would you identify the value of structured, SEO training in a personalized, hands-on workshop?

A: Personalized, hands-on SEO training is invaluable …this workshop takes the participant right into the actual tasks of SEO on the same project they will be working on after class. The opportunity for questions is far greater because of the students' interaction with the process, those types of questions usually don't come up until after the lecture and then they never get answered. But here, every question does get answered."

Q: Do you have any advice for those who would be interested in starting a successful SEO business?

A: I do! This is a field screaming for attention, and a person with the skill set, ethics and ability to communicate with clients can make a very good living and feel great when they go to sleep at night knowing they are helping companies grow.

Q: Can you talk a little bit about the importance of SEO certification?

A: SEO has received a bad reputation over the years with submissions services, and all the changes in meta-tags. Certification creates a bar that the public can relate to and allow them to disseminate which optimizers know the latest information and which ones may be using strategies from 3 or 4 years ago. Until now anyone could say they are a search engine optimizer without any training, I am very happy to be offering a solution for companies to know they are getting what is being advertised if the SEO they are hiring is certified.

Q: Emily, how long have you been practicing search engine optimization or SEO?

A: Almost 6 years; I found the power of Search Engine Optimization in the fall of 2001.

Q: Do you offer any "industry specific" SEO courses for business owners that are in a highly competitive industry (for example like real estate?)

A: I am working with Search Engine Academy on defining specific industries that would benefit from a more directed training as well as working with the Department of Labor to offer certification classes through their program. There is a large need in the Real Estate industry to not just understand their options when it comes to Search Engine Optimization but also to teach them how to handle the process themselves.

Q: Tell us about the name of "White Hat" Workshops?

A: I chose the name WhiteHat Workshops because I feel it represents the tactics I agree to always adhere to, in my SEO Consulting and training; there is no need to attempt to 'trick' the search engines - there are far more benficial methods that have been proven to work over and over again.

Q: Well spoken! In one final question, do you have any last minute SEO tips or advice for us?

A: I provide a free Introduction to SEO workshop on the second Friday of every month, this is a great place to have your questions answered and get your toes wet. To expand your knowledge in SEO you can sign up online at http://www.whitehatworkshops.com for a free SEO Tip of the Day. I will send you a fresh SEO tip each and every day to keep you informed of updates, free tools and ideas you may not think of on your own.

Source : www.prweb.com

Yahoo Launches Alpha, Do It Yourself Metasearch Engine

Yahoo has quietly launched on Thursday a new search engine, called “Alpha”. Still in its Beta phase and currently hosted on its Yahoo Australian domain, the Metasearch engine allows users to customize their search engine results pulled from multiple websites via RSS, like Flickr Photos, Wikipedia, and YouTube. You can take it for a test drive by clicking here.

Alpha also displays all the web searched results onto one page using Ajax. For readers who are not familiar with the Ajax-Web 2.0 hype, click here to read all about it.

Under the hood

With its simple interface featuring only two tabs, the “change my layout” tab includes a feature that allows users the ability to rearrange search results box locations, using a simple drag-and-drop user interface.

The second tab “add custom info source”, includes three text boxes that allows users to enter the name of the website, RSS feed URL, and a query feature to filter the website searched source for specific keywords. This is a useful feature for anyone who is only interested, for example, in Bungee Jumping from a particular website that supports RSS.

Also on the second tab, it displays two privacy options, which asks users to choose whether they want their customized search engine to be shared with others, with two options public or private. Users can also choose how their web results should be displayed, choosing from web listing or image only display. Although unimpressed with its lack of new concepts and foresight, Yahoo still deserves a bronze medal for its effort.

However it’s slow in reacting to Google’s recently launched similar website, oh yes, you guessed it, another custom search engine called “Co-op”, which allows users to also customize their search results using the same method as Yahoo’s Alpha. Another social custom search engine that’s also worth mentioning, a website called Rollyo, also uses a very similar method.

Somehow Yahoo’s past successful ideas usually prevailed in competing with Google through acquisitions and not through innovations. With that said, the internet search engine giant is clearly aiming and trying very hard to capitalize on the latest craze of social networks, and custom search engines.

“Whilst aggregating feeds on one page is nothing new, we wanted to take a federated search concept one step further. With this beta, we have introduced personalisation elements that not only allow users to customise their view, but also to add their favourite search service”, said Brett Poole, Alpha Lead Developer and Member of Yahoo7 Search Team, Yahoo Australia.

Alpha uses search results presentation method, called OpenSearch format, a method that allows search engines to aggregate RSS and Atom, Metadata feeds into search results from any website that supports RSS as a minimum requirement for results to be pulled and filtered.

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Source : caribjournal.com

Kes Phelps Launches Back Link Building Service

Kes Phelps, 33, from Norwich UK, adds Back Link Building to the range of SEO services provided by his consultancy - Kes Phelps SEO & SEM Services. The service is designed for businesses seeking to outsource all, or part of their off-page optimisation strategy.

In the words of Kes Phelps - "I always included link building as part of any search engine optimisation strategy, but have found recently that many clients just need help with this aspect of SEO."

Specifically the service includes content syndication, directory submissions, community participation, link partner procurement, asking for links, competitor link analysis and creation of link-worthy content.

As an increasing number of online businesses realise the importance and power of effective link building, Kes Phelps found he was being asked more and more about this kind of service. "The problem most online businesses face is that whilst link building is essential to build and maintain traffic and rankings, it's also one of the most time consuming and laborious disciplines in SEO."

It was this demand that prompted Kes Phelps to offer link building as a stand alone service to his clients in addition to his existing services. The service focuses on using ethical strategies and the latest link building techniques to increase traffic, search engine rankings and the return on his clients' investment. Clients can either hire Kes Phelps to handle their entire link building strategy, or use the service as a resource to compliment their existing campaign.

Additional services include SEO strategy management, code optimisation, content optimisation, analytics and reporting and consultancy.

Source : prweb.com

Search Mania: Search Engine Strategies (SES) to Offer Search Engine Marketing Training Workshops Throughout 2007 Conference Series

Incisive Media, parent company of the Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference and expo series (http://www.searchenginestratgies.com/), today announced that it has expanded the content and focus of each SES event by offering an additional day dedicated to intensive training on search engine marketing and search engine optimization. Next up is SES New York, which runs April 10-13, 2007, at the Hilton New York, where six half–day classes will be conducted on Monday, April 9.

Incisive’s decision to expand search training and offer sessions with most every event comes after overwhelming response to the first ever search training classes at the San Jose and Chicago 2006 conferences. Created to provide attendees with guided, hands-on exposure that puts theory into practice in a highly interactive environment, the training sessions became an immediate hit with attendees, gaining Incisive a completely new source of revenue. Attendees — ranging from consultants, site designers, website owners, executive management and in-house marketing professionals ─ often realize that they cannot afford to miss the chance to work with experts in the field and experience firsthand the latest developments in search engine strategy.
During the New York training, search experts including Shari Thurow, Matt Bailey, Jennifer Laycock, Debra Mastaler, Amanda Watlington, Greg Jarboe, Nan Dawkins and Rob Key will demystify such topics as link building tactics, viral marketing and the use of analytics to increase search effectiveness, among others.

“We’ve truly tapped into a pent-up demand with our search training classes at SES events,” said Matt McGowan, VP Marketing with Incisive Media. “Marketers want to do more than get their feet wet. They want to — and in fact need to with the growing importance of search — get into the trenches with one-on-one advice and hands-on demonstration.”

The training classes can be taken in addition to the SES NY conference or independently. Visit http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/sew/ny07/training.html to view the training class schedule. Full–day registration cost: $1,345. Half–day registration cost: $745. Seats are limited in order to provide personal training. To register or with questions, email the SES Registration Department at registration@incisivemedia.com, or call (203) 295-0050.

To learn more and to sign up for email alerts or RSS feed for Search Engine Strategies New York and other upcoming conferences in the series, visit http://www.searchenginestrategies.com/.

Source : businesswire.com